15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
O God,
Even these many years later, it seems we are still making assumptions and judgments about the people on which you choose to pour out your Spirit. On Pentecost you reminded us that you would use sons and daughters, old and young, slave and free, to speak words of truth into our world—an abundant outpouring not restricted by our discriminatory tendencies. Yet, we your church, have spent the last 2000 years foolishly busying ourselves deciding who is in and who is out when it comes to receiving your Spirit and ministering to your people. You even went to the extent of coming to us in the flesh, choosing outcasts, sinners, enemies, and those not even allowed in the temple to be your disciples and lead your church. Why God do we still not get it? Why are we so focused on trying to restrict and be gatekeepers of the outcasts you continue to douse with your Spirit?
We are good at baptizing your children. We are good at making communal vows to raise that child in the faith. We are good at helping that child when they come of age to confirm the promises made on their behalf at their baptism. We are good at helping that young person have space to hear your call and respond to it. We are good at it unless you created them gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or queer—if that is the case we are not so good. We abandon your LGBTQ children called into ministry.
Like the witnesses of that first Pentecost who dismissed your Spirit as drunkenness, we make judgmental assumptions about your calling on people's lives. Forgive us, we pray. Help us see people like Mary Ann Barclay as you see them. Help us keep the vows we made at her baptism. Help us help her be faithful to her calling to serve your church. Help the Southwest Texas Board of Ordained Ministry be faithful to their task. Amen.
. . .
To take part in the prayer vigil before Mary Ann Barclay's ordination interview, click here.
My friend Mary Ann was reinstated in her United Methodist ordination process
in Southwest Texas yesterday. Even though she was approved by her church and
a district committee, her conference board broke their own rules by voting her
out without ever interviewing her. Her bishop, after over 6 months, finally
overturned their discriminatory action, granting her the right to an interview.
Many are saying that this decision just delays the
inevitable—in a year she will meet with her conference board and they will vote her out.
But I don’t think it will be that simple.
The individuals on this board now have to see Mary Ann as a person: read her writing, listen to her story,
and look into her eyes before they will be allowed to deny God's call on her life.
It is one thing to vote out an abstract lesbian, it is quite another to
enter into another’s life and tell them to their face that they were wrong about
their calling. To do that, board members of Southwest Texas will have to decide to ignore
their conscience and the Holy Spirit.
History books will record Mary Ann’s name alongside Anna
Oliver and Anna Shaw... both denied ordination in in the 19th century on the
grounds that "there is no place for women in the ordained ministry of the
Methodist Episcopal Church."
Mary Ann’s persistence and confidence in her
calling to a church whose discriminatory clergy rules deny her entrance echo
those in history who applied to colleges, sat at lunch counters, and kneeled in churches… even though they were not allowed to do so by law. As Anna
Oliver said in1880 when seeking ordination alongside men:
I am sorry to trouble our dear mother
Church with any perplexing questions, but it presses me also, and the Church
and myself must decide something. I am so thoroughly convinced that [God] has
laid commands upon me in this direction, that it becomes with me really a
question of my own soul's salvation. If [God] commands me to just the course I
am pursuing, as only they that do [God's] commandments have right to the tree
of life, I have no alternative.
Mary Ann has no alternative than to follow God’s call on her
life to minister in The United Methodist Church. My hope is that board members
will have no alternative than to follow the Spirit’s call as well.
Today is so familiar.
Today two men in Birmingham refuse to give up their spot.
Today the opposition continues to blast their harmful water hoses.
Today Methodist bishops call on a colleague to stand down.
Today fear and bigotry fall victim to love and justice.
Today is so familiar.
You rocks cry out.
You rocks who have remained silent.
You rocks petrified by the fear of retribution and revenues.
You rocks stoned on the drug of appointment ladders.
You rocks threatened by ecclesial Pharisaic control.
You rocks cry out.
Today God is doing a new thing.
Today changes everything in The United Methodist Church.
Today a United Methodist bishop joins two grooms into one.
Today "Dearly Beloved" is spoken, and Beloved Community is made real.
Today Joe and Bobby are a sign of God's love changing the world.
Today God is doing a new thing.
Today is so familiar.
You know how today ends.
Today changes everything.
Originally published on RMNBlog They met while
in seminary. “Seeing her was the first time in my life I was taken aback by
someone’s presence. I instantly thought who
is this woman,” said Mary Ann Kaiser. That was the beginning of a love story
between Mary Ann and Annanda—a journey that is leading them to the wedding
aisle at Reconciling Ministries Network’s convocation Labor Day weekend.
