A Black Celebration Homily: Akin Bailey

The following was shared as a homily at our Sunday Evening Eucharist service on 2/6/2022:

Then Joshua summoned the twelve men from the Israelites, whom he had appointed, one from each tribe. Joshua said to them, “Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you take up a stone on his shoulder, one for each of the tribes of the Israelites, so that this may be a sign among you. When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.” - Joshua 4:4-7 (NRSV)

In this passage, the Lord has told the Israelites to take stones from the middle of the Jordan to commemorate the providence and power of God evident in their crossing. When their children eventually ask about these stones, the Israelites are to retell the story of the waters of the Jordan being parted so that they could safely cross. In the same way, we all have collected and been given stones that teach us and remind us of our own history. These stones can be physical or metaphorical. Some of these are life stones, accidents that include things like significant birthdays, graduation, relationships, moving house, etc. Others are spiritual stones that help track your movement through and to God. In no particular order, your justification, that moment when you knew you were “saved,” your entry into the baptismal waters, your first foray into discipleship, prayer, dedicating your life in service to Christ, partaking in communion, assenting to the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit in your life, more prayer, and death. These are the rocks that teach us what it means to really be alive in this world and give us a taste of that to come. Rocks that remind us that God is ever present with us, a guiding light at every step.

Many of these will be moments that are more or less familiar to all of us, but each of us has also collected stones that are unique to our specific situations, hardships, joys, and personalities. Some of the rocks that I’ve collected are very different from many of yours. They are unique not just to me, but to many others that look like me, as well. They include sorrowful moments such as when my mother would stop me and my brothers when we were about to go out – just to the thrift store or Walmart or something – and tell us that we must be mindful of how we appear and mindful of our surroundings. For people may see the color of our skin as a threat and retaliate before we can know what has happened. This rock is my mother’s fear. Fear that she might let her boys go out and never see them again. Another is what seems like a very small rock, one that should be buried beneath the piles of detritus, yet it continues to rise stubbornly to the top. It couldn’t have been more than five seconds of a moment. A woman and her child were walking down the central aisle toward me in a Walmart. The woman looked up from her child and saw me walking toward them. She stopped abruptly and quickly ushered her child down the nearest side aisle. Try as I might to write this one off as a coincidence, I can’t help but feel the weight of this rock that is the look in that woman’s eyes. It was a look I’d seen too many times before not to recognize. In that fleeting moment of recognition and panic, she made decisions not only about what she ought to do but about who I was and about what I would do. She made judgments, without apparent hesitation, about my character, what kind of person I was, and about my worth. In that split second she decided that I was a threat and not worth getting close to. It’s really easy to reach down into my bag of rocks and find ones like these; for whatever reason they seem to come up easier, but by the grace of God they are not the only ones.

Included also are those rare days where we would go out as a family to the movies to relive depictions of famous black historical figures on the big screen. Jackie Robinson in 42, The Tuskegee Airmen, Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures, and more. For some of these I was too young to know the importance and significance of such representation, but through these rocks I now understand the joy and triumph in my parents’ voices when they would talk of them. And I can see now that it was a glint of victory in their eyes as they looked up at the screen.

Another such moment occurred just this past summer, during our Juneteenth celebration. For those of you who may not know, Juneteenth is the celebration of the effective end of chattel slavery in the United States. It marks the day that it was announced to the final holdout state that all enslaved negro women, men, and children were free citizens of America. Anyway, in preparation for this celebration I did the only thing that made any sense to me – I set a menu and started cooking. I must’ve made everything I know how to, from red beans and rice to blueberry pie. From watermelon in the freezer to salad if you want it, I wore myself out cooking. I wanted to make sure this was a proper feast, that everyone who came had enough to eat. I wanted everyone to have even the smallest taste of the unmitigated joy I was feeling that day. Joy in fact that finally there was a day where the color of my skin was not something I had to deal with but was a cause for celebration. On that day I knew more than just the freedom of my ancestors. I knew myself as redeemed and chosen by God. I knew that He looked at me and saw me and decided before anyone else had a say that I was good, and worthy, and deserving of love.

This is the kind of joy we ought to step into when we approach this table. Joy in the knowledge of who God is and of your own salvation. Joy in the knowledge that, before any of you were brought into being, you were chosen, had grace pronounced over you, and were called into His kingdom. Amen.

Akin Bailey is a graduate of LA Tech and currently serves as a missionary intern at the Wesley Foundation. He enjoys wandering around the woods, cooking good food, spending time with his girlfriend Camellia, and reading books really really fast.