Jesse Preaches, and I Get into Everyone's Business. We Make a Great Team.

Vlog about Megin being SuperKaren, as Evan called me... But joking aside, this is a testimony of real life examples of how we can step up, even in the midst of discomfort, and speak for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Below is Jesse's sermon from yesterday which gives us a biblical foundation for why we should do these things:

Rough Draft of Jesse's Pastoral Meditation, June 14th, 2020

Luke 4:16-22 “Freedom for the Oppressed”

What does Christianity have to offer at a time like this? We've been quarantined for months in the midst of Coronavirus. The death of George Floyd has sparked protests and riots, revealing centuries of racial injustice and division in the United States. There are many churches across the US and the Western world, trying to ignore the current reality of the country and the world. And perhaps you wonder why? 

Some churches fundamentally see the gospel far more narrowly than we will see in Scripture that it actually is. Churches ignoring the racial injustice see the gospel exclusively as the forgiveness of our individual sins, for the purpose of going to heaven when we die. If this is all that Christianity offers and teaches, then it actually makes perfect sense why some Christians and churches want to turn their eyes from racial injustice and say the church should not get involved in these social issues. If Jesus’ ministry was all about getting people to pray a sinner’s prayer so that they could go to heaven when they died...then really, who cares who gets killed by police? Who cares if one group of people is routinely marginalized? Who cares if one group of people get mistreated and are regularly victims of injustice?

 Well, when we look at Scripture, it’s clear that Jesus cares. In fact, it’s what his ministry is about. 

Luke 4: Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.  He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

    and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

 Jesus’ Ministry: He literally just finished being baptized by holy spirit, affirmed by God the father, and He sets out to immediately free the poor, the prisoners, and the sick- to set them free.

So what is oppression? Oppression is the unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power. At the root of all oppression is sin and Satan. EVERYONE has been oppressed in some way. Fundamentally all oppression comes from sin and Satan, but it manifests in various different ways. We see this oppression manifest itself primarily in two ways in this passage: 

 Verse 18

Economic Oppression - “poor”

Physical Oppression - “blind/prisoners” 

 Freedom from all forms of oppression is the FUNDAMENTAL ministry of Jesus. Remember, this passage is at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. John the Baptist had prepared the way for Jesus. Who is Jesus and what does he do? Heaven opens, and God declares that He is God's son. Jesus gets tested in the wilderness, and then what he DOES is MINISTRY. He is ready to begin his mission. What is his mission? This...

All that Isaiah prophesied is fulfilled in Jesus, namely, his mission to free the oppressed - those suffering economic depression - the poor; those suffering physical oppression - the prisoners and sick; everyone suffering spiritual oppression - from sin and Satan. Jesus came to set them all free. Jesus came to set US ALL free because we have all been oppressed in some way.

Today, what oppression should we focus on? The focus right now should be on black lives in America, which have been OPPRESSED for CENTURIES. We are perhaps living in an historic moment in time, while in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and economic recession, there is an awakening to the harsh realities of racial injustice in America. Slavery was abolished in 1865 but racism and racial injustice have been alive and well, taking other forms such as the Jim Crow laws and other systemic injustices - namely economic and physical oppression. 

 ECONOMIC OPPRESSION

Blacks face systematic challenges in narrowing the wealth gap with whites. The wealth gap persists regardless of households’ education, marital status, age, or income. For instance, the median wealth for black households with a college degree equaled about 70 percent of the median wealth for white households without a college degree. The racial wage gap between blacks and white has been established for many centuries and has closed to some degree, yet clearly remains. Why are many blacks stuck in cycles of poverty? 

 PHYSICAL OPPRESSION

One out of every three Black boys born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime, as can one of every six Latino boys—compared to one of every 17 white boys. In the 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 17 million whites and 4 million African Americans reported having used an illicit drug within the last month. The imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites.

Physical oppression also takes the form of disease and sickness. New figures compiled by the APM Research Lab and released on Wednesday under the title Color of Coronavirus provide further evidence of the staggering divide in the Covid-19 death rate between black Americans and the rest of the nation.

 Across the country, African Americans have died at a rate of 50.3 per 100,000 people, compared with 20.7 for whites, 22.9 for Latinos and 22.7 for Asian Americans.

Blacks, relative to Whites, are more likely to live in neighborhoods with a lack of healthy food options, green spaces, recreational facilities, lighting, and safety. Blacks are also less likely to have equitable healthcare access—meaning hospitals are farther away and pharmacies are subpar, leading to more days waiting for urgent prescriptions. So, health problems in the Black community manifest not because Blacks do not take care of themselves but because healthcare resources are criminally inadequate in their neighborhoods.

 For all of these racial disparities that exist (and of course there is much more evidence and information confirming these systemic inequalities), all of these ways in which black lives are oppressed, one might think just a little more EFFORT is needed. But this is the very nature of oppression: the oppressed cannot free themselves, they need someone else to free them. 

If Jesus’ ministry was to bring FREEDOM to the oppressed, what should our ministries look like? We are called to partner with Jesus to set the oppressed free, to break chains of injustice, to bind up the broken-hearted. If God has truly set US free, then we will naturally want to help set others free. If you’re not free yourself, then there is good news: Jesus has come to set you free as well. 

Now listen to the →→VLOG ←←for the real life example if you haven't already!