Racial Justice Sunday 2025
- CTE
- Feb 28, 2025
- 16 min read
Racial Justice Sunday 2025
What has been happening across the LCiGB?
Check out the CTBI Racial Justice Sunday resources here: https://ctbi.org.uk/resources/racial-justice-sunday-9-february-2025/
The Lutheran Church in Great Britain has been taking steps to ensure that we are an anti-racist Church. During February we have spoken about the theme of racial justice in sermons across churches in the UK. This article includes prayers from Churches Together in Britain and Ireland used in many of our services this month and sermons from London, Nottingham, and Leeds. However, first we hear from Bishop Paulina:
Only one race, the human race by the Rt Revd Paulina Hlawiczka-Trotman
‘You are all one in Christ Jesus’: Galatians 3:28 In July 2020, The Lutheran Church in Great Britain stood with the global Black Lives Matter movement following the cruel killing of African American, George Floyd, at the hands of the Minneapolis police. We decided to take part in learning about the systemic racism and aimed to join leaders and communities to end the enduring oppression of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic people (People of Global Majority Heritage) in the UK and across the world. We were ashamed that prior to this act we had never worked on this issue, especially given our own character, ‘Coat of Many Colours’: The Lutherans in the UK comprise of 30% Black and Brown people, 30% Asian, and 40% white people of different nationalities. We believe that every human being is God’s creation to be loved, cherished, respected and in case of an emergency to be treated with care. We recognise that racism is a sin against the Creator and the Creation. We are privileged to be an international Church built of 20 nationalities and different ethnicities. We worship in several languages and include different kinds of liturgies from around the world. We recognise our own failure as individuals and churches to speak out against racial injustice and to act justly, after learning of or witnessing inhuman and degrading treatment of People of Colour. Though Jesus loves everyone, even to the point of dying for our sins, he went out of his way intentionally to help specific groups of people at particular times – persons alienated, mistreated and those experiencing injustice. We should do no less. So, we are taking steps to affirm our commitment to a policy of anti-racism, and to use this opportunity consciously to examine our practices to see where we can do better. Our effort includes providing education on historical and contemporary racism within our churches, chaplaincies, partners and communities and joining other churches, bodies and associations in this work. We encourage our members and friends to apply the same principles to their circles, and to seek out education on these issues where possible. The Lutheran Church in Great Britain formed a working group in 2020 to lead, teach, and provide the resources. It is called the Racial Justice Core Group, an initiative supported by then Presiding Bishop, Rt Revd Tor Berger Jørgensen (Norway), led by co-chairs: Revd Paulina Hławiczka – Trotman (Poland) and Mrs Sesulelo Kehle (Zimbabwe). We seek to promote racial justice through new and positive reforms that empower all affected people including white counterparts with our fragility and fatigue. We are determined to continue enabling reconciliation as the most Christ-like of actions. We know that the time has come for white people in our communities to stop talking, explaining and searching for excuses, but to open our ears, hearts and minds to listen and learn. To accept new knowledge and criticism is often hard, but no one promised this task would be easy. Until we recognize there is only one race, the Human Race, we will strive to learn, work and teach on racial justice and reconciliation, which is only possible through God’s grace and love offered to All.
A sermon by Pastor Rebecca at St Anne’s Lutheran Church in London
This year marks the 30th anniversary of RJS. Established following the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence a black teenager in London, this Sunday offers us all the opportunity to reflect on the sin of racism and imagine what an anti- racist discipleship might look like.
The struggle of Christian churches against racism over the last 30 years has seen much change, however, much more is needed. The theme given for us today is ‘Coat of Many Colours’. It seeks to capture the increasing diversity of the churches in Britain and Ireland. Very often diversity can be challenging but we need to remember that difference is part of God’s plan. Someone once wisely said for many of us diversity may be a rock of stumbling, but for God it is the corner stone of universal design. Today the challenge for us is to reflect upon how we can build just and inclusive communities on this cornerstone of God’s universal design.
Racial justice is a question of Christian discipleship. There are a few important lessons that we can learn from the gospel reading for today. It is about the efforts of the disciples which does not yield much success and how Jesus intervenes. The most important lesson that emerges for me from this text is how we can persist in our work and witness, especially when the results seem to be fruitless and futile.
Racial justice is one area of the church’s work where progress has been slow… when this happens it can be easy to be discouraged and disappointed and give up.
