The story of Pauli Murray.
Dear friends and members of St. Matt's,
Last week, the church celebrated the feast of Pauli Murray. A civil rights activist, lawyer, author, poet, and Episcopal Priest, Pauli is most well known for her writing. She was the first African American woman ordained to the Priesthood in the Episcopal Church. She studied at Hunter College, Howard University, Harvard University, and finally Yale, where her legacy was just honored when Yale decided to name one of their new undergraduate colleges after her.
Both inside and outside the walls of the church, Pauli was an advocate for justice and equality. Her deep faith in Jesus Christ and her vocation as a Priest led her to believe that all God's people were created equal. And she carried this truth with her everywhere she went. She lived a wide life, having influence in many spheres, reaching across many barriers, seeking justice for women, for African Americans, and for all the people that God created. And in so many places, she met with barriers, obstacles, cruelty, and injustice. Yet, she remained faithful, insistent, and kind. If you're not familiar with her story, you can read more about her here and here. What always stays with me about Pauli is the quiet insistence in her writing, the way that she just refuses to be distracted from the work that God has given her to do. In fact, one of her more famous lines was, "One person plus one typewriter constitutes a movement."
All of us have been given work to do by the God who loves us, the God who created us. And the world will be a better place when we all use our gifts, our talents, our resources to do that work that only we can do. If anything, Pauli's memory should be a challenge and an encouragement to discern the work to which God is calling you and to stay with it. Even when it seems hard or complicated. Pauli faced more resistance than most of us will ever know, and yet she stayed the path - lovingly insisting on what she knew to be true.
What do you know to be true? What work have you been given to do? What can you learn from Pauli's love of justice?
Faithfully,
--Marissa +
Liberating God, we thank you for the steadfast courage of your servant Pauli Murray, who fought long and well: Unshackle us from bonds of prejudice and fear so that we show forth your reconciling love and true freedom, which you revealed through your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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