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NC's Rev. Barber delivers sermon at interfaith inauguration service
Rev. William Barber II, known for his work on behalf of the poor, former leader of the North Carolina NAACP and pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, will deliver the sermon at an interfaith worship service to celebrate the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
e o e o way that you love me. I'm gonna forgive. Like you forget on rescue like you say Other. Oh, thank you. E news e once. Oh, e o thank you story. Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah You Yeah, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! No! Yeah! Maybe welcome to this inaugural prayer service coming to you from Washington National Cathedral and around the country and reflective of the many faith traditions of our land. We welcome President Biden and his family Vice President Harris and her family and all who seek the common good for the United States of America and for the world. As we mark once again the transition of political leadership and look towards the future with resolve and hope. Let thes sacred texts, songs and petitions inspire us all to seek divine guidance, always care for one another and live according to the highest aspirations to which God calls us as individuals and a nation. Let us pray. Oh, God! Be merciful to us and bless us. Show us the light of your countenance and come to us. Let your ways be known upon earth. You're saving health among all nations. Let the people's praise you O God let all the peoples praise you. Let the nation's be glad and sing with joy for you judge the people's with equity and guide all the nations upon earth. Blessed be the one holy and living God. Glory to God forever and ever. Let us pray. Oh God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus, your son Look with compassion on the whole human family. Take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts. Break down the walls that separate us, unite us in bonds of love and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on Earth. That in your good time, all nations and races may serve you and harmony around your heavenly throne through Jesus Christ, our Lord, um men. God bless you. President Biden and Vice President Harris Oh, say can you see by the Downs early light What's so proud way at the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars prove the para last fight or the rest parts way watched who were so good? La place dream Inc and fuck it's crap! Bombs bursting Go cry through the night that our flag washing o say, Does that star spangled by? Yeah, hey, or the last on Oh, on the oh, okay, let us pray to the Lord Kiely A elation almighty God off our mothers and fathers by your mercy and love You have brought us once again to our national moment off passing the torch off freedom we give you thanks for your loving kindness and compassion And in this hour we call upon you to shower your lessons upon our president Joseph R. Biden and our vice president, Kamala Harris, ground onto them wisdom, grace and fortitude to lead our nation toe A brighter, safer and more helpful future for all Americans. Strengthen them in their mission to bring healing, reconciliation and peace to our land in view them with virtue, righteousness and a keen sense for justice so that all Americans can have confidence that their rights, as citizens will always be defended and protected, safeguard and preserve Our republic. Our congress and courts are military and civil servants so that in peace and prosperity we may live out our days. We petition your grace and Majesty ascribing glory and Dominion to you, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit glorified to the ages off ages A man for the holy one Your God is eternal and supreme the great the mighty and the awesome God who shows no favor and takes no bribe but upholds the cause of the orphan and the widow and befriends the stranger providing those who need with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt You must revere and honor the Holy one. Your God Onley God shall you worship to God? Shall you hold fast? And by the name of the Holy one Shall you swear God is your glory? And the one who wrought for you those marvelous awesome deeds that you saw with your own eyes. Mukora! Haim! Holy one! We stand before you in this moment, full of pain and full of promise In the midst of pandemic in the shadow of violent insurrection we lift up the ancient Jewish promise that after the long night of suffering a redemptive dawn will come. Your Reda Let Sora Aaliyah! We stand now at the inflection point between that tearful night and the joyous new day Give us strength, God as we usher in the dawn of a new America, Ah, justice driven, multiracial democracy, a New America that lifts up the poor and protects those most vulnerable. Help us today to imagine a new America that leaves behind the fallacy of profit over people and instead of firms that every one of us deserves to live in full dignity. A new America built on the recognition that each of us is part of an invisible web of humanity, that we belong to one another. That our highest calling as a nation is the sacred responsibility of caring for one another. A New America rooted in a shared commitment to healing, protecting and sustaining the Earth. A new America that abolishes the heresy of white supremacy and enlists all of us in dismantling racism and lifting up a theology of radical equality, A new America built on love, rooted in justice and propelled by our moral imagination. Together we rise to meet this new dawn to birth a new America. Together we affirm that the on leeway to heal is to tell the truth together we reckon with our past. And we lay the foundation for a more just future. Holy one. We ask that you protect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris that you strengthen their resolve as they lead us in rebuilding this nation with love for after the long night of suffering, a redemptive dawn is near. Let us say I'm in. Yeah. Jonathan is here from the great Navajo Nation with my wife, first