What does Jesus see as he looks at the boats? What he sees is a group of fishermen who were washing their nets. They had caught nothing. What we see is a picture of disappointment and failure. It must have been particularly disappointing for the fishermen because they failed in something that they thought they were experts of. They must have known that part of the Lake Gennaserat very well. It is a place which is known for abundance of fish. They know the fishing season etc. so they must have been expecting great success, but things did not go according to their plan and expectations. So, the picture of washing their nets is a picture of disappointments and failure. At this point, Jesus enters into their lives, and he asks them not to give up and give it one more try. He asks them to change their perspectives, he encourages them to go out into the deep water and to take a risk and then things change.
So this text is an invitation for us to reflect on what we need to do differently to see change. Where is it that we need change in our ways of being and doing that can lead to transformative discipleship.
The call to a racially-just discipleship may not be an easy one. We may face disappointments, failures, and things may not go according to our plans and expectations. The challenge is to never give up and listen to God’s still voice asking us to do something different to take up and take risks. The important thing is to identify the voice of Jesus and follow it.
The other aspect of the story that I find fascinating is what happens after the miraculous catch. When the disciples seem overwhelmed with the volume of effort that is needed to pull the fish to the shore, they ask for help from others. The disciples caught so many fish, and their nets were beginning to break. So, they signalled to their partners from the other boats to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats that they began to sink.
Sometimes, when confronted with an enormous task like racial justice, there is need for us to work in partnership with others, seek their wisdom, strengthen and efforts to persist. What lessons do you learn from the story? We need support systems not only in times of obstacles, problems and challenges but also during times of opportunities which hold great promise and potential. We are much better together, so this is a call to solidarity.
For Peter, James and John that they may have been just an another regular day of doing their day today business of fishing. But Jesus met them and transformed them into fishers of people on whose shoulders the early church was built. This ordinary thing may be a story of wider leadership in the life of the church and in the ecumenical movement. God often chooses the simple things of the world as instruments of God’s work and glory. So let us prepare ourselves for this journey, God has called us. In our calling let us be rooted in our faith in Jesus Christ, serve each other with love and humility, and be sources of hope for those around us. May the good Lord who called us accomplish this through each one of us. Amen.
God of all people,
You are the one who brought us into being,
Knitting and weaving us together and forming us before we were even born.
You know us, each and every one –
Your dear children, blessed to be bearers of Your image and likeness.
God of all nations,
You stitch and sew this intricate image of You –
Like a garment of many colours, stitched, sewn and hemmed;
Each tone and hue painted with the tender care of You, the Artist,
Our Maker and Creator – clothing us all in Your love and mercy.
May Your dream for all Your dear children come true;
May Your hope for all the earth to be renewed and reconciled be made real;
May Your Kingdom come on this earth in this time, and be established for ever.
We call on You, O God,
That on this Racial Justice Sunday
You would bring together our hopes and fears,
Our prayers and our praise,
And unite them, as we draw closer in communion with You and each other,
For Your glory.
Amen
A prayer from CTBI racial justice Sunday resources
A sermon preached by Lutheran Intern Katrina Bentsen at Trinity Lutheran Church- Leicester- Nottingham
16 February, 2025
GOSPEL READING: Luke 6:17-26
Let us pray,
Creator God, thank you for this time together. May the words spoken, and the listening of our hearts, be helped and stirred, by your Holy Spirit. AMEN
Recently I had 2 different experiences with each of my children, and both of these experiences pertain to the gospel reading today. First let’s look at the pieces of the Gospel that I’m thinking about, and then we’ll dive into how the reading sort of relates to these specific experiences of the kids, which will also, hopefully, be relatable to your lives, and the topics of Love and Racial Justice as well.
So, 1st– the Gospel: it’s really early on in Jesus’s ministry. He had been on a mountaintop praying, and had just chosen his 12 disciples. Our reading today picks up at the part where he came down from the mountain to stand on a level place that was full of people who had come to hear him and be healed of their diseases. The scripture said: “a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon… everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”
After healing, Jesus also had some words to say. And the words he said were in this familiar speech about those who have blessing, and those who have woes: blessed are the poor, blessed are the hungry, blessed are the sad; blessedd are the hated, blessed are the excluded, blessed are the reviled and defamed.
And then the woes: Woe to the rich, woe to the the full, woe to the laughing and to the well praised…”
Now that we’ve reviewed those gospel components, let’s see how this relates to the kids. Kaia was recently ill, and then passed her illness on to her friend who was visiting from the US. Then later in the week, the illness passed onto Kaia’s sibling Anja who also got sick.
Man would I have loved to have taken them all to see Jesus to be healed!
