Harriet Ross Tubman

Harriet Ross Tubman, 1923, Social Reformer

Luke 11:5-10

Harriet Tubman is rightly honored for her bravery and persistence in freeing people suffering under the burden of slavery in this country.  She worked tirelessly to bring others to freedom.  After escaping to Canada herself, she knew that wasn’t enough, and went back to Maryland many times to free her family and others—over 300 enslaved people walked to freedom because of her commitment.

We’ve heard many stories about the struggles of her life and all the good she did, but I want to focus on something specific she said as she first crossed the border into Pennsylvania, where she was finally free.  She said that, in sensing the feeling of the burden of slavery being lifted from her shoulders, “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.”

Obviously, yes, she was.  But the overwhelming change of her status made her doubt.  Because even though she was the same person, the reality around her had changed.  The landscape shifted.  A parallel question might be asked at that same moment: I looked at my freedom to see if I was in the same country.  And yes, she was.  Harriet Tubman did amazing things in her lifetime—a truly great woman.  But she only needed to be great because everything around her was so awful.  She had been so oppressed in the so-called “land of the free” that when she finally was free, she thought that she must have physically changed.  “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.”

But I’ve been thinking that the gospel reading assigned for today might actually place our focus on the wrong person.  We hear of the neighbor who won’t give his friend a few loaves of bread, but then “because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.”  When we combine that idea with the life of Harriet Tubman, we might be tempted to take the lesson that we just need to be more persistent in asking for what we need.  Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.

But there’s the other player in this gospel story.  The man who refused to help his neighbor who was suffering.  It’s not just the persistence of the one in need; it’s also the evil system of oppression that must be overcome.  Again, Harriet only needed to be great because everything around her was so awful. 

Whether knowingly or not, we create systems that destroy people’s lives.  And as long as those systems don’t destroy our own lives, we’re content to say, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.”  Pairing this gospel reading with Harriet Tubman risks us putting the focus on her tenacity, while ignoring the system that made her have to rise to such greatness.

Yes, we are right to honor Harriet Tubman and all the others who worked so hard to abolish slavery.  But we also need to remember that we live in a country that set that system up in the first place.  And we continue to benefit from all the evils inflicted upon those slaves.  And so my prayer is that we will resist the ongoing efforts to erase the past; that we face it unflinchingly.  And that we make real efforts to see that someone like Harriet Tubman has no need to spend her life freeing people from slavery, and can look at her hands without questioning whether she is the same person.  She was the same person all along—a beloved child of God, born to be as free as anyone else.  May we be inspired by her dedication, and dedicate our own lives to dismantling every system of oppression.