Juneteenth

Dear Friends in Christ,

This Sunday our liturgy will contain prayers and blessings from a liturgy for a Juneteenth Diocesan Feast Day that grew out of a Diocese of California Resolution passed in 2021. The resolution championed promoting understanding and inclusion of every human being, working towards the elimination of oppression and modern-day slavery in all its forms, and eradicating racism. It is intended to move the Diocese towards reconciliation and healing and offers the Diocese of California a way to express through worship our commitment to racial reconciliation. 

Juneteenth (short for June nineteenth), also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day and Cel-Liberation Day, is the federal holiday that marks the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state and ensure the freedom of all enslaved people. It came a full two and a half years after the emancipation proclamation had been signed.

While federal holidays are not generally celebrated by the Church, the Juneteenth liturgy has become part of the Diocese of California’s Becoming Beloved Community efforts to “respond to racial injustice and grow a community of reconcilers, justice makers, and healers.” It is also a way for the church “to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ,” as our Baptismal Covenant says (Book of Common Prayer, 305), and to publicly acknowledge things done and left undone. It is a step toward fostering healing, reconciliation, and justice.

Our Church, the Episcopal Church, was actively complicit in enslaving God’s children for many years, and that while the Church has acknowledged this fact and is seeking ways to make reparations for our past sin, there is still a long way to go until all God’s people are truly free, as the world we live in still supports and encourages system of oppression and violence against the most vulnerable and marginalized of God’s people.

Last year a group of people from Saint Anna’s entered this work by engaging with the Sacred Ground curriculum the Episcopal Church created for this purpose. It was hard and painful work at times, confronting our complicity and acknowledging our sin, but everyone agreed it was worth it and that they got so much from the program. If you are interested in engaging in this work yourself, please let me know and I will consider offering this curriculum a second time beginning this fall.

Yours in Christ

Rev. Jane+