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BAM

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BAAM

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BAAM

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BAS

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in来 dweli

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all indirekli in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.

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Do you consider yourself a just person? On the 10th of April 1963 an Alabama state

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judge grant an injunction which banned all anti segregation protest activity in the city of

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Birmingham Alabama. This was the result of a concerted effort by the Southern Christian

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Leadership Conference and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights against the segregationist

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policies which discriminated against black members of the community. Mass meetings were held

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members of the movement's stage sit-ins at segregationist cafes and restaurants. The community

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marched in protest on City Hall and there was a general boycott of segregationist merchants.

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But on the 12th of April 1963 Dr Martin Luther King and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy led a march

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in defiance of this injunction and both were arrested and jailed and from behind bars Dr King wrote

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those lines that we've just heard in his famous letter from Birmingham jail. There are a few sat

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here today I would imagine who would question the righteousness of Dr King and Reverend Abernathy's

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choices the choice to march on City Hall despite the injunction not to yet we know that Dr King

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and his fellows were criticised and attacked for their calls for an equal world open to all

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regardless of the person of the colour of a person's skin indeed we know that not only Dr King

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but many others throughout history have paid the ultimate price for their commitment to God's justice

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and were martyred as they fought for a better world in the name of Jesus Christ.

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It would be easy to turn such stories into accounts of the unerringly righteous Christians

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fighting against an unrighteous world across different times and places. It would be a narrative

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that we're familiar with hearing after all we're used to hearing about the early church as an underdog

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boldly proclaiming Jesus Christ and serving others against the might of the Roman Empire

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which persecuted them. It would be an easy narrative but it would be false because many of those

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who have criticised and attacked social justice movements in America many who still attack

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social justice movements today across the world claim and have claimed the title Christian.

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Are such people denuded? Well surely so God's justice allows no bias there is no grace and

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goodness open to some which is not open to all but whilst it's potentially comforting to dismiss

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those who disagree with our understanding of justice past and present as deliberately unkind

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and unfair we need to remember that it is a very rare person indeed who actually believes themselves

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to be unjust. As human beings we are masters of persuading ourselves that we are in the right

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even and perhaps especially when we're in the wrong. We turn ourselves into the heroes of our own

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stories and this makes it easy for us to justify our position on any number of matters.

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When we believe that we're the center of the world how could it be otherwise?

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If all the world around us and the people in it are just bit players in our story then everything

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naturally fits into a framework which serves our carefully constructed reality. So for example

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if a person in 1960s Alabama were to believe that the color of their skin really did make them

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the pinnacle of their society their lived reality might very well reflect that from their perspective.

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If they automatically got the nice seats in the restaurants had access to the best schools

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more easily got promotions got better pays are doing exactly the same work got to live in the

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nicer areas of the city in bigger houses filled with nicer things then it would be easy to suppose

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themselves superior. It wouldn't be until they stopped and asked why they had these things and

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others didn't that the injustice of their situation would become apparent. Why should their group

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of people get benefits that others didn't? Why would society automatically place obstacles in

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front of others but not in front of them? Why should they be able to expect certain rights

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and treatment but others couldn't? Then they would realize that they didn't have better jobs

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or bigger houses because they earned those things or indeed had any right to those things at all.

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It would be because they got an easy ride to the top. They ran a hurdle race but someone

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forgot to add their hurdles. These are very hard questions to ask of oneself in the 1960s

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or today because if one finds oneself advantaged where others aren't it's probably because society

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favors you and in turn makes life harder for others in ways which aren't just. But as long as

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there remains any injustice in our world it is our christian moral duty to ask ourselves these

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most difficult questions. We must answer the question of our privilege. An in this letter

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from Birmingham jail Dr King explained why injustice anywhere is a problem for justice everywhere.

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If we live in an unjust society then we are affected by that injustice because as heirs of

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God and co-heirs with Christ we are interrelated with our brothers and sisters not only in our

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community but across our world and we have a duty to them especially if they struggle under systems

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which unfairly benefit us. In our gospel reading Mary sang her prophetic hymn of praise the

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Magnificat and she sang he has shown strength with his arm he has scattered the proud in the

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thoughts of their hearts he has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the

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lolly he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. What caused Mary to

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have these hopes they certainly weren't her reality she was a peasant living in Nazareth a tiny town

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with very few families who scratched out a living either by subsistence farming or by the very hard

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labour and the income that they could get from it. They were taxed extremely heavily first by the

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occupying Roman forces who forced them to pay for their own occupation and then by pirate who forced

