Our Theological Mandate for Liberation
Christina delivered the following sermon during a worship service titled “Liberation, Incarceration, and Our Faith,” at General Assembly 2023, the annual gathering of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Her words express the UU theological mandate to work for liberation, particularly the liberation of all people through the abolition of the prison system.
The Rev Dr King: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”
This quote played over and over in my mind as I visited the Peace and Justice Museum and Memorial in Montgomery Alabama. It was my 5th time experiencing the Museum but only my second since becoming the Co-Lead Minister for the Prison Ministry team at the CLF. And I was trying to work out why it was on loop in my brain. It was a very different kind of “ear worm.” And I think I’ve figured it out.
We are on the daily, bombarded with news too terrible to really react to: guns are the #1 cause of death for children in the US, the climate crisis, attacks on reproductive justice, anti-trans legislation, and the general unraveling of our political systems.
And in that overwhelm, it is easy to say that abolition (yes, it is still that same old abolition of slavery we’re talking about, just dressed differently today) must wait. We’ll figure out what to do about cops and prisons later. But beloveds, I tell you true, the millions who are enslaved and caged in our prisons ask “when? When is this so-called more convenient season?”
So I say this, what we put off today will be even more difficult tomorrow. Evil relies on the principle that a body at rest stays at rest. It overwhelms us until we feel unempowered and ineffective. It relies on our certainty that there will be a “more convenient season” tomorrow, next week, next month, next election cycle, next and next and next.
But we can no longer afford to put off for tomorrow that which must be done today. To be true, we couldn’t afford it yesterday either. Our children literally march in the streets begging us for abolition, in the form of gun control. Our scientists beg for abolition, in the form of climate justice. Our Black and Indigenous peoples demand abolition, in the form of reparations. And our incarcerated siblings demand the abolition of slavery, in the form of prison and police resources transformed into community care resources.
My colleague the Rev. Julian Soto writes, “You are here to put out the ravenous flames of the world. Enough is enough.” In their words I hear that liberation is everyone’s responsibility: it is ours, it is yours. We can try to avoid the discomfort of that or we can face it, knowing we do it in solidarity with the communities whose lived experiences are the keys to making abolition a reality.
These are the tenets of our Unitarian Universalist theological foundation: we are all worthy of universal love and we are all responsible for creating heaven on earth. Beloveds now is the moment, now is the time, now is the season of our Unitarian Universalist mandate for liberation. Now is the inconvenient season of liberation.
So say we all and amen.
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