Castings: June 19, 2026

Juneteenth

From the beginning of our sacred story, we have mistreated each other: Cain and Abel come to mind. Abraham and Sarah cast Hagar and Ishmael into danger and despair. When his brother was hungry, rather than feed him, Jacob swindled Esau out of his birthright, in exchange for a bowl of soup. Moses and God will spend years working to liberate the Israelites from the hand of the empire. And Moses won’t make it to the promised land this side of the grave. But to his dying breath, he holds fast to his determination to get the people there.

Today is Juneteenth, the celebration of Freedom Day. It’s the oldest nationally celebrated holiday we, as a nation, have to celebrate the emancipation of enslaved people. It marks the day in 1865 when troops arrived in Galveston Texas to ensure that enslaved people knew they had been freed. This happened two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

It matters that we mark this day and it matters that we remember that from the founding of this country, human beings, people of dignity and worth, created in God’s image, were bought and sold. We made people into commodities. The sin of enslavement and dehumanization of human beings echoes to this day; how will we respond?

When Abraham and Sarah cast them out, God makes a way for Hagar and Ishmael. God intervenes. God hears the cries of the people, especially the ones who the powerful discard and mistreat. God calls us to the work of reconciliation, to make right those places we have wronged, to bring healing where there has been injury.

Our work towards racial reconciliation continues. May God bless us that we would partner together, becoming repairers of the breach, restorers of the streets to live in.