Hope Moves

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Artwork: The Path to Freedom, Sergio Martinez, 2007.

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INVOCATION
Archaeologist of Creation, excavate our buried hope.

CLOUD OF WITNESS
In The Amplified Bible, Exodus 2:25 reads: God saw the children of Israel, and God took notice of them and was concerned about them - knowing all, understanding all, remembering all. 

But in The Voice translation, it reads: God saw the situation the people of Israel were in, and was moved to take action.

In their despair, the children of Israel cried out, and the God Who Hears, She Who Sees, and He Who Provides—who was deeply and intimately acquainted with their pain—did more than send a word of hope. Though a messenger of hope was needed to bolster them and carry them to freedom, what was needed more was a God of Hope who knew all, understood all, remembered all, and moved to take action.

Real hope is ignorant of oppression, but intimately knowledgeable and understanding. It does not bury our past (or current) afflictions, but takes detailed notes and reverently remembers every tear, every plea, every cry, every moan. It is not a passive witness. Hope moves to rescue us.

CALL & RESPONSE

Call: What will we do without our freedom? 
Response: We will plea, cry, and in despair, forget ourselves.

Call: To whom can we surrender our anguish, our cries and our pleas? 
Response: To the God of Hope Who Hears, the Spirit Who Sees, the Anointed Who Delivers Hope. 

CANTICLE
Go Down, Moses
The origins of this Negro Spiritual are unknown, but there is a record that Harriet Tubman, the Moses of the Underground Railroad, used this song as a code to communicate with fleeing slaves:

Oh go down, Moses,
Way down into Egypt’s land,
Tell old Pharaoh,
Let my people go.

Oh Pharaoh said he would go cross,
Let my people go,
And don’t get lost in the wilderness,
Let my people go.

You may hinder me here,
but you can’t up there,
Let my people go.

He sits in the Heaven and answers prayer,
Let my people go!

BENEDICTION
Adapted from Liturgies from Below by Cláudio Carvalhaes

Do not despair and forget yourselves. The God of Hope knows, understands and remembers you. May God deliver us from the systemic power of evil. Like Moses, say to the oppressors, the powers of evil, the forces of darkness: “Let my people go, you have no right or authority over God’s people.” And may God’s healing and restoration come upon this land, so that we can live by the light and warmth of a burning bush of hope –  in freedom, love, peace, and justice.