lady of the Navajo Nation. Fulfill Ian is let us pray, are heavily creator except the fervent prayers of all your people for our nation and for all those who govern give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and strength of forbearance that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will keep this nation under your care In the name of Jesus Christ Chilean God, your a clean cadeau, eh? Yeah, honey, what's the deals? Well, let me there. Kareen National Net Midget ASHA and decrease sledding. Hot yoga Auto A banacci. You can see Zygo. She came here The now asked blush like Linux G abelard 18. All this are sanded less. Kony again Had nasa BJ Dusty Bennett, dusty able to religion, teach to the in your day or share than she didn't need or less. Otto Eben. Natural coach. Studying How it's over nacelle Net digit. Yeah, go acorn Economic That business The The notion Ecuador Tourism Jesus Christ. Amen. Strengthen the hearts of our president Joseph and our vice president. Common. Make them bold for the work you have set before them. Fill them with the love of justice and truth and make them ever mindful of their color. To serve all people of this land. Uphold them with vision, wisdom and grace that they may discharge their duties to protect the dignity and freedom off every person. Keep this nation under your care guide and bless senators and members of the House of Representatives that they may hear the people's voice and be led to enact laws for the common good and the protection of the most vomiting. Give them courage and forcibly to work together to serve the people of this nation faithfully and to fulfill our obligations in the community of nations. Keep this nation under your care. Stir up the passion and reverence of the justices of the Supreme Court for the rule of law and the way of justice fill their deliberations with insight and their judgments with integrity. May they discern the truth and administer the law with impartiality that human rights may be safeguarded and justice served for all. Keep this nation under your care. Oh Lord, God bless all who dedicate themselves to governing in our land and upholding our democracy. Enable us to be a people at peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth. May we serve you faithfully in our generation? Our men school What life? E e school. Just trying my studio. Oh, no. Star e stay Otherwise so see is this I'm sure. From the Holy Koran Chapter 57 vs four through seven. This melon Rahman Rahim and the name of God, the most gracious and the most merciful. He is the one who created the heavens and the Earth in six days, then established himself on the throne. He knows whatever goes into the earth and whatever comes out of it. Whatever descends from this guy on whatever ascends into it. And he is with you wherever you are. For Allah is all seeing of what you do to him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the Earth. And to Allah, all matters are returned. He emerges the night and today and the day and tonight. And he knows best what is hidden in the heart. Believe in Allah and his messenger and donate from what he has entrusted you with. So those of you who believe and donate will have a mighty reward. In the name of the law, the most gracious, the most merciful. The sun has risen once again and a new day has dawned upon us all. This gift of today is unique. From yesterday unattainable come the moral. Hence we acknowledge this blessing from you, O Lord, as we pray in your name. Dear Lord of the Universe. By your grace, you select and through your name, you guide. The elected officials of this nation recognized its greatness and have pledged to uphold and promote it as the greatest nation as they are selected to continue all the good in your name with the acceptance of that responsibility or supreme one, allow them through your grace to fulfill their duty selflessly to the best of their ability. Oh, merciful one. We as a people recognize the sacrifices that make us who we are and bless us with what we have. So to all those who continuously strive in, their dedicated service is for us all. We thank you for them. Oh, Lord, and ask that you shower upon them goodness from your treasures from distant lands within a radius of cultures. It is not the color of our skin or the languages we speak that even the way we live or the faith and believe we ascribe to rather the common ground that unites us all and makes us one and all here, in this nation of ours is our pledge to our flag and the promise to uphold our constitution. So, my lord, once more, guide us, inspire us. Use us as your tools of mercy and righteousness for this nation's commonwealth and the entire humanity. Love and unity, peace and stability for all I mean, God of compassion give to all the people of our land the desire to serve you and one another. Let us pray for those who, through any form of service, offer themselves in devotion to our nation. The aorta, compassion that Allah hinted in with a tear at the sale. A severe day. Yeah, serving virus was pro hemos Oremus Porto's loss keenness for quiet, your formally servicio off Fresen asi misma condo version and wet trapeze in the name of Jesus and a number of issues. I mean, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad grant them a sense of your abiding presence. Strengthen them in every trial and temptation, defend them in places of danger and peril, sustain them in their courage and dedication. Guide those who represent our nation as members of the diplomatic course that they may be ambassadors of hope, working for peace and goodwill among all people. Give us grace to do your will and all that we undertake. We pray for all who work in places of danger, who Russian to bring help and comfort, who offer hope when others flee to safety. Surround with your loving Carol all first responders who devote their lives to helping others keep them under your watchful eye that they may continue to save lives, ease pain and, by their presence, mend the Tauron fabric of lives and social order as the pandemic continues. Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake. We pray for the health care workers and the essential workers of this nation who answered the call to serve and continue to serve During these long months of the Kobe 19 pandemic, we give thanks for their selfless acts and personal sacrifices even when they are overwhelmed. Even when they are emotionally stretched beyond measure, we send them strength to continue their life, giving work with our love and support at their side. Nah, Nick Nam jar Nikola Terrebonne Sarah Bata Paula. In the name of divine oneness, we find ever rising high spirits within your will. May there be grace for all of humanity. Bless your people who govern in every place. Instill in the leaders of states and school boards, counties and cities, courts and agencies A disposition to use their authority for the betterment of all the people in their communities. Enlightened by your holy spirit, all teachers and educators give them a spirit of grace and compassion that they may have the strength and endurance to instill. Ah, love of learning new discovery in the pursuit of wisdom in those they teach Give us grace to do your will In all that we undertake Let us pray give to all the people of our land Oh God the desire to serve you in their life's work and publication May your presence be manifest in all that we say and do Weave together the work of every hand and the commitment of every heart For we recognize our interdependence, our responsibilities to one another and the mutuality of our destiny And together we say amen Ah, because oh, leaving on e sure Oh, yeah e you dio help us love those who would do us wrong sin You're cleansing power from a unite Hahaha Aziz one Make us fess up for the flow through of your love on a lot You know I want you out e e a sin. Your Yeah yeah t e. As President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have shown us in the years and months, we have traveled with them on their journey to this place Spiritual lives, lives of compassion and values, contemplative lives matter. It is with this assurance then that we now turn to a posture Prayer. We offer prayers for President Biden and Vice President Harris and their families. Prayers for peace and healing, prayers for the refugee and the homeless, prayers for all who find themselves at the margins of our society and culture. Prayers particularly for this great yet troubled nation of ours and prayers for the world. In the words of the African American mystic and pastor Howard Thurman, with a piece of the eternal in our step, how good it is to center down. Let us now center down in prayer. Oh God, whom we cannot love unless we love our neighbor. Why didn't the boundaries of our hearts that we may see you in one another? Let us pray for the most vulnerable in our communities. Hear our prayers for all who do the tedious, dirty and dangerous work which is necessary to sustain our life. Bless those who worked the fields and grant that all who depend upon their service may remember them with thankful hearts. Bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours. We remember before you the poor and neglected the unemployed and underemployed, the homeless and the destitute, the sick and suffering, especially those with co vid 19. The rejected and disempowered Give them the blessing of your presence that all in need, maybe relieved and protected. Bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours. Look with compassion upon the widowed and orphans, outcast and refugees, prisoners and all who are in danger that they may find you and be comforted. Bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours. We pray for an end to the injustices off racism and hatred in our nation that destroys lives and betrays our sacred humanity. Help us build a just society where all persons are recognized and treated as sacred. Bless all those lives are closely linked with ours for all Children and young people growing up in an unsteady and confusing world. Show them that yours is the way of life. And should they fall short of their own expectations, help them to see it not as a measure of their worth but as a chance for a new beginning. Give them strength, toe, hold their faith in you and to keep alive their joy in your creation. Bless all whose lives are closely linked with ours. Most of all, God fill our hearts with yourself giving love that our voices may speak your planes as you have moved towards us in love. So lead us to be present with all your people that we may faithfully minister in your name and witness to your love and grace to all the world. Amen. From the Hebrew scriptures, Isaiah, Chapter 58 versus 6 to 12 is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen toe loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke to set the oppressed free and break every yoke is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter? When you see the naked to clothe them and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood, then your life will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear. Then your righteousness will go before you. In the glory of the Lord will be your rearguard. Then you will call. The Lord will answer. You will cry for help and the Lord will say here, um, I if you do away with the yolk of oppression with the pointing finger and malicious talk and If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always. The Lord will satisfy your needs and the sun scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age old foundations. You will be called repairer of broken walls. Restore her of streets with dwellings. Isaiah 58 6 to 12. Lord, please help us hold us and harness us for your purposes and for your glory. Amen. Our text this morning comes from the Prophet Isaiah. Chapter 58 it begins. This is the kind of fast they arm after to break the chains of injustice. Get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, canceled debts. What I'm interested in is seeing you do is I want you to share your food with the hungry. Invite the poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill clad, and it ends saying if you get rid of unfair practices. Quit blaming