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them to pay immense amounts of tax to construct the temple and his palates so that he could prove

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himself a greater architect than Solomon. Mary's life would have been brutal as a woman

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she had basically no access to education she was most certainly given in betrayal at the age of 12

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and her duty would have been to serve her much older husband with no regard for her own wants

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or needs she was powerless voiceless out of no account to the world around her. When we remember

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the account of Gabriel appearing to Mary to ask if she would become the mother of God he told her

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that she had found favour with God he said greetings you who are fuk highly favoured. Now a lot of us

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would answer that kind of greeting with a sense of pride or at very least a kind of demure humility

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but Mary didn't she met it with genuine confusion we're told that she was greatly troubled at

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Gabriel's greeting and wondered what he had come to say because Mary wasn't a person who was noticed

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by anyone and so it must have been the ultimate shock to understand that she'd been recognised by God

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yet within the harsh reality of her world and her future Mary focused on the goodness of God

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and devoted herself to him in worship what gave Mary the hope that is described in the Magnificat

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certainly not what she saw around her no rather the God that she worshiped and her trust in his

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goodness the Magnificat is full of scriptural illusions it heavily reflects Hannah's song

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in one Samuel as Hannah prays God for giving her the child she's so dearly prayed for who would

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go on to be one of Israel's greatest prophets and its final judge but Mary also referred to

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promises found in Genesis Psalms Joe Leviticus Deuteronomy Micah though Mary had no formal

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education she obviously knew the scriptures she obviously dwelt on them in her heart

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this was the only way that she could have constructed a song which so thoroughly weaves

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together Old Testament teaching and promises in a way that so demonstrably understands God's goodness

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in attending to the scriptures in her worship and prayer Mary clearly came to know and trust

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her Lord and in this trust despite her circumstances she perceived that the world that she experienced

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was not the world as it ought to be she saw that God's justice had not taken effect in the world

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around her but she trusted that through the fulfillment of God's promise of the coming messiah

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things would change as we know Mary risks a huge amount when she agreed to become the mother

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of God Jesus Christ as a betrothed woman who wasn't yet married her pregnancy would have broken

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her vows to Joseph it would have suggested that she'd slept with someone outside of marriage

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and the punishment for that was death by stoning even if she wasn't executed in this most brutal way

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Mary almost certainly courted ruin which would have turned her very difficult life into a basically

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impossible one had they chosen once they found out about her pregnancy Mary's family

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might very well have abandoned her and turned her out onto the streets and as a woman of no

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repeat without a husband she would have been unable to work except perhaps as a prostitute

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and so her choice may very easily have come between selling herself or allowing herself

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and her child to starve that was what Mary was risking when she said yes and yet

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Mary said yes to Gabriel without a second thought for her own health or happiness

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she trusted in God that not only he would bring his justice to the world through her son but

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that he would make a way for her and her son to live safely Mary gave of herself gave of her hopes

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for the future gave of her need for family gave of her personal safety and committed herself to the

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goodness and justice of God because she was a woman of no repeat without a second thought

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the goodness and justice of God because he knew who he is

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we don't live in a Roman occupied province nor are we facing exactly the same sorts of battles

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that Dr King did but our world is still not anywhere near the vision of justice

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which Mary described in the Magnificat the poor are still voiceless and forgotten

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we need only look at the existence of food banks the mountains of debt which crush people

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the number of people who try to live in our world in our country

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despite the failure of provision for even basic securities and provisions

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the powerful still sit on thrones of privilege we need only look at those people who make

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mountains of salary bringing in more money than a person could hope to spend in a lifetime

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and yet using their riches to influence policy which keeps the poor poor we still live in a world

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in which the weak and vulnerable are neglected and abused in our own town in our own country in our

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own community we need look no further than our brothers and sisters who lie on the streets at night

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our brothers and sisters who flee from war and violence with their children only to be packed tightly into one hotel room

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and then get berated by local communities who want nothing to do with them

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we need only look at our brothers and sisters who are told that because of who they love

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they are not welcome in certain churches

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our then is to ask whether we are willing to take the same risks as Mary and to follow in the footsteps of Dr King

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are we willing to address our privilege and realize that the world isn't a fair place

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just because it makes us comfortable and are we willing to speak about that

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and use what privilege we have been given to try and make the world a fairer place

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can we take the risk that people will confront us and disagree with us when we stand up for the

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principles of the magnificat in short are we willing to live by the maxim injustice anywhere

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is a threat to justice everywhere amen