4th Week of Lent: I've Decided to Choose Freedom
We’ve released worship music videos with lyrics for each song on the “Speak Boldly” album by Jenny LaJoye. You can find these worship music videos on our Juniper Formation YouTube Channel, and more easily in this “Speak Boldly” YouTube Playlist.
Each week during our Lenten journey we will highlight a worship video and offer accompanying ritual, scripture, and prayer for you to engage at home by yourself, with your household, or in congregational worship.
Artist's Songwriting Reflection
"I've Decided," was one of the most difficult songs on the album for me to write. I was working with Evergreen Christian Church (DOC), in partnership with Juniper Formation, and one of the Scripture passages in the lectionary that week was Luke 9:57-62, where Jesus tells one of his followers who asked to go bury their father, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kin-dom of God.”
The last time I had encountered this passage in the lectionary was in June 2016, right around the time of the Pulse Nightclub shooting. The church I was a member of had a really prominent queer population, and I remember us as a community grappling hard with these rather harsh words from Jesus. It felt like Jesus was asking us to short-circuit our grief to start proclaiming joy and life and freedom.
This Scripture remains difficult today during COVID-19, when so many are unable to be with their loved ones at the end of their lives. or unable to gather to grieve the loss of loved ones...and for Black and Brown families who have to bury their loved ones who die at the hands of White supremacy and police brutality.
The pivotal lyric for me in this song is, "Oh, may not my tears be shed in vain, but freedom never waits for me to leave the grave."
May we know our tears are not shed in vain...
and may we grab hold of freedom. It is moving forward, and we must do the hard work of picking up the plow and following it.
Scripture: Luke 9:57-62
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Humanity has nowhere to lay his head.”
To another Jesus said, “Follow me.”
But the man said, “Jesus, first let me go and bury my father.”
But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kin-dom of God.”
Another said, “I will follow you; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”
Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kin-dom of God.”
"I've Decided Lyrics"
I've decided to follow
I've decided to follow
to put down the shovel,
pick up the plow,
I've decided to follow now
Freedom moves forward
While I am digging down
My help comes from the mountains
While I'm gazing at the ground
Oh, may not my tears be shed in vain
But freedom never waits
for me to leave the grave
I've decided to follow
I've decided to follow
to put down the shovel,
pick up the plow,
I've decided to follow now
Freedom is calling
While I guard the tomb
I boarded up the windows
But daylight's breaking through
Oh, may not my tears be shed in vain
But freedom never waits
for me to leave the grave
I've decided to follow
I've decided to follow
to put down the shovel,
pick up the plow,
I've decided to follow now
Ritual: Choosing Freedom
The scripture passage of Luke 9:57-62, remains difficult to stomach as many of us hit the one year mark since we’ve stopped gathering in person for worship and began a series of restrictive behavioral changes to protect ourselves and others from COVID-19.
We’ve spent a year in grief, at times unable to bury our dead, and angry at so many unnecessary deaths. We’ve been dragged forward through the longest year that at times seemed like it had no end, facing little deaths all around us of the world as it used to be.
This past week also marked one year since Emergency Room Technician Breonna Taylor’s death, who was murdered in her sleep by Louisville police officers who forced entry into her apartment in the middle of the night.
We’ve born witness to an ongoing unveiling of murderous white supremacy and systemic racism. Another virus that inhabits the soul of our country from ourselves and our neighbors; our legislative system, churches, and institutions; and up to the President.
Many of us have reawakened to the Gospel’s guidance about the evils of wealth at the expense of the poor. In Denver, the City sweeps of encampments attempt to disappear the extent of our sin—our separation from one another and God. The Mayor and Denver Police Department serve and protect the housed from bearing witness to the injustice of our complete and systemic disregard for our neighbors who do not have a safe, dry, and warm home this winter.
This week the Vatican continued to advertise its exclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals and loving relationships. While not necessarily news, it was a stark and painful reminder of how Christianity is weaponized against those at the margins of the Church, instead of living out the loving way of Christ.
And today, we are learning more about eight more lives that were taken last night in Atlanta, six of whom were women of Asian descent, and a total of seven women. The murderer, a white, church-raised, 21-year-old male, claimed his sex addiction drove his need to eliminate his temptation. His actions exacerbating fear within Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, who have already experienced increased racist abuse related to COVID-19.
As Christians, we must concern ourselves with the role our faith, theologies, actions, and institutions have played and continue to play in upholding white supremacy, wealth inequality and poverty, patriarchy, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia and fetishism of Asian women, and sexual violence. Ultimately, all ways in which we choose to be violently out of relationship to one another and God.
Yes, there is much to grieve.
And yet, on Christ’s journey to the cross, he was not ruminating in self misery, instead, he was calling others to join in discipleship, to live and bear witness to a new way of being together and with God.
The urgency of seeking freedom in Christ remains critical in a world organized by supremacy, oppression, injustice, violence, and wealth inequality.
It is with this urgency that we invite you to be free, to follow the way and life that Jesus modeled for us, and to continue being in the ministry of love and justice, grace and peace, and beloved belonging together.
As you listen to “I’ve Decided” (see video above) we invite you to take:
One step towards freedom in Christ.
One step towards abiding in love.
One step towards justice.
One step towards leaving the graveside.
One step towards a new way of being in the world.
What one step will you take today? This week?
Reflective Invitation
We invite you to journey through Lent by drawing closer to God and one another by deepening your spiritual practices and awareness.
- After that one step, what are the next steps of freedom in processing your grief?
May it be so.
Blessing
May you not be overburdened by the pain of this world, and may your tears never be shed in vain.
May you always choose freedom, and may you know the love of Christ so deeply that there is nothing else your heart can do except share that love with others.
Amen.
Support the artist and buy the “Speak Boldly” album online, here.
We invite you to make an offering today. An offering is a way we share with one another in support of the whole, and as a loving act of co-creating a new way of being together and with God as we prophetically reimagine the Church.
For all of the ways you give your spirit, heart, gifts, talents, and resources, we thank you.