victims. Quit gossiping about other people's sins. If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down and out, your lives will begin to glow in the darkness. You will use the old rubble of past lives to build a new rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You will be known as repairers of the breach. Those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate make the community livable again. The text this morning is from the Prophet Isaiah, but the profit being able to see the future may have taken his text from the old chitlin circuit. Comment Moms Mabley, who used to tell what one Strawberry said to the other Strawberry, If we hadn't been in that bed together, we wouldn't be in this jam. Today where we are in a jam today. Trouble is riel, and whether we like it or not, we are in this mess together as a nation. When this word of the Lord came toe Isaiah Hiss, people were also in a jam. Bad leadership, greed and injustice and lies had led them into trouble. Exile and economic hardship in that day. Some try to simply cover up the trouble with false religion and deceit. But God said to the prophet sound the trumpet. Tell the nation of its sin. Tell them that just going through the motions of prayer will not get them out of this jam. I need them to repent off what got them here and turn in a new direction. The prophet was saying what Jesus would say about nations caring for the least of these. The prophet was saying then what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in the 19 thirties to in America, with one third of the nation ill housed, ill clad and ill nourished, besieged by the Great Depression and beset by bigotry and hatred at such a time as this, FDR said, The rest of our progress is not whether we ADM or two, the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. Isaiah was saying what Dr King said to America When we face the jam in the 19 sixties, the time has come for an all out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast re sources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped school, the unschooled and feed the unfair. Ultimately, ah, great nation is a compassionate nation. The profits basic question to the leadership of his day was the question the economist Joseph Stiglitz has asked. Not how much will it cost the government to address inequality? But how much has it cost us not to? It is the truth Aretha Franklin pointed to when she sang Holy, Holy, come together We've got to come together. We can rock this Earth's foundation. Holla, love. Across the nation, we proclaim love our salvation. Yes, we can. And so the profit gives the nation God's clear guidance out of the jam it is in choose first to repent of the policy sin and then repair the breach. The breach, according to the imagery of Isaiah, is when there is a gap in the nation between what is and how God wants things to be transposed. Tow our time. The breach is when we say one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all with our lips, while we see the rich and the poor living in two very different Americas, the breach would be knowing the only way to ensure domestic tranquility is to establish justice. It is pretending that we can address the nation's wounds with simplistic calls for unity. That is not how we can close the breach. The breach is telling lives when we need truth, greed, when we need compassion fighting one another when we need to find common ground and hating when we ought to be loving. And every now and then a nation needs breach repairers to take us forward. Mr. President, you have known the breach of economic struggle in your childhood and the breach of a broken heart. Madam Vice President, You have known the political and social breach caused by racism that tried to place a breach between the intelligence you had and the school You could attend your mother fault and organized because she knew this nation's breach. And both of you know that the only way forward is for the breaches to be repaired. This moment in our union is not about left and right or centrist. It should not be about Republicans and Democrats. Even what we saw happen at the Capitol two weeks ago is the result of a long history. Ah, politics of division that was cynically named positive polarization by those who thought they could use it for their own political advantage. This strategy of feeding and seeding intentional racial class division into the body politics spilled over into the inevitable violence that ideas of supremacy always produced. If we want to come out of this jam and move forward together, we cannot accept the racial disparities and racial violence and breaches that impact black, Brown, native and Asian Americans while offering collateral damage to our poor white brothers and sisters and ultimately, our entire democracy. We can't accept the poverty and low wealth off 140 million Americans before Cove it and many more million sense. We must have a third reconstruction. We must address the five interlocking injustices off systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, denial of health care, the war economy and the false, distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. These are breaches that must be addressed, and according to the text, repairing the breaches will bring revival if you get rid of unfair practices, the prophet says. If you are generous with the hungry, If you start giving yourselves to the down and out, then you'll be known as repairers of the breach. Those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate and make the community livable again. If we make the choice, there is hope in the morning. M o u R n I N G Juergen Motoman once said, faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patients but impatience. Those who hope in God can no longer put up with reality as it is, but began to suffer under it to contradict him. We don't have to put up with things as they are. We can contradict the breach with every prayer, every policy, every sermon from every pulpit and every call to the people. If we, the people with God's help, repair the breach, revival and renewal will