“Choosing to get
married isn’t all about us. It is a response to God’s call on our lives to be
one,” said Annanda Barclay, second year seminary student currently serving at
Central Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. “It is a spiritual act. Civil
rights are a beautiful thing and should be realized for all couples, but marriage
is rooted in Christ’s expression of love. We now get to be a sign to the world
of what that love looks like, in our love for each other.” “We are crazy in
love, still making each other blush,” said Mary Ann Kaiser, a youth director and
justice associate at University UMC in Austin. “I know this feeling won’t be
there forever, but as we bind ourselves to one another through this sacred
ritual, we commit to spending a lifetime learning how to love this other
person—pushing, challenging, and helping to grow into the women God has called
us to be. Marriage is our answering the call to use our love to do good things
for the world together.”
Both women feel
called to ordained ministry. Mary Ann, a frequent contributor to RMN’s blog, is
seeking to be a Deacon in The United Methodist Church, and is passionate about
the intersections of church and society. Open about her relationship with
Annanda, Mary Ann’s UMC District Committee on Ministry in Austin recently voted
to pass her through to interview with the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry.
Annanda, called to parish ministry, is passionate about developing new churches
that are diverse. “As an African American, queer, woman, in a church that is
predominately white, I feel called to stand in the intersections of race,
ethnicity, age, socio economic status, and sexual identities, celebrating with
them all as one worshiping body.”
Reconciling
Ministries Network is holding its convocation (ChurchQuake: Embracing Freedom) over
Labor Day weekend in Maryland, where same-sex marriage is legal. “We thought it
was important to give our community the opportunity and space to commit their
lives in covenant to one another,” said RMN Executive Director Matt Berryman. “The
RMN community will be gathered for worship, fellowship, and study, and I can
think of no better time for a marriage to happen, for couples who have
discerned this sacred calling, than when they are surrounded by those who will
love and support them into the future.”
Local area
Reconciling clergy are prepared to assist couples who have gone through
premarital counseling and have determined with their pastor that they are ready
for marriage. Couples interested in exploring this possibility should visit http://www.rmnetwork.org/cq13, which
will give details concerning appropriate premarital preparations with your
pastor, and securing a Maryland marriage license. Convocation leaders will work
with the couples to schedule wedding ceremonies when friends can take part. There
will also be a celebration at convocation recognizing all same-sex couples who
have been married at convocation or before, closing with a gala reception,
including wedding cake. RMN is committed to marriage equality and is pleased to
provide this opportunity to live this out at convocation.
Mary Ann and
Annanda said they chose convocation because community is important to them. “Marriage
is not just a covenant between two people and God, but a covenant of the community
surrounding them as well,” said Mary Ann. “There will be a day when things get
tough, and to know that we have a community who were present on the day we made
a promise and who remember the vision that started the whole thing, means we
have someone to turn to give us strength. And that same community will help us
celebrate for the next great thing—like adopting a child. Marriage is a
communal event.”
Even though
marriage equality is getting significant attention in the movement right now,
both women feel strongly that it is not the most pressing need for the LGBTQ
community. “Homeless youth who have been shunned from their families, same-sex,
bi-national couples who have no immigration rights—those may not be the primary
need of the privileged middle, upper class LGBTQ community, but needs like
these are essential to equality,” said Mary Ann. Annanda agreed, adding that
they plan to work for LGBTQ equality together as a couple. “Marriage isn’t
foremost about us. It is about sharing the abundant gifts we have for each
other with the world and community around us.”
Couples
interested in exploring the possibility of getting married at convocation should
talk to their local clergy person and then visit www.rmnetwork.org/cq13. Be sure to
save the date—see you at convocation!
. . .
The Bride: Annanda Barclay graduated from
Illinois College with a BS in International Studies and Spanish. She is a
seminary student who is passionate about creating new frameworks in church
development, so all people are welcomed and valued in the church. Annanda hopes
to become an ordained minister in The PC (USA) and is currently an intern at
Central Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. She is a board member of More
Light Presbyterians working for LGBTQ equality in the Presbyterian Church
(USA).
The Bride: Mary
Ann Kaiser is a recent graduate of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
She has a passion for working in the intersections of church and society. Her
love for religious approaches to questions of ethics, particularly in the
realms of race, gender, and sexuality, led her to internships at WATER (Women’s
Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual) in Silver Spring, MD and Texas
Freedom Network in Austin, TX. She has also worked for the Wesley Foundation
and as a hospital chaplain. She currently serves as Youth Director and Justice
Associate at University UMC in Austin and is pursuing ordination as a Deacon in
The UMC. In her free time, she blogs for Reconciling Ministries Network.
