This homily was written and delivered by Aline Silva for the CreatureKind Advent Service in December 2021.
Hello everybody, it’s good to be with you today. My name is Aline. I am a QBIPOC who is a lightskin femme. I am wearing my short, wavy, black hair down, purple lipstick, and a blouse and sports jacket in shades of deep blue. I am sitting in front of a stained glass window with burgundy and beige walls.
A reading from the gospel of Luke.
Text:
Luke 3:1-6
3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. [and] John went into all the region around the Jordan, prophesying a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
4 as it is written in Isaiah, John proclaimed, “ ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, bend not to every crooked way. 5 Fill up the valleys, level out the mountains, and make the rough ways smooth; [then]
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
(adapted from the NRSV by Aline Silva)
Leader/reader/preacher: The Word of the Lord for all God’s creatures
All: Thanks be to God
Sermon: Calling All Flesh of the Earth
Aline Silva
Since the author of our text begins with a focus on the rulers of his time, I want to begin from a place I have not yet begun: me, myself, and I. In the words of my friend, Alicia Crosby, a minoritized person, one who works on the daily to dismantle her own internalized oppressions. A person of mixed origins, with an immigrant story. Someone whom God has called for such a time as this. I want to begin here because this is my call for each of us to remember who we are, where each of us is coming from, and especially to call us to remember when it is that we are living right now. I invite you to breathe in and reflect on this for a moment. -15 sec. Silence-
The author of John starts with the rulers of the time and their region because he is saying: don't you forget how they are treating you and ruling over you. In a society built on shame, separation, allegiance to Empire, and classism, even the way you worship the Lord is dictated. Remember: they strip God’s creatures of worship, of the land, of access to prosperity, their ability to be fruitful and multiply. They disrupt the collective’s harmonious relationship with the Way.
The author goes on to tell us that — very aware of this misuse of power and the ruling class’s allegiance to Empire — John goes around the region saying there is still time for the people to change and build a society on a foundation of equity. So much equity, familia, AAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL FLESH will experience the salvation of God!! Hallelujah!
I am plant-based and that's my business (lol aunty Tabitha Brown). But this gets me all excited in my spirit because it tells me that even the creatures on the bottom of God’s overfished seas, or the baby shrimps in the pet stores locked up behind glass tanks in that dirty ass recycled water (drunk face emoji), or the billions of animals we slaughter for food each year while creating a massively inequitable food growing, harvesting, distribution, and access system— even they, beloved, WILL experience the salvation of our GOD. Hallelujah!! *cried real tears*
And they and we and the people who work with them and those who live around the places where these babies are overfished and horrifically raised, fed, handled, transported, and slaughtered---WE, beloved, need this liberation badly. WE need it urgently and we NEED it NOW.
And as if that weren't enough, we’re experiencing the rise of Christian nationalism, horrific violence in Palestine, climate forced migration, capitalism, and speciesism in farms and fields everywhere — systems that continue to enslave indigenous peoples just to get meals on our tables. Black and Brown people are still dying under state-sanctioned violence. Anti-Asian hate rises. White supremacy rules and is in bed with these courts. The USA infrastructure bill has not gone far enough on behalf of the earth or its inhabitants. We have also not created a path for global citizenship.
And of course, how could I forget to mention, these clowns gathered in Glasgow for the Climate Change Conference. For an issue affecting those on the margins and those on the very bottom of this current hierarchy, they gathered not under the leadership of those affected most. Of course they featured some voices on the issue, but their solution to the most pressing human crisis of our day is to defer to companies and billionaires currently using the earth as a resource and capitalizing on it rather than joining it in worship to the Creator. Instead of standing in solidarity with the oppressed by our current climate (political, social, and other), they pledged their allegiance to Mamom and the elite ruling class. And they didn’t even mention industrial farming as a leading cause of climate change. Lol.
Just to name the real impact of having these folks in power and, you know, in case we’re still trying, like John, to remember... ;)
...remember that there is still time, beloved! You too. Me too. We, together, can still take part in the prophecy. We ourselves can prophesy a baptism of repentance.