come. Weeping and mourning may endure in this night of our discontent, but joy will come in the morning. Love and light will burst through. God will hear our prayers if we do the work of repairing societies. Breach. No, America has never yet been all that she has hoped to be. But right here and right now, a third reconstruction is possible if we choose so Let us ask God again. What? That great preacher and him. Writer Harry Emerson Foz Dick asked in the midst of the Great Depression, when the nation was in a jam and needed some breach repairs, he wrote and sang and prayed, God of grace and God of glory on thy people. Pour thy power cure thy Children's warring madness Bend our pride to die control Shame are wanton, selfish, gladness, rich in things and poor and soul Save us from week resignation to the evils we deplore. Let the search for thy salvation be our glory evermore all car grant us wisdom and grant us courage for the facing of this hour for the facing of this hour. Yes, God grant us wisdom and grant us courage until thoughts of destroying one another give way to deeds of embracing each other until our policies prove our promise off equal justice under law. Until we decide to many have been hurting too long. Grant us grant us courage until in every way we show in our democratic process that everybody has a right to live until we lift from the bottom so that everybody rises until the stones that the builders rejected become the chief cornerstones of a new social reality. Please God grant us wisdom. Grant us courage for the facing of this hour until together we make sure the poor are lifted, the sick or he'll Children are protected. Civil rights and human rights are never neglected. Grant us wisdom and courage for the facing of this hour until love and justice are never rejected. Grant us wisdom and courage for the facing of this hour until together we make sure there is racial justice and economic justice and living wage, justice and healthcare. Justice and ecological justice and disability. Justice and justice for homeless and justice for the poor and low wealth and working poor. An immigrant justice. Until we study war no more and peace and justice are the way we live. This is the only path to domestic tranquility and healing. So gracious and great God grant us as a people grant us as an entire nation. Grant our new president. Grant our new vice president. Grant every preacher grant every politician. Grant every person black and white, Latino, native, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, A person of faith. People not a faith, but with the moral conscience grant every human being created by God, documented or undocumented. Gay, straight or trans younger. Oh, and what a day it will be when our Children's Children call us what you have called us to be. Repair us off the breach a man. All right, so we got a little song for you and we want you to know that you are. That's right. Come on, girls. She Oh, e way e e That was on my e between a e e o that were less on Everybody in here got that testimony. Don't you know that? It's amazing. Amazing e and highly let us pray with reference and affection o ever living God we remember before you all lost to Cove in 19. In our nation, we thank you for the gift of their lives among us as family and friends comfort us now in our grief and keep us in union with them through our faith and love towards you, we entrust them to your care as we pause and silence to remember and honor them loving God. Embrace us in this moment with your love and grant us the hope and promise off New life. Amen. And now, to sum up all our petitions, let us pray in the language of our hearts. The words that Jesus taught his disciples. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for dying Is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever? Um n almighty God kindle. We pray in every heart the true love of peace and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for this country and the nations of the Earth that, in tranquility to your Dominion may increase until the Earth is filled with the knowledge of your love Through Jesus Christ, our lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit. One god now and forever. I'm in Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love Where there is injury Pardon Where there is discord Union where there is doubt faith. But there is despair. Hope where there is darkness light where there is sadness, joy grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to consult, to be understood, as to understand, to be loved as to love what is in giving that we receive. And it is important, Ning, that we're partner and it is in dying that were born to eternal life. Amen. Almighty God, you have given us this good land as our heritage make us always remember your generosity and constantly do your will Bless our land with honest industry in an honorable way of life. Save us from violence, discord and confusion from pride and arrogance and from every evil way make us who come from many nations with many different languages. Ah, united people defend our liberties and give those whom we have entrusted with the authority of government that spirit of wisdom that there might be justice and peace in our land. When times a prosperous let our hearts be thankful and in troubled times Do not let our trust in you fail in your holy name, we pray. Amen. Oh, beautiful for spacious skies, for way for purple mountains Majesties, hop off the froth America, America! God shed his grace on Be on crown E way with e from seed Thio Oh, beautiful for spacious sky or wait for Purple Mountain Majesties, thank you. Way with way by good with way from sea to sh e Go forth into the world in peace Be strong and of good courage Hold fast to that which is good Render to no one evil for evil But love the Lord Your God love your neighbor Love yourself God love you God bless you And may God hold us all in those almighty hands of love Go forth in peace Be watchful, stand firm in your faith Be courageous and strong Let all you do be done in love Thanks to be God Yeah, yeah, yeah Give me that! Yeah, yeah e e yeah!