Severed Spirituality

Good morning. I was planning this week on using today’s passage from first Corinthians as the jumping off point for a message examining the difference between unity and silence. How, throughout the history of the world as well as the church, under structures of violence, marginalized communities have been told that they need to find common ground with their oppressors. And this idea is passed off as a virtue. I wanted to talk about how a lack of conflict is not always actually peace, but rather might just be the effective silencing of oppressed voices by the dominant culture. So, you’ll see a quote from Audre Lorde in your bulletin that speaks to this. But the more I sat and studied, the more I kept coming back to several conversations I’ve had over the last couple of weeks with people feeling overwhelmed by the constant onslaught of difficult news from around the world. It’s something we’ve even talked about in our services recently. Australia burning, the suffering in Puerto Ric