This past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend an
end of the school year mass at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church in
Raleigh. I was there celebrating with a friend who was completing her studies
in middle school. The beautiful service was interjected with glimpses of the
Kingdom of God when the kids from the school would stand up to read the
prayers, litanies and Scripture readings. As the older middle schoolers would
stand up to read they’d bring with them a much younger elementary age child
with them to the pulpit. In this most holy moment of generational solidarity I
was able to experience the grace that keeps showing up in all of our lives.
The Church
is a movement of solidarity. The Reverend Dr. Samuel Wells describes solidarity
this way, “Solidarity means all the
ways we seek to make concrete the intangible links between people, links based
on love and trust and dignity and understanding and respect. Solidarity is what the church is called to be – Christians standing
alongside one another, standing alongside the oppressed, and standing alongside
God in Christ.” At the
mass we sang a hymn entitled, ‘All You Works of God.’ In the hymn, the hymnist
describes all of us within our world as, “One great song of grace and love,
ever ancient, ever new.”
The appropriateness of that hymn as children young
and old stood together in solidarity with one another was nothing short of the
future of our world in the Kingdom we pray for every week during worship. To
stand in solidarity with one another, across generational differences, across
socioeconomic limitations, and racial bounds is to glimpse what the fruition of
God’s work in our lives will be.
Within the liturgical calendar of our year we’re
currently within the season called Ordinary Time. Many also call this season
Kingdomtide. I really like that mentality; we are bound for the Kingdom of God.
This Kingdom is one of solidarity, justice, equality, love and grace.
One of my colleagues in ministry reminded me of the
song James Taylor sings, “Let us
turn our thoughts today to
Martin Luther King and
recognize that there are ties between us all men and women living
on the Earth. Ties of hope
and love, sister and
brotherhood, that we are
bound together in our desire
to see the world become a
place in which our children can
grow free and strong. We are
bound together by the task
that stands before us and the
road that lies ahead. We are
bound and we are bound.”
Friends, like
those kids at St. Raphael’s, we are bound together and bound for the Kingdom of
God. Let us stand in solidarity with one another as we proclaim God’s reign as
Lord of time and space. Let us finally give thanks for that glorious day of new
life in which God will bring God’s kingdom back to God’s self. Will you help
make it happen?
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