St. Luke’s in the Meadow Episcopal Church
June 1, 2025, Easter 7C
Acts 16:16-34, Psalm 97, Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21, John 17:20-26
Homily inspired by Tina Francis and preached by The Rev. Karen A. Calafat

In her impressive Bible study, seminarian Tina Francis writes, “[The disciples] stood in the hollow of time. In the ache between what had been and what had not yet begun. Jesus was gone. The Spirit—that wild, uncatchable thing—had not yet whispered their names. They were between stories, between breaths. The resurrection had happened. But the world had not yet caught up.

‘This week’s readings don’t offer closure. They invite us into the raw, unresolved tension of faith. The kind that bruises but sings. The kind that waits—with breath caught between pain and promise.
A longing stretched out too long. A hope whispered into silence. They had seen a miracle, the impossible. And still—Rome was Rome. The whip still cracked. The coins still clinked in the hands of those with palaces, but no neighbors.

‘And yet, something was moving. Not in the palace. Not in the courts. But in the bruised mouths of prisoners who sang at midnight. In the tremble of the ground beneath men who thought themselves immovable. This kingdom wasn’t coming the way kingdoms usually do. No trumpets. No thrones. Just an empty tomb. A waiting room. A prayer mumbled into the dark.

‘And still—love. A love that sits in the tension of an unfinished story.”

Today is the beginning of Pride Month where, for many, love still “sits in the tension of unfinished stories,” where prayers are still mumbled into the dark, where dreams still wait with bated breath for the full inclusion and affirmation of LGBTQ people, where hope is whispered into silence and refuses to give up, even as LGBT rights are being rolled back and stripped away right here in our state.

Jesus prays. Jesus prays that we would love one another. Jesus prays that people would be one with each other.

Seminarian Francis says, “Not unity like Rome. Rome liked its lines straight, and its sandals polished, and its enemies quiet. Jesus asks for a different kind of oneness—that’s ragged and stitched together and a little leaky at the seams. The kind [of oneness] that takes work. That smells like soup and tears.
This unity—this holy, fragile thing—is not about disappearing. It’s about becoming. Becoming bound in love so thick, so visible, so stubborn it refuses to leave.” That is what Pride is about – it is about being visible so that the teenager who feels their life is not worth living has examples of love that give them the courage to live on; examples of being and becoming that show them they matter.

“So that the world may believe,” Jesus said. Not because we’ve argued them into it, or because we’ve dazzled them with brilliance or force, (or guilt). But because there is something in this way of love that undoes the world’s logic. Something so tender, it feels dangerous. Something so faithful, it sets the soul free. Love that sings even with broken ribs. Love that keeps binding wounds long after the headlines have moved on.”

This is Jesus’ final prayer: that love would outlive the wound. That oneness would triumph over fear. That we would not forget how to belong to each other.”

“Love that sings even with broken ribs,” reminds me of Pauli Murray’s statement, “hope is a song in a weary throat.” The fight for equal rights has been long fought with many broken ribs and weary throats that keep nudging us forward because, in Murray’s words, “In the quest for human dignity, one is part of a continuous movement through time and history linked to a higher moral force in the universe.”

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, born in 1910 and died at the age of 74 in 1985. Anna Pauline Murray, was a person before her time in so many ways. She was orphaned at the age of 3 and raised by an aunt who let Pauli be Pauli, dressing like a boy during the week, but required her to wear a dress to church on Sundays. Aunt Pauline referred to Pauli as “my little boygirl.”

Pauli said of herself that she was “one of nature’s experiments: a girl who should have been a boy.” She struggled throughout her life with her identity, being hospitalized many times with depression caused by the inner conflict of feeling like a male in a female body. She described her life as “somewhat unbearable” with a sense of “in-betweenness” in both categories of race and gender, which she believed were arbitrary and not a legal basis for discussion.

Pauli was an accomplished person – poet, lawyer, and priest.

She fought for human rights from an early age, refusing to believe that women were inferior to men and that blacks were inferior to whites. She said this notion violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which called for equality for all persons.

In 1940, 15 years before the Rosa Parks bus incident, Pauli was arrested for refusing to move from the white section of the bus to a broken seat in the black section of the bus. Pauli soon realized she needed tools to work with in addressing human rights, which led her to law school. She did not have an easy path, being denied from some schools based on color and others based on gender.
She became a great lawyer and wrote prolific letters to President Roosevelt and the 1st lady, expressing her disapproval of certain policies. She called her protests, “confrontation by typewriter.” She and Eleanor Roosevelt became close friends.

Pauli was a forerunner to Ruth Bader Ginsburg on gender issues. In several cases, Justice Ginsburg quoted and cited Pauli’s work. Pauli said her “sweetest victory” was convincing the ACLU that women should be able to serve on its board, because otherwise the union was itself in violation of the 14th Amendment.

Pauli met the love of her life, Irene “Reenie” Barlow, at the law firm where they both worked. Their relationship was described as “friends,” but the prolific letters they wrote revealed the depth of their relationship and love for each other. Interestingly, one of the things that bonded them together was discovering that they were both “worshipping Episcopalians.”

After Reenie died in 1973, Pauli found herself drawn more deeply to the moral and spiritual aspects of addressing human rights, which led her to seminary and eventually to becoming an Episcopal priest in 1977 – the 1st African American woman, actually non-binary person, to be ordained to the priesthood. Her first eucharist was prayed at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the church where her grandmother had been baptized as an enslaved person.

The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray’s work continues to influence law, even as recently as 2020, when the ACLU won a case building on her work prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people.

At the end of her life, Rev. Murray said, “I have lived to see my lost causes found.” Her autobiography is titled Song in a Weary Throat.

Last year, a commemorative quarter was issued for Pauli. On the back it has HOPE in large letters, and “a song in a weary throat” in very small letters. Thanks to help from Katie, we have a quarter for each household. Please let this be a reminder that we continue to “strive for justice for all God’s children,” as well as striving toward the love and unity that Jesus prayed for.

(adapted from Tina Francis) “This is (Jesus’) final prayer: that love would be the way. That unity, oneness, would triumph over fear. That we would not forget how to belong to each other.”

Sing on, Dear Ones, sing on!
And when your throats are weary, sing on… and sing together!