Join the liberating movement of love

APCE preacher, plenary speaker encourage worshipers to use the public arena for justice

by Paul Seebeck | Presbyterian News Service

The Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz (Screenshot)

LOUISVILLE — To set the stage for her “Circles of faith, Circle of Empowerment” message from Hebrews 11:23-28 on Friday, the Rev. Dr. Lis Valle-Ruiz proclaimed during the recently renamed Association of Partners in Christian Education conference that attendees were going to experience the Holy Spirit throughout their whole body.

“Turn on the fire,” she said.

As digital flames of fire appeared as a backdrop, Valle-Ruiz, director of community worship at McCormick Theological Seminary, encouraged conference-goers meeting in Chicago to think of the person they identified with the most among the heroes of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11.

And as these words of music, “Circle of faith, circle of empowerment” began to fill the air, Valle-Ruiz encouraged worshipers to write that name down, then find new member of their tribe to share it with.

Valle-Ruiz wondered aloud if the Israelites wandering in the desert were like the people in the room, talking the whole time, laughing, or complaining.

With that, Valle-Ruiz told those in attendance they would have to move again. But first she directed their attention to Hebrews 11:24-25, which states, “Moses refused to be called a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.”

APCE conference-goers were on the move throughout worship on Friday. (Screenshot)

“In the social-political scale of things, Moses chose to go down,” she said.

According to Valle-Ruiz, the preacher in Hebrews is telling his audience — and us — that in dangerous, difficult times, we need to stay in the struggle.

Maybe, like Moses, we are being called today to step down and stay the struggle, she said, in a movement of liberation that plays itself out in vulnerable situations.

“Maybe even as vulnerable that we could die in the struggle,” she said. “Now, many of you don’t look like you would die in the struggle.”

Using the story of Bree Newsome, who was arrested in 2015 for scaling a flagpole outside the state capitol in Columbia, South Carolina, and taking down the Confederate flag that flew there, Valle-Ruiz said,

“That morning, this Black woman woke up knowing she could die.”

But another activist, a white man, was hugging the pole as law enforcement officers arrived to force Newsome down. The officers chose not to put him at risk, allowing her to come down with the flag before arresting them both.

“He wasn’t there to climb the pole or be the hero,” Valle said. “Who is the unnamed hero of faith that you know?”

Think of the names people don’t remember, she said, the ones who go down in social-political terms to help others.

Valle-Ruiz challenged worshipers to think of a group of people they could join to enter into the struggle for liberation. “We need to liberate ourselves from the illusions that we can be the hero who empowers people,” she said.

Only God has that kind of power. The giver of faith, she said, empowers each person. But too often our systems take that power away from people.

“Our job is to take a step back so that others’ power can be seen,” she said, “power they’ve had from the very beginning. Write down the name of the village you know that you can commit to not as a hero but unnamed member.”

The Rev. Russ May

During Friday’s plenary, the Rev. Russ May, co-founder of an intentional Moravian Community, Anthony’s Plot, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, shared the story of Minneapolis firefighter Genevieve Hansen.

On the day George Floyd was murdered, she tried to intervene. But she was met with these words, according to news sources: “If you really are a Minneapolis firefighter, you would know better than to get involved.”

“NPR reported that her voice began to tremble when she recalled the impotence she felt,” May said. “She was overwhelmed as officers blocked her from providing the medical care she had been trained to give.”

According to May, the majority of systemic issues we face are also wrapped in this kind of paralyzing paradoxes, Hanson faced, including

• Police officers and courtrooms entrusted with justice-committing acts committing acts of injustice.
• School systems in charge of education for all denying objective facts about educational disparities across racial lines.
• Governments speaking of peace achieved through global terror.

“The result is our circles can often freeze up when injustice is most present,” he said. “Like this circle of sadness and fury, looking on a dying George Floyd, unable to do anything.”

“Do you want to get hurt? Arrested? Don’t you want to go home to your family? Do you know how dangerous this Black man might be?” he asked.

“We got a lot of work to do if we want to empower our circles for the kind of love Jesus talked about, which gives its life for another,” he said. Referencing a Cornel West quote, May added that “justice is what that kind of love looks like in the public arena.”

“Friends, we’ve got a lot of work to do, if we want to empower our circles for that brand of love … as justice.”