Today we gather to celebrate Emancipendence, and our theme is: United in Celebrating Resilience through Freedom. Once again, we are called to consider where we are as a people and to remind ourselves who we are and how far we have come.

The theme for this year’s Independence is United in Celebrating Resilience and since emancipation is always about freedom, I have extended it for our reflection to be ‘United in Celebrating Resilience through Freedom.’

We need to have a common understanding of resilience, Freedom Independence and Emancipation. I recognize that none of these situations is a onetime act. They may begin as a single act but each of them consists of ongoing activities to maintain them. Resilience is the ability to keep going through difficult times, adapting oneself and eventually rising from adversity. The word has the same roots as resurrection.

Independence defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary means, freedom from outside control, support, or influence. It is the state of running your own life, country, or finances by yourself. But that never quite happens, because external forces, always intervene. These intervening forces, Paul refers to as principalities and powers. Independence is therefore a misleading term, because it is never fully achieved as we have to compromise and adjust to accommodate others.

Emancipation which is where I would like to focus our thoughts today, is the act of setting someone free from the control, power, or legal authority of another person, group, or system. It brings liberty, own choices and equal rights where control or bondage once existed.
Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and make choices without causing cruelty, control, or slavery. It is Being able to make choices and taking an action of your own choosing. Freedom will always be relative to the situation in which you are.

Freedom is something we should never take for granted. For many of us, freedom can seem like an ordinary part of life. We wake up, go where we want to go, choose what we want to do, and make decisions about our lives. But not so for others, particularly the vulnerable among us, children the elderly, the sick, the abused. When we remember our history, we understand that freedom comes at a great cost.

Emancipation then is more than a date on the calendar. It is a reminder of where we have come from, what our ancestors endured, and it says to us there is a price that was paid, that is always being paid for the freedom we enjoy today. Galatians tells us that It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. You and I are called to be free. The passage goes on to say we must not use our freedom to indulge the flesh; to abuse or keep back another, rather, serve one another humbly in love. Freedom is to be found in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

When we speak about emancipation in Jamaica, we remember generations of enslaved people who were brought here against their will, separated from their families and communities, stripped of their freedom and treated as property.

Yet, they, our forebears, refused to allow oppression to destroy their humanity. They worked. They prayed. They sang. They created families and relationships. They preserved traditions. They resisted injustice as best they could. They dreamed of freedom and they worked towards it. That freedom came through struggle, courage, sacrifice, faith and perseverance. And they survived, making them resilient. A trait we must adopt too.

Our reading from Deuteronomy 8 reminds us not to forget. Moses warns the people of Israel that when they enter the Promised Land and enjoy its blessings, they must remember that it was the Lord who brought them through their struggles. Implicit in this reminder is that they must understand who they are – that is their identity. They were Israelites and a wandering Armenian Abraham was their ancestor and God brought them out of bondage in Egypt. Memory comes through an understanding of what is important to keep. And we, we must not forget who we are, we must not forget the sacrifices that our ancestors made to bring us here, including the fathers of our Independence. Even while some may say forget about slavery. It is our roots. We must remember the plantations but without bitterness, but with a resolve, that we will not allow a similar thing to happen to others. We must remember that there are people, whose names were never recorded in history, but whose labour helped to build this nation.

To be free we must hold this memory dear to us. because when we take our freedom for granted, we make choices that do not help the common good. When we forget the struggle, we may fail to recognize injustice when it appears in a different form. Today we celebrate not just freedom from something, we celebrate freedom for something. Freedom to live with dignity. To serve. To love, to worship god, to build a more just and compassionate society.
When we forget the sacrifices of those who came before us, we may become careless with the opportunities they helped to create.

Celebrating Emancipation teaches us to Remember the past but not to live in the past, but to learn from it and to build a better future.

Psalm 146 reminds us that God is concerned about freedom and matches well with Luke 4:16-19 which I do believe is a passage of scripture if we are able we should know by heart. If not, we need to know the essence of it. It is a quote of Isaiah 61:1-3. It sentiments are recorded elsewhere. It speak about justice to the oppressed, giving food to the hungry, setting prisoners free, lifting up those who are bowed down and watching over the stranger and the vulnerable.
This means that the struggle for freedom is not foreign to the heart of God. God cares about human dignity.

God cares when people are oppressed. God cares when people are denied justice. God cares when the vulnerable are forgotten. As Christians, we cannot celebrate emancipation merely as a historical event. We celebrating freedom reflects something about God’s own character.

Because God is a God who brings people out of bondage. The spirit of God is within us which helps us to do the same. The Bible is filled with stories of God bringing people from slavery to freedom, from oppression to hope, from darkness to light.

And our Jamaican story is not any different. We are reminded that even in the darkest national or personal circumstances, the human spirit can continue to hope.
Our ancestors had little control over the conditions in which they found themselves, but they refused to surrender their hope. They made the culture we now revere. Our music, language, food, traditions and indigenous forms of worship.

They found ways to maintain their dignity in a system designed to take that humanity away.
Freedom is the centre of Jesus’ ministry. God made us to be our best human selves. It is freedom from whatever that keeps us from becoming the people God created us to be.

Luke 4 tells us we must be free from oppression. Free from hopelessness. Free from injustice. Free from hatred. Free from systems that crush people.

And that challenges us as we celebrate Emancipation to refuse to be a part of a system that lacks care.
Let us choose to be Free to serve. Free to educate. Free to create opportunities. Free to care for one another. Free to stand against injustice. Free to ensure that the next generation has greater opportunities than the generation before.

Freedom is not simply being able to do whatever we want. Freedom is having the opportunity and responsibility to do what is right. And so, as Jamaicans, we must ask ourselves: What kind of Jamaica are we building? Are we creating a Jamaica where every child has an opportunity?
Are we standing against violence? confronting corruption and dishonesty? caring for the poor and elderly? protecting our children?

One of the most important lessons of Emancipation is that freedom cannot be only for some. Freedom is for all. And one size does not fit all.

We cannot celebrate our own freedom while ignoring the person who is still trapped in poverty, violence and other forms of abuse.

It is Malcolm X who taught that freedom is not a gift granted by oppressors, but an inherent right that must be actively claimed, defined, and defended. It is what the gospel teaches that we are agents of our own freedom and as the post communion prayer says we work so that all God’s children shall be free.
So, as we celebrate Emancipation and prepare to celebrate Independence, let us remember that freedom is not an achievement to be admired from a distance; it is a gift to be lived responsibly every day. The resilience of our ancestors inspires resilience in us. It is a part of our generational DNA. They refused to surrender their humanity. We must refuse to surrender our integrity, our compassion, or our commitment to justice.

As Jamaicans, we must keep looking forward giving thanks for how far God has brought us, but we must never become satisfied while poverty, violence, corruption, inequality and hopelessness continue to rob our people of the fullness of life God intends.

We are challenged to ensure that emancipation is more than a historical memory. That it is our lived reality in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our churches and our communities. Every time we stand up for truth, every time we defend the dignity of another person, every time we reject corruption, every time we nurture a child, care for the elderly, protect the vulnerable or forgive instead of seeking revenge, we become instruments of the freedom Christ came to proclaim.

The message is 1. Remember. 2. Trust in the God who defends the oppressed. 3. Walk by faith and keep looking toward God’s future. And Jesus, says, 4. Proclaim the good news, bring freedom to the captive, and let the oppressed go free. May that become our national vocation. May we be united in celebrating resilience through freedom and in building a Jamaica where freedom is accompanied by justice, where opportunity is shared by all, where every child dreams, every family flourishes, and every citizen is treated with dignity as one created in the image of God. May God help us Amen