Pastor's Column 2/11/2024

PASTOR’S COLUMN

“But how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget how to play the harp. May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I fail to remember you; if I don’t make Jerusalem my greatest joy.”

Psalm 137:4-6, NLT

“All Worth Remembering!"

Memory can be used as one of the greatest gifts God has entrusted to the human mind. When we especially remember the events of life that challenged and fulfilled our lives; as well as the narratives which others who came before us have left behind for us to learn from; we can emerge as better people. This is extremely important for those of us who were deliberately and systematically cut off from our past. Groups in America, for example, who have always had the benefit of choices and privileges, which have enhanced their survival, achievement, and future; often have no understanding of what it is like to live in the same nation, and to be systemically deprived of such freedoms. Of course, there is the sense that such people are keenly aware of their advantages, and their greatest fear is to suffer the same deprivation which has been meted out to others for whom they have benign neglect and dispassion. To further the divide between the privileged group and those who courageously continue the fight for a just society and, as the preamble of the Constitution says, “a more perfect Union;” we hear cries of “canceling a woke culture.” This simply means, invalidating the history of people of African and Caribbean descent in America, as a threat to the freedom of a non-Black society. This is nothing new! Our response should be akin to that of the Israelites who were taken captive in Babylon. Far away from their ancestral homeland, the exiles were taunted daily by their captors. For a while, many of the captives conceded to the attacks. They became dismissive of their homeland and heritage. But, a burst of God’s spirit renewed them. They vowed to never keep silent again. They preferred death, over forgetting their past. They sang songs again, and remembered well, who they were!