Let me give you a quick example on how we can indeed prioritize the most affected and take our power back. Last year around this time we were hearing news of millions of farmers from India taking to the streets. They wanted to protest a new law that privatized and sold their labor in the stock market. And they won, beloved!!! Hallelujah! After almost a whole year of organizing, calling their leaders to change, they led the biggest protest we know of in modern history and changed the law! They called the leaders into accountability and reminded them, “We know who we are, the power of our labor. We are not open for trade.”
You see, beloved, the ego and the spirit cannot be separated from one another.
God calls us, calls me, in the wholeness of who we are with all of our identities. When we don’t listen, care, and nurture, we forget what we once knew. We lose our passion, we cause harm to one another, and we overwork ourselves thinking that we are the saviors of ourselves and the world. *cried real tears*
And yes, of course we need you. We need all of you. We need you well rested. We need you with good and sober memories. We need you so we take some things back and level things out.
Let’s go back to the text, to the origin of this story:
Luke 1:39-55
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,
40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.
45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
46 And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord,
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of this servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is their name.
50 Their mercy is for those who fear God from generation to generation.
51 God has shown strength; has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52... has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
53 God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.
54 God has helped their servant Israel, in remembrance of mercy,
55according to the promise made to our ancestors, to all descendants forever.”
1. The text shows that the folks in the story are theologians and divine conversation partners. They are also evidence that God is concerned with the bottom members of hierarchies.6
2. She goes on further to say that this text claims all who nurture young ones, participate in God’s work in the world and are recipients of the promise of God’s care keeping.7
3. Lastly, Rev. Dr. Gafney says, and I paraphrase, the child is the embodiment of reconciliation. The extraordinary child is sent [to liberate all flesh]. “To prepare for the return of this child will complete the work of reconciliation and restoration.”8
We need you to participate in the welcome party, my loves!
This Advent, in this time of holy waiting, I want to call you to actively rest, to radically care, and to redistribute the power and wealth. I am calling you to join us in leveling out hierarchies such as speciesism, racism, and capitalism. Like Ciara, but instead of up, we are evening things out. Ready? 🎼" 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. LEGO! Level out. Level out. Level out. Level out."🎼
God is in it. We are not alone. As I read the narrative and the text, God is deeply invested in the bottom of the hierarchy and those who are on the margins.
Could it be that it’s because Jesus, too, was one of the minoritized and marginalized. A traveler, migrant, refugee, low caste, religious person who also came to save and liberate those who were without an out and were at the bottom of the hierarchy of his day? I am no Bible scholar, simply another theologian and divine conversation partner. This is just my imagination. My wonder. I wonder, and I wonder I lot.
Thankfully though, I do not have to depend on my own imagination to know I am right about whose side God’s on. Thankfully I can depend on the witness and proclamation of my ancestors and all the saints who ran before me so I could walk and talk with you today.
I am calling you to remember that God’s dream is a world built on equity. We want land back to itself and to its original caretakers, for we know that under their care we did not experience the extinction or the mass murder of anything. Not one. We want food and seed sovereignty. We want liberation and we want it now!
I may seemingly have no power, but I got a lot of flesh in this game. You hear me? That’s right. And those of us with a lot of flesh in this game are not afraid to lose. This Empire already done stripped us of everything, taking our very humaneness away, stripping us of our kin and separating us from the natural world of which we are a part. We ain’t afraid of what we might lose for they have already taken our everything. They took the land from itself. But now it’s time to repent and change our ways. Our waiting is over. We are here not only to rejoice in God’s advent. We are here to take part in it also. And together, beloved, together with God in our midst liberation will indeed fall on all flesh.
Thanks be to God.
2. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2021/02/02/Scientists-warn-factory-farming-raises-future-pandemic-risk-COVID-19-could-be-a-dress-rehearsal↩ 3. https://www.vox.com/2020/10/21/21363990/factory-farms-next-swine-influenza-pandemic↩
4. https://www.ciwf.org.uk/our-campaigns/other-campaigns/factory-farming-and-pandemics/↩
5. Mary Oliver, The Journey↩
6. Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Wilda Gafney. page 4.↩
7. Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Wilda Gafney. page 6.↩
8.Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Wilda Gafney. page 7.↩
9.Rev. Dr. James Cone, in God of the Oppressed found on The Decolonized Christian Instagram of footnote 4]↩