Today, on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” and on the morning after the act of
terror at The Boston Marathon, here are words of intersection… As we hear the
word “extremist” being used in the media to describe unimaginable hate, Dr.
King's letter beacons us, still to be a different type of extremist.
Excerpt from MLK’s Letter From a
Birmingham Jail, 50 years later:
Was not Jesus an extremist for
love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that
hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute
you."
Was not Amos an extremist for
justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever
flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the
Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus."
Was not Martin Luther an
extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God."
And John Bunyan: "I will stay
in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience."
And Abraham Lincoln: "This
nation cannot survive half slave and half free."
And Thomas Jefferson: "We
hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . .
."
So the question is not whether we
will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be
extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of
injustice or for the extension of justice?
In that dramatic scene on
Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three
were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists
for immorality, and thus fell below their environment.
The other, Jesus Christ, was an
extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment.
Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative
extremists.
On February 19, Bishop Swanson, Secretary Gil Hanke, and the
board members of the United Methodist Men issued a statement which boiled down
to three main points:
Whereas we received lots of angry and hateful
phone calls and letters from conservatives following our first two statements
in favor of the inclusion of Scouts who identify as gay
Whereas we value retention and expansion above
every other value
Therefore, the United Methodist Men are calling on the Boy Scouts
of America not to change their ban on gay scouts and scout leaders because we need more time.
I am a member of the United Methodist Men. They helped pay
my way through seminary and I witnessed the power of men’s ministry at many of
the churches I served. That is why I am deeply saddened after reading this
statement over their lack of courage to be United Methodist.
You see, even if you agree passionately with United
Methodist doctrine and polity, there is nothing in our Book of Discipline that would support young men being excluded from
a church sponsored troop based on their sexual orientation.
The Discipline
talks about all people being of sacred worth, and calls on United Methodists to
be in ministry with all people. My United Methodist Church professes an open
table and believes that God and God’s prevenient grace is in and with all
people, even before we are aware of her presence. John Wesley believed that
fellowship, study, building relationships, and conversation with others could
be a means of grace where we are transformed into something new. Jesus showed
us what love looked like as he again and again embraced the marginalized.
That is our theology.
It is not our theology to make decisions based on people’s
threats of taking their money and leaving… that is the theology of capitalism.
It is not our theology to base our polity on what will
attract the most people and retain them… that is the theology of consumerism.
It is not our theology to hinder the access of children and
youth… that was the theology of confused disciples who mistakenly believed they
were gatekeepers, deciding who could and couldn’t come to Jesus.
The United Methodist Men say we just need more time to
preserve retention and expansion of scouting programs in The UMC.
A quick history lesson:
When Israel was in Egypt’s land, Pharaoh said we
need more time… he valued retention and expansion of his empire
When the Methodist Church was split over
slavery, the South said we need more time… they valued retention and expansion
of their churches
When Lincoln was considering The Emancipation
Proclamation, white slave owners said we need more time… they valued retention
and expansion of their plantations
When women were fighting for their right to vote
in this country, white men said we needed more time… they valued retention and
expansion of their power
When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was
sitting in a jail cell in Birmingham following civil disobedience concerning
unjust and immoral laws in the Jim Crow South, white pastors (including two
Methodist bishops) said we need more time… they valued retention and expansion
of the way things have always been
When the Methodist Church was considering racial
integration of our churches, church leaders said we need more time… they valued
retention and expansion of their offering plates
When women were fighting for the ability to live
out their Baptisms and faithfully answer their call to ordained ministry, white
males said we need more time… they valued retention and expansion of their
authority
The chorus of the privileged majority gets sung again and
again, “we need more time,” and the latest group to join the refrain is the
United Methodist Men. More time means more boys subject to bullying and
exclusion. More time means higher rates of suicides among gay adolescents.
But perhaps the most crucial reason we don’t have “more
time” is because we need to stand up and be United Methodist Men. We are not a
church that has any more time for injustice.
. . .
To read the United Methodist Men's full statement from Feb 19, 2013, click here.
Originally published on RMNBlog If you've never heard of Bayard Rustin you are not alone. But you should know him. Bayard Rustin is perhaps the most significant organizer for social justice and civil rights in American history. He was the man behind Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, teaching King everything he knew about non-violent resistance, civil disobedience, and organizing a movement. Certainly The Movement would not have succeeded like it did without MLK's brilliance, but King would be no more than a prophetic preacher if Bayard Rustin hadn't introduced him to the ideas of Gandhi and given King the strategy to change the world through peace.