It’s always stressful when your kiddo is sick, but doubly stressful when BOTH kids get sick, AND even more so when your kiddo’s FRIEND is sick, Is also in your care, and needing to get on a 12 hour plane ride home to the states. For a few days the kids were like limp dolls, exhausted with fevers,
speaking mostly in whispers because it was too painful to talk.They were coughing and congested for days and nights. Kaia missed a much anticipated pony ride. Both she and her sibling missed 4 separate days of school. They both spent many nights waking from sleep seized by coughing spasms, and subsequently we all lost sleep!
Adding to my personal level of stress is the fact that, in addition to being a mom, I am also a nurse with an overactive imagination, and so I tend to know and worry about the absolute worst case scenarios, and stress beyond what is perhaps reasonable.
If I had heard Jesus was in town, I totally would have taken them all to him to be healed!
Now I’d like to invite you to imagine: If we heard Jesus was in town, And you and I were to take our bodys to Jesus for healing today, what are the illnesses we’d like him to heal, that we are aware of?
Maybe we’d like Jesus to heal our digestive system. Maybe we’d like Jesus to heal our legs. Maybe we’d like Jesus to heal our pinched nerves, our pain, our disability, our exhaustion.
But what else might Jesus be healing, not just in our bodies, but in our hearts, minds, and spirits?
Things that lie just beneath the surface of our awareness? Debilitating loneliness or depression? Ancestral trauma? Addictions? Implicit bias? Greed? Unhealed anxieties, or traumatising experiences that we’ve put in a dark corner of our hearts, that don’t physically pain us, but that impact every moment of our day?
And what of the collective body? The scripture says that “a great multitude of people had come to hear him, and to be healed” The great multitude came not just from one homogenous community. In addition to Judea and Jerusalem, the Gospel includes people from the coast of Tyre and Sidon– communities that were known Biblically for their “unrepentant wickedness and idolatry.” They were port cities known for their wealth and maritime trade.
And in the scripture, the words are clear: “Power came out from him and healed all of them.” As a gathered body of people– I can’t help but wonder– was the community healed? How might we imagine Jesus healing their collective body? And how might we imagine Jesus healing our collective body, and communities of today– what might that look like?
Would it look like conflict resolution? Would societal diseases of racism and sexism, hunger and poverty, war and pollution be eradicated? Would justice roll like a river? In the following verses of this very same chapter in Luke, Jesus shares some examples of what this might look like: Love your enemies, give to everyone who asks you, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, be merciful, forgive, do not judge– first take the plank out of your own eyes, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from another’s eye.
Then there’s the blessing and woes section of the Gospel, which pertains most specifically to my other child, Anja. Anja recently completed their mock exams at school. Kristian and I not only received their grades, but we also had parent- teacher conferences to discuss where Anja was doing well, and where Anja needed to work a little harder, in order to improve their scores for the real GCSE exams. As parents who are new to the UK, we are learning that the standards of learning here are specific, the pressure can feel high, and each of the teachers care a lot about the students’ ultimate success in life, which we are also learning will be impacted in part by how well students do on these GCSE exams.
I think we all want health and success for the people in our lives, and for our community at large!! Most parents want their kids to be able to have a strong education so that when they grow up they can provide for themselves, and live a happy life. And what comprises a happy life? If we were to base our happiness on what culture and society tells us will make us happy, we might think success and happiness is equal to, maybe, what the scripture mentioned: “being rich” and having spending power–
the ability to buy all the things that we’re told will make us happy. Having a robust bank account. Being able to afford lots of travel and leisure. Being the ideal body weight, so that we can look like all the people in those advertisements full of “happy successful people”. Society often views success and happiness as being able to count one’s blessings and blessedness.
But the examples of blessedness from the Gospel reading today are exactly the opposite. As they so often do, Jesus and the Gospels share messages that are contrary to what is mainstream in society. Jesus takes society’s metrics of blessedness, and turns them on their head and flips them inside out. God’s “grading system” doesn’t care about our bank accounts, or our body weights, or our spending power. And my apologies to those of us who might be competitive, but God doesn’t USE a grading system at all. Metrics of manipulation require steady and measurable quantities of fear and failure; of scarcity and lack; of division and disconnection of messages that say “you are not enough.”
But God’s love is not a metric, nor does it come in limited quantities– remember, the scripture said, “Jesus healed ALL”– regardless of where they were from, either geographically or financially speaking. God’s love and blessedness says “you are loved. Full stop.” God says: “society might tell you otherwise– society might tell you that you are excluded and hated; that you are poor and reviled; that you are just “a bit much”, or not enough.
But Jesus came to dismantle society’s metrics and injustices, in order to share God’s Love–
Love that has been here, and formed you in your beautifully unique ways since before the beginning of the beginning!! A love that is stronger than debts and darkness, division and disconnection, depreciation and death.
