Dear Gulf Coast Leaders,

Lutherhill photos. Photos of yesterday’s dedication ceremony will continue to populate this week at this PhotoBucket.
Prayer List – Consider these for your personal and congregational prayers.
Lectionary – A summary of the upcoming lessons.
Gulf Spill – Call to prayer and action.
Hurricane Season – Prepare.
Since the 4th of July falls on a Sunday this year, consider using ELW 887 as your hymn of the month, though perhaps not as slowly as this choir.
June 6 prayer vigil
Join me for a continuing ed event on preaching this summer. With the author of The Four Pages of the Sermon, at TLU this summer. Preaching as God Talk. Register here.

Juneteenth, A Texas Celebration

In Galatians 2, Paul describes his side of the conflict with Peter. Peter eats with Greeks, until the other Jews arrive, and then he doesn’t. Paul sees this as hypocritical and inconsistent. Was Peter’s shunning racial, religious or something else? Perhaps he didn’t know himself. Our prejudices and taboos are so deeply seated. For the Paul of Galatians, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection means these distinctions become irrelevant. Not non-existant, but irrelevant. Race doesn’t matter. Even their religious differences shouldn’t constitute walls for Paul.

Juneteenth was a new thing to me when I moved to Texas. Also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, Juneteenth (June 19) commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865.

The holiday originated here in Galveston. For more than a century, the state of Texas was the primary home of Juneteenth celebrations, but It is recognized as a state holiday in 35 states: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Though Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with an effective date of January 1, 1863, it had minimal immediate effect on most slaves’ day-to-day lives, particularly in Texas, which was almost entirely under Confederate control. People did not know they were free, because the slave owners did not necessarily tell anyone. Texas was resistant to the Emancipation Proclamation, and though slavery was very prevalent in East Texas, it was not as common in the Western areas of Texas, particularly the Hill Country, where most German-Americans were opposed to slavery.

June 18 is the day Union General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take possession of the state and enforce the emancipation of its slaves. On June 19, 1865, legend has it while standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read the contents of "General Order No. 3":

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere…

Former slaves in Galveston rejoiced in the streets with jubilant celebrations. Juneteenth celebrations began in Texas the following year. Across many parts of Texas, freed people pooled their funds to purchase land specifically for their communities’ increasingly large Juneteenth gatherings – including Houston’s Emancipation Park, Mexia’s Booker T. Washington Park, and Emancipation Park in Austin.

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Gallatians 3

Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother-especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
Philemon 15-16

Michael Rinehart, bishop

Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod

12941 I-45 North Freeway, Suite #210

Houston, Texas 77060-1243

(281) 873-5665

Synod Webpage: GulfCoastSynod.org

Bishop’s Webpage: BishopMike.com

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