A discussion of this week's lessons (Jeremiah 20:7-13; Psalm 69:7-10, 16-19; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39)- Pastor Schul preaching.
June 17th, is set aside for the Commemoration of the Emanuel Nine in the ELCA, those nine members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC who were killed during a Bible study because of their race. We remember and commemorate:
Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Mrs. Cynthia Graham Hurd, Mrs. Susie J. Jackson, Mrs. Ethel Lee Lance, Reverend DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Kibwe Diop Sanders, Reverend Daniel Lee Simmons, Sr., and Mrs. Myra Singleton Quarles Thompson.
To learn more about the Commemoration Service visit www.elca.org or our Facebook page and join at noon in this time of repentance, mourning and prayer. Ecumenical leaders will be present and Bishop Elizabeth Eaton will preach.
Today's closing music is "Lift Every Voice and Sing" first written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson, set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson and one of the most cherished songs of the African American Civil Rights Movement. it was first performed by 500 schoolchildren for President Lincoln's birthday in 1900 in Jacksonville Florida. It is performed by Reginald R. Robinson on his album, Euphonic Sounds:
Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our God,
True to our native land.
The book referenced by Pastor Hetrick is:
Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi.
To learn more about our ministries at Grace Lutheran Church, visit glcpa.org.