Oppression is a Legion - The Rev. Melanie W. J. Slane

Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

The drowning of the pigs is not good news to everyone, as it turns out, it is certainly not good news to the swine herders, the farmers who owned these pigs, the people whose economic livelihood depended on these creatures of God that they have come to possess. This upheaval and subversion of the system is not welcomed by these and not welcomed by those who have benefited long from a system that was happy to keep the freed man in chains rather than look for a collective salvation... What I didn't know when I was a little child that I'm glad I know now is that demons cannot live in the waters of baptism. And we, as God's people, have the blessing and the great responsibility to exercise them from our hearts and our souls, from our homes and our communities, from our nation and from our world. What, I didn't know when I was a little child that I'm glad I know now, is that slavery is not that long ago, and not that far away. It is present in our labor market and our prison system, in our economy and in our schools, it is present in our wage gap and in our healthcare system. Oppression is a Legion, but we are a force to be reckoned with. READ THE TRANSCRIPT HERE