So if Bayard Rustin is so important, why has history forgotten him? Why isn't he celebrated? Why was he hidden by The Movement itself? Bayrad Rustin was gay.
When those opposed to The Movement learned of Bayard Rustin's sexuality, they sought to use it
against the entire fight for civil rights-- even from the floor of congress. As result, Bayard Rustin worked from the background, hidden from public eye and left out of the history books.There is no justifying the horrible injustice that has been done to Bayard Rustin. However, we can't change what our heroes of the Civil Rights Era choice to do to protect a vulnerable movement. What we can do is reclaim his name, sacrifice, hard work, and character today.
That is why today, I am introducing a petition to President Barack Obama to award Bayard Rustin posthumously with The Presidential Medal of Freedom. We need 100,000 signatures by February 17th, 2013. Together we can help honor a man who gave his entire for the Civil Rights Movement. He deserves to at least stand behind, if not next to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Click the picture below to sign the petition and share this with your friends. Below is a video and other links to more information about Bayard Rustin's life of service.
Brother Outsider, a documentary about Bayard Rustin's life (airs on PBS 2/3/13, at 8 pm EST)
You have probably read his Letter from a Brimingham Jail, but have you read Dr. King's letter from a cell in Albany, GA? In it King makes the argument that when "the non-violent resistor refuses to cooperate with a law that is out of harmony with the laws of God and the laws of morality, he must break the law-- but in doing so, practices civil disobedience and accepts the penalty, thereby practicing moral obedience and transforms the jail into a haven of liberty and freedom."
Over Labor Day weekend Reconciling Ministries Network will be holding its convocation in D.C. themed "ChurchQuake: Embracing Freedom". There is a story in the Bible of Paul and Silas locked up in a jail cell for their civil disobedience. And when they began to sing songs, the earth shook and their chains were released.
I have to wonder if Dr. King had that story in mind when he transformed a jail in Albany into a haven of liberty and freedom.
Female prisoners at forced labor digging trenches at the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. This photograph is from the SS-Propaganda-Album des Frauen-KZ-Ravensbrueck 1940-1941. USHMM (18344), courtesy of Lydia Chagoll.
Advent and The Holocaust don’t normally get put together. However,
I figured writing on the eve of the winter solstice (aka the longest night) and
the Mayan apocalypse (aka the end of the world), Holocaust imagery might just
be appropriate.
Advent and The Holocaust overlap more that you first might
think. The story of Jews waiting, longing, hoping, traveling, being housed in
deplorable conditions. Will a savior come? It doesn’t seem so as Herod and
Hitler massacre innocent children. Murder. Hopelessness. Hate. Fear. A far cry
from the peace, hope, love, and joy candles we light on our advent wreath in
worship.
Every generation
thinks they have it worse than the one before, but the unrest the Christ was
born into was a world headed for a spiritual cliff just as much, if not more,
than our world today. Those in power are neglecting and causing harm, and so
John the Baptist holds a press conference to tell it like it is:
(From Luke 3) John said to the crowds… …bear
fruits worthy of repentance… …Even now the ax is lying at the root of the
trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and
thrown into the fire.” And the crowds asked him, “What then should we
do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with
anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise. Even tax collectors
came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He
said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for
you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to
them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be
satisfied with your wages.”
As the people were filled with expectation…
…John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is
more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his
sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing
fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into
his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So, with
many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
When we read this text, and think about the massacre last
week or the one long ago in Germany, it seems as though John got it all wrong.
He said the bad fruit would be cut down and thrown into the fire, not innocent
children. Where in the hell is God in all of this? Why is evil still winning?
The following prayer was found at Ravensbruck, a Holocaust death camp
where 92,000 women and children died. It
was scrawled on a piece of paper near a dead girl. (It is also the text used in
a single by Jennifer Knapp for the Martyr Project.)
Lord, remember not only the men and women of
good will also those of ill will. But do
not only remember the suffering they have inflicted on us; remember the fruits
we have brought, thanks to this suffering—our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility,
the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all
this, and when they come to judgment, let all the fruits we have borne be their
forgiveness.
Just like Advent again, in the midst of all these questions
and feelings of abandonment by God, a child shall lead us. This child’s prayer
are Word made flesh: In our suffering,
remember all of your children, even those who turn on the gas chamber or
trigger a semi automatic rifle. May the fruits we have borne in this
suffering—may they be their forgiveness. Sounds a lot like something Jesus
would say. Fruit borne in suffering for the forgiveness of sins. Wine poured out
for the forgiveness of all. The Christ becoming flesh in the words of that
little Jewish girl.
