Stir Up Your Power

This Sunday the collect begins with the words: “Stir up your power, O Lord…”

In Merry Old England, this was the prompt for women to begin stirring up their Christmas puddings.  And at the Forney house, my wife makes the most delicious persimmon pudding with hot lemon sauce.  To die for!

It is also Gaudete Sunday.  From the first word in Latin that begins the entrance antiphon – sort of like our Collect.  Gaudete – Rejoice.  And will we ever.  We’ll light the pink candle on the Advent wreath.  And we’ll have our Christmas dinner after worship.

We rejoice in our work with St. John’s Food Bank.  Soon looking to have winter vegetables planted.  A big round of thanks to all at St. Francis and St. John’s that bring this ministry to those in need.  Gaudete – Rejoice.  It comes under the rubric WWJD.  Feed the multitudes, though our project is not quite up to the legendary 5000 Jesus fed.  But, then, we’re just not in his class.   But we do what we can.  Gaudete – Rejoice.

We’re not left without resources, however – “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us…”

This last Thursday Inland Congregations United for Change, of which St. Francis is well represented, held a meeting on Sanctuary Congregations. 

After a presentation from some of us who had been active in previous sanctuary operations, ICUC decided to make that a key objective for the coming year.  This spurred on by the announcement of those of the incoming administration to instantly deport all “illegals” on Day One.

Stir up your power, O Lord, for our undocumented brothers and sisters need our solidarity.  Stir up your power, indeed!

We bear the scars of the previous iteration of this hateful policy of family separation.

Recently, in the New York Times – yeah, I know, the fake news – a young boy told of the trauma he faced and emotional scars he now bears as having  been jerked away from his father.

“Pried from his father’s arms by federal agents at the southern border, José was one of thousands of migrant children separated from their parents under a Trump-era crackdown that came to epitomize the former president’s harsh immigration agenda.”[1]

José was taken when he was five years-old and placed with a foster family.  Today he is in the sixth grade and trusts nobody but his immediate family.

He is excelling academically and plays in the school band, mastering guitar.  He is an avid soccer player.  He has earned high praise from his teachers.

“’You possess all the qualities to take you very far in life,’ his English teacher, Ms. Keller, said in a handwritten note to him dated October 2.”

Cruelty was the point.  The objective was to so scare parents that they would not cross the border.

Many parents and children, some as young as only months old, have been separated for years.  Some 1400 children to this date remain apart from their parents.

It was only through the heroic efforts that any lists were saved, fragmentary as they are.  Some wanted them destroyed.

Record keeping was so haphazard that it’s difficult if not almost impossible to reunite these children with their families.  Orphans forever.  Imagine if your child were ripped from your arms, only months old.  Not only would your son or daughter be permanently scarred, so would you.  For the rest of your life, never knowing what happened to them.  Where they now were.

Cruelty is the point.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among us.  Give those seeking to reunite these families perseverance and the strength to continue their heartfelt mission.  Stir up your power, for our sins as a nation stink to the high heavens and weigh heavy upon us.

Stir up your power and give José healing for his invisible wounds.  Raise him up among us to be a mighty warrior for justice.

The wounds are deep and the scar tissue virtually impenetrable. 

His foster mother relates the trauma of that young boy.

“When Janice Barbee, who fostered José, picked him up at the Grand Rapids, Michigan airport in May of 2018, ‘all I could see was fear and confusion in those beautiful brown eyes,’ she recalled.  He did not cry.  He would not hold her hand.”[2]

Janice Barbee continues, “Even as he seemed to grow more comfortable, José guarded two small pieces of paper – a stick-figure drawing of his family and a sketch of his father in a cap.  He carried them wherever he went during the day and tucked them under his pillow at night.”[3]

“’One day, José had a meltdown, all the while clutching the family drawing…He held onto it as he cried and wailed on my kitchen floor,’ she said.”

“In that moment I wondered if he would ever heal from this unimaginable trauma of separation.”

His father, in the meantime, feared that he might be put up for adoption.  Worried that he might not ever see his son again he refused to be repatriated back to Honduras.  He would not leave José behind, no matter what.

If there is any happy end to this story, father and son were finally reunited after enough public outrage caused the administration to change course.  Five months after they were separated.

And of course, the trauma affects parents as well.  José’s father has been too frightened and distrustful to seek the assistance and support to which he is entitled.  As a result, they have not received any of the benefits provided under the legal settlement of this policy.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among these parents with wings of healing and empowerment.

José is aware of the coming election.  When asked about it he responded, ‘Trump doesn’t like immigrants.”  And added, “I can’t vote.”

But in 2026 we can!  We’ll hope for the best and see how this administration staffed with misfits, sexual abusers, the incompetent and grifters plays out.  Let us pray for them that they might grow into their responsibilities.  AND….AND… we’ll have the chance for a new Congress that might be willing to stand up to any malfeasance.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come among us for our republic is teetering on the edge.  Stir up your power, O Lord, and give us the will, if necessary, as John Lewis urged, to “Get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble.” 

For the sake of our vulnerable brothers and sisters in their hour of need — Solidarity Forever.  And light that pink candle.  We are not without Power from on High.  Gaudete!  Amen.

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[1] Miriam Jordan, “He Never Forgot the Border Agents Who Took Him From His Father,” Los Angeles Times, October. 30, 2024/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. and following quotes.

December 15, 2024
Advent 3

Zephaniah 3:14-20; Canticle 9 (Isaiah 12:2-6);
Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18 “Stir Up Your Power”