Our reading today is from the Gospel according to Luke. It is an incident which frames the beginning of Jesus ministry, his mission statement, if you will. Justice always requires help. This is one of the messages of our Scripture reading today. Justice does not happen by itself, justice will not arrive just because it is in the air or because fate will have it so.
Justice requires help.
Picture, if you will, a warm, breezy night on the Caribbean Sea in the year of our Lord 1839. A fine night for sailing. The beautiful, rakish two-masted Spanish schooner La Amistad speeds from Havana under a silver moon. The slave trade is in full swing in 1839. Africans of many cultures and languages are sold to Portuguese slavers in West Africa, then shipped across the long-middle passage to Cuba.