Blessed Are You….
On Wednesday, Canon Mariann Scott, The Rev. Canon Hipolito Fernandez Reina, The Rev. Fatima Yakubu-Madus, Communications Director Elise Shrock, and I joined Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows and other lay and clergy leaders from around the Diocese at the Indiana State House. We accompanied and cheered on young people from Movimiento Cosecha, who were calling upon legislators to give a hearing to a bill that would give undocumented people access to driver’s licenses. As well, we accompanied allies and friends in the LGBTQIA+ community and our Bishop in speaking out against the unjust, unfair, and discriminatory House Bill 1041 that would ban trans students from participating in school sports.
As your clergy and lay leaders, we do not understand our advocacy as political work, but rather, it is spiritual work. In our Gospel this Sunday, we will hear Jesus offer words of reassurance and blessing to those who are persecuted and under attack. He says: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh….Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.” Our job on Wednesday was to remind those whom our legislature wishes to marginalize that they are indeed blessed in God’s eyes, that God is with them, and that our Cathedral community will support and care for them, no matter what.
—The Very Rev. Gray Lesesne, D.Min
|