There’s such freedom and liberation in God’s boundless and abundant love. Are we truly living in and leaning into that love? If not, what are the imposed metrics we’re living by– metrics that might be limiting God’s love in our lives and in the lives of others? that keep us captive in a harbour of perceived “protected safety”? And what would happen if we pulled up anchor from that “safe” harbour, and opened our spiritual sails to the winds of faith and breath of the Holy Spirit? If we were to let go of control and our need to “get it right”, knowing that we are imperfect – that there is no spiritual A+ or high marks we can score with God. Knowing that the journey will be messy- we will most certainly get wet and capsize, our sails might rip, and our boats need repair, but we sail on anyway, knowing that God is bigger than our worries, and our metrics, and our limitations. Knowing that if there’s a formula for God’s “biggness” at all, it’s one of exponential, expanding, and all-inclusive growth: grace upon grace upon grace. A Love that heals not just some, but ALL.
AMEN
An extract from Pope Francis’ Encyclical Fratelli Tutti
Come, Holy Spirit, show us Your beauty,
Reflected in all the peoples of the earth,
So that we may discover anew
That all are important and all are necessary,
Different faces of the one humanity
That God so loves.
Amen
A sermon preached by Pastor Joseph in Leeds
The Gospel of Justice: A Call to Unity and Healing
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Our second reading today brings us right back to the key tenants of our Christian faith and the foundation that we rest upon
Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you.
When looking at this passage the words that jump out to me are through which also you are being saved. The root (σῴζεσθε) Greek word that is used here is σῴζω (sozo)… and it is very interesting. When you look at some translations it will translate this as the gospel in which you were saved, and yet, this is not quite correct. It is far more complex than that. Yes, this word does mean to save, rescue, deliver, and by extension: to be in right relationship with God… However, this word is also very often used as a word that speaks about being healed. It does not imply that this is a past reality, or a future reality, alone; but something that is happening to us here and now.
Likewise, we are then reminded of the substance of the Gospel. That Jesus died for our sins and on the third day was raised for our salvation. Paul reminds the Corinthians that the gospel is not a human construct or a moral code but the story of Jesus – of what he has done for us – of the grace given to us by faith in him. And this gift transforms us, gives us new life, and brings us healing.
How easy it is to regard salvation as a past event – a one off. And yet this is not what Paul says here! You are being saved if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you.
The gospel is something that needs to be preached to us every day – as Luther said. And salvation is ultimately – at the end – going to be about healing – about being made whole – about being restored to the image of God that was lost at the fall and about the gathering together of people from every tribe and tongue, people and nation into the Kingdom of God.
The resurrection, our salvation, is not only about personal justification but about God’s kingdom being established on earth—where justice, peace, and reconciliation prevail. It is the ultimate act of God – the overcoming of all that divides us, and the gospel calls us to participate in this work of reconciliation.
On racial justice Sunday we are encouraged to remember this call to justice and reconciliation – that we are called to bring healing and break down that which divides us. In encountering others, and seeking justice, we bring healing to the world.
As Christians it should never be our language, background or culture that unites us. Instead, it should be the gospel. Our unity as Christians is found in our common humanity, our shared identity in baptism, and our faith in Jesus Christ. This is what unites us and must be our ultimate identity. For in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
In the Lutheran tradition, we understand that each of us has a vocation: and that vocation is the calling to serve God and neighbour in all areas of life wherever we might find ourselves. Our work for justice is not separate from our faith—it is the outliving of our faith. As baptized people, we are called into a life of service to God and our neighbour, and this includes standing up against anything that would treat anyone with anything other than love, dignity, and respect. Racism in particular runs contrary to the message of the gospel as the gospel calls us to unity and reconciliation. As such racism is always antithetical to the Christian vocation. This is not just the work of a few but the responsibility of the entire Church and every Christian.
As Paul says, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10). The grace of God is at the heart of everything we do as Lutherans, as Christians. It is by grace that we are saved, and it is by grace that we are empowered to work for reconciliation.
Let us take some time this week to recognise what it means to be people who are being saved – being healed and made whole. Not for our own selfish needs but for the sake of our brothers and sisters – from every place and background. Let us hold firm to the message of our unity in Christ, may our identity as Christians be stronger than any other identity that we hold, and may we remember that we are called to be agents of transformation through the love of God.
As we pray for healing, receive the laying on of hands, and anointing with oil for healing may we be healed in body, mind, and spirit. May we let go of anything that holds us bound or divides us from our brothers and sisters in Christ, no matter what people or nation they come from, let us learn from one another the beauty and variety of the Kingdom. And may we seek the Kingdom of God in all that we say and do.
In Jesus name. Amen
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