Where the hell is God in all this evil? God is right there
in the thick of hell; love conquering death. John tells us, God’s answer to
unimaginable evil is Immanuel—God with us. God’s plan is incarnation—taking on
flesh and suffering. And fiery furnaces, intended as evil, are transformed into Baptism by
fire—God claiming all as God’s children and calling us to bear fruit… that is
how the evil in this world is destroyed.
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. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a
baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the
book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the
wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every
valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh
shall see the salvation of God.’”
In the third year of the presidency of Jimmy Carter, when
generals were ruling over El Salvador, and rebels (armed by the US) were
planning a coup, and priests who stood with the poor were called terrorists and
communists, the word of God came to Bishop Oscar Romero in the wilderness of a
civil war.
Both Oscar and John the Baptist spoke an unpopular truth
that upset those in power. In the
scripture above, Luke didn’t just throw in all those hard to pronounce names to
try and stump the scripture reader. He was framing the world into which this
prophet John was preparing the way. In the midst of these oppressive leaders,
John was not only speaking words about the change he knew was coming, but he
being those words made flesh. John’s weapon of choice was the waters of
Baptism; Romero used the bread and the cup.
Romero went into the town square, proclaiming that God was
present with the poor, calling on the government and church to repent, and he
served the bread and cup as the ultimate protest against the oppression of the
poor. Romero knew that the body and blood, when embodied by the people,
empowered them to make paths straight, fill valleys, lower mountains and hills,
and smooth over rough places… how? Romero believed that God was present in the
bread and cup, was present in the poor themselves, and that all flesh would see
the salvation of God.
Said another way, Romero framed the plight of a people being
oppressed with the perspective of a Christ who suffered and died and defeated
death. Romero could confidently serve the bread and cup in defiance of those
standing around them with guns pointed because he knew how the story ends: all
flesh shall see the salvation of God.
Do not be confused… this is not a “it doesn’t matter what
happens here on earth because everything will be okay in heaven” theology. This
is the theology or life perspective of “I know how this is all going to
end—love defeats death—so I am going to live then ending now. I am not only
going to speak words about the change I know is coming, but I am going to be
those words made flesh.
In the words of Oscar Romero:
Advent should admonish us to discover in
each brother or sister that we greet, in each friend whose hand we shake, in
each beggar who asks for bread, in each worker who wants to use the right to
join a union, in each peasant who looks for work in the coffee groves, the face
of Christ. Then it would not be possible to rob them, to cheat them, to deny
them their rights. This is what Advent is: Christ living among us.
Again, don’t be confused… this is not a history lesson about
events that happened over 30 years ago. This is as true today as it was then.
Advent is not all love, peace, joy, and candles on Christmas Eve. Advent is a chance again to prepare for the
persecution that is coming when we welcome this revolutionary, table turning,
bread and cup serving Christ child into our lives again.
There is no real peace without justice. Oscar and John stood
up to corrupt governments and churches that preached “peace” that was dependent
on the oppression of the poor and the silence of mass graves. “Peace” was
maintained by the US assisted Salvadorian government through kidnapping,
torturing, and killing of those who preached about what real peace looked like.
In Romero’s words:
It is important to note why [the Church] has
been persecuted. Not any and every priest has been persecuted, not any and
every institution has been attacked. That part of the church has been attacked
and persecuted that put itself on the side of the people and went to the
people's defense. Here again we find the same key to understanding the
persecution of the church: the poor.
Sounds a lot like today. We hear propaganda like “freedom
isn’t free”, while those who speak about what real freedom and peace look like
are condemned as troublemakers and sometimes terrorists. Many of our churches
that are “thriving” are maintaining their growth on the backs of the
poor—proclaiming “peace” where there is no justice, while those who stand with
the poor are sacrificed by those same churches in order to maintain that “peace”.
But the hope we find in this Advent time of waiting and
preparing can be found in the very words made flesh by John and Oscar:
John the Baptist quoting Isaiah:
The voice of one crying out in the
wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every
valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the
crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall
see the salvation of God.’
Bishop Oscar Romero blessing the
bread and cup:
We receive here the body of the Lord who
offered himself for the redemption of the world. May his body and blood given
for us nourish us in such a way that we, too, may give our body and blood as
Christ did, so we may bring justice and peace to our people.
Immediately after speaking these words, Romero was shot dead
by the government; John the Baptist was eventually beheaded by the government.
They were both guilty of speaking truth to those in power, telling the
oppressed something the powerful didn’t want them to hear:
Freedom is free.
Real peace is only possible with justice.
Love conquers death.
And this was all made flesh by a little baby whose blood
would be the seed of freedom.
