Liberated from Oppression (without oppressing anyone else)

Definitions “Prolonged cruel or unjust treatment” - Oxford Oppresion is the asymmetrical relationship between two otherwise equal parties – oppressor and oppressed – that originates in an uneven distribution and/or use of power, and renders benefit to the oppressor at the expense of the interests or will of the oppressed. - Wikipedia

Luke 4.19-19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,     because he has anointed me         to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives     and recovery of sight to the blind,         to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

“living into the truth of being free” Taking back our power without taking away someone else’s appropriate power

Who says whether you have worth/value? Who says whether you have choice? Who really says whether or not you are free to do those things that matter the most?

Cost of freedom Possible suffering, persecution and death (This was the promise all along remember…) Willingness to pay this cost is the only thing that will bring freedom

“I left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” – “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.,”

Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited He recognized with authentic realism that anyone who lets another determine the quality of his inner life gives into the hands of the other the keys to his destiny. If a man knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection. It is a man’s reaction to things that determines their ability to exercise power over him.

The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish teacher and thinker appears as a technique of survival for the oppressed. That it became, through the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage, for he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited need have no dominion over them.

Michael (MJ) Sharp

If we do these things we are free Love like you are free (and loved) Share like you have enough Work like you work for God (and/or for the good of the Earth/humanity) Choose like you are free to choose what’s right Tell the truth (bear honest witness) regardless of consequences

The Welcome of God (embodied in community) can give us the trust and courage to live out this freedom