December 16

I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will…gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. Zephaniah 3:14-20

Hill Brown, Southern Director of Faith in Harm Reduction and Chaplain

“What abolition still gives us, if we take it seriously, is a way of understanding that if freedom is a place, then abolition is life in rehearsal of making that place.” -Ruth Wilson Gilmore

 

People who use drugs have endured so much injustice as a result of a drug war the United States built and has consistently expanded. Just like the war on poverty quickly became a war on poor people, the war on illicit substances has become a coordinated attack on people who use drugs and their families.

This passage from Zephaniah reminds us that our God is not simply concerned with the plight of those harmed by death-dealing societies. God is siding with the outcast, keeping a record of their treatment, working out a reality in which the whole system is undone, and the ashamed are adored and uplifted. The Harm Reduction movement embodies the kind of work God promises as a future for God’s people: advocating for an end to prohibition, incarceration, and overdose while lifting up people who use drugs as experts and vital leaders in this work.

During this Advent season, as we await the birth of the Great Liberator, we also anticipate (and recommit ourselves to) a way of life that eliminates disaster for the person who uses drugs and their loved ones. If we are cast out for this solidarity, may we take comfort in the knowledge that God has promised to gather us up and hold us close.

Prayer

Loving Liberator, whose coming among us we await,
inspire us to become the promised future we are waiting for. 
Where there is disaster, let us become healing.
Where there is reproach, let us become praise.
Where there is oppression, let us become accountability.
Where there is casting out, let us become welcome.
Where there is shame, let us become dignity.
Until all know the truth of your loving liberation, we pray.  Amen.

Freedom Song

Music: “Lie on the Grass”
Offered by: Lynice Pinkard