Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:1-11
I could have a lot to say today. The story of the Amistad is an important piece of UCC history and has a direct connection to Sojourners in several ways. There are lots of details in the story that could be elaborated on. There are lots of things about the story that trigger thoughts in my mind. No problem finding things to say that relate to the Amistad.
However, about 25 of us were at Plymouth Church in Washington last Sunday and it was a good visit and I know several people found gifts and graces in the visit that were not anticipated and I personally was really glad to have the opportunity to be there, but…it was a two hour service, which was fine and only a little longer than some services we have had at Sojourners, but it did occur to me that for those who were there last Sunday, and for those who weren’t there but are here this Sunday, and for all of us who lost an hour of sleep last night, it might be good if I didn’t try to say everything that I could say this morning So I will try to limit myself to a few thoughts and not be too elaborate about it.
My thoughts do begin with the Amistad. And there is history there. It was good Congregational men and women (Congregationalists being one of the groups who formed the United Church of Christ), it was Congregational folks, including specifically the folks of Dixwell Congregational UCC where Hilda is from, who prominently befriended the Amistad prisoners and ministered to them in New Haven. It was Congregational folks who taught them English, taught them about Christianity, raised money for their defense, and helped them return to Sierra Leone. It was the money left over from those projects that founded and funded the American Missionary Association that not only sent missionaries overseas but established colleges for African Americans after the Civil War and that started an endowment for churches that eventually loaned money to, among others, a new church in Charlottesville so they could buy a building at the corner of Monticello and Elliott.
The history is a matter of pride in the United Church of Christ. The chapel at our national offices is called the Amistad Chapel. There are a number of UCC congregations who have taken the name Amistad. We have a Sunday that is officially designated Amistad Sunday. There is a boat, a modern replica of the Amistad, that the UCC at various levels has sponsored and supported in its educational efforts. A UCC pastor in New Jersey just spent part of his sabbatical aboard the Amistad. There is all this history and this history has a direct connection to our present here at Sojourners because the money we used to buy this building can be traced back to the Amistad defense fund.
But neither the history nor the money connection is quite what’s most important to me about the Amistad. There is a banner of the Amistad on the back wall of our sanctuary. I may be a little more aware of it than you are. I have a different view of things on Sunday morning than you do. Most of you sit with your back to the banner, some sit sideways to it, but in any case it’s not really in your line of sight. When I stand up on Sunday morning to do what I do, I see the two banners on our back walls, one representing peace, the other representing justice. They are not just decorations. They are not just part of the scenery. They are not just reminders of a biblical passage on the one hand or of an historical event on the other, not even an historical event that is often lifted up in UCC circles and has a particular connection to us. Those banners speak to me about who we are here at Sojourners, what kind of Christian community this is, or what kind at least we aspire to be. When I stand up here on Sunday morning I am aware, sometimes pretty clearly and consciously aware, sometimes more dimly or subconsciously aware, but aware at some level that those two banners I am looking at speak to who we are and provide much of the context for the words I try to put together week in and week out. Indeed they provide a kind of spiritual framework for our being together, whether we are consciously thinking about them or not.
The Amistad, I am trying to say, is not just a historical event. It is not an interesting piece of information. It is not just a sort of cool story about how this distant historical event ended up making it possible for us to buy a building all these many years later. The Amistad expresses something important to me about who we are as Sojourners, who I am as a part of this community of faith. It is one thing to say that the story of the Amistad is an important piece of our history and a part we can be proud of as UCC members. That’s all fine. But it is something else again, as far as I’m concerned, and I hope I’m getting across something of what I’m feeling here…it is something else again to say that the story of the Amistad is a part of who we are, defines an important part of who we are. It’s one thing to say it’s part of our history. It’s another thing to say that we are the descendants of the people of the Amistad and they are our ancestors. It’s not so much that they are part of our history. They are part of our spiritual genetic makeup, if there is such a thing as spiritual genes, and I think maybe there is.
We are descendants of people like Lewis Tappan, who was among the most prominent of the advocates and fund raisers for the prisoners, who often made a point when attending meetings of sitting in the section reserved for black folks (and in those days even anti-slavery meetings were often segregated), Lewis Tappan who helped to found Oberlin College, the first college in the United States to admit both black students and female students, whose house was burned to the ground because of his anti-slavery activity, and whose actions were all taken because they were what his Christian faith inspired him to do. To me he is not just part of our history. He helps to define who we are, and if we do not know the specifics of what he did back then or what we are supposed to do now, that only means that our tasks are undone so far as exploring who we are and what we may be called to do as descendants of Lewis Tappan and the Amistad story.
We are also descendants of the Amistad prisoners themselves. To say that is to recognize that the relationship between the American defenders and the African prisoners was not fundamentally a relationship of helper to helpee but was a relationship of brother and sister. Maybe there were those who recognized this at the time. Undoubtedly there were some who did not. But we can recognize it by claiming as our ancestors the people who were imprisoned as well as those who came to their assistance. They were/are our sisters and brothers as human beings first, of course, but then also eventually as Christians, and I look to Singbe Pieh and Kinna and Kale as my ancestors too, and as their descendants I hear, for instance the plea of Kinna that we heard in the reading to “talk hard”, again not a quaint expression in an historical document but part of who we are, to have that phrase be an ongoing request from a brother, that we find words to speak on behalf of justice and that we speak them hard. Not a piece of history. Part of who we are.
I was going to talk a little bit about Sojourner Truth this morning too. We are of course her descendants as well, in several senses, and she took the name of Sojourner for herself just two years after the Amistad prisoners won their freedom. She too is not just a piece of history but very much a part of who we are. But as far as elaborating on that, it is one of the things I decided I needed to leave for another time.
What I don’t want to leave for another time is the thought that this part of “who we are” that has to do with the Amistad and with Sojourner Truth does not exist outside of the context of our faith. We are their descendants, we look to them to remind us of who we are as Christians. The people who worked so hard to free the Amistad prisoners did so as Christians, a point that is often overlooked or played down in secular tellings of the story. The point is not simply that they cared about justice and we inherit that value from them. The point is more that their caring about justice was all wrapped up in their faith, and what we inherit from them is an understanding of the Christian faith, what the Christian faith needs to be all about. We may try to understand better who they were as a way of trying to understand who we are as Christians.
We are descendants of the people of the Amistad, but the line of descent reaches way back before the Amistad. We are descendants, as they were, of ancient Hebrews whose basic affirmation of faith was “a wandering Aramean was my father”. We are descendants, as they were, of people who knew themselves to be strangers and sojourners on the earth, who understood that it was in their nature as people of faith to be pilgrims and seekers, who learned to know God by wandering for forty years in the desert, who learned there that they were not alien from any other person who was a stranger and a sojourner on the earth, and who knew that even after they arrived at a land of promise that it was still a long journey to turn it into a land of justice. We are descendants, as the people of the Amistad story were, of the prophet Micah who asked what more God would ask of us than to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with God but who understood that was enough for a lifetime. We are descendants as they were of the prophet Isaiah who said that God had sent him to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and we are descendants of Jesus who quoted Isaiah in this regard and knew himself to be a descendant of Isaiah.
It is good in this season of Lent for us to be reflecting, as individuals and as a community, on who we are, and who we aspire to be, as Christians. And we come to the communion table in this season of Lent, knowing that we are fed by the love of God and the spirit of Christ. God does give us bread for the journey. Amen.
Jim Bundy
March 9, 2008