Rev. Jacqui Lewis, a senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York, took the stage Saturday at the Women’s March and announced what she believed to be Americans’ greatest enemies.
“I am so glad to be able to follow my indigenous family and share some words of blessing,” Lewis said as she opened her speech. “Standing here and looking at you and thinking about this movement makes me want to tell you what it means for me to be a Christian pastor.”
“There’s all kinds of Christians, but I’m the kind that believes that there’s more than one path to God, the kind that believes that every single body, no matter who you love and how you look, is created by God exactly as you are.”
Lewis then claimed Jesus was a refugee and referred to him as “Mr. Intersectional.”
“I’m really clear that I understand that I follow a Jewish, poor, itinerant rabbi who was born in Nazareth, which is in Galilee, which is in Palestine. So he is like Mr. Intersectional. … Jesus is poor, Jewish, Palestinian, Afro-Semitic, homeless, and, at once, a refugee. That’s a refugee we follow.”
In concluding her speech, Lewis outlined what she believes are common enemies among all Americans.
“Movements are messy. We don’t all believe the same things about God, and some of us don’t believe in God at all. We don’t have the same tactics. We don’t have the same strategies. We don’t even think we should have the same, you know, way to do stuff. But we agree on this: Our common enemy is white supremacy. Our common enemy is transphobia. Our common enemy is sexism. And our common enemy is greed. Movements are messy, but we’re gonna have to move together. And because it’s a mess, we need to take these things with us. One: patience. Two: forgiveness. Three: resilience. Four: humility. And five: a stubborn commitment to look at our neighbor and understand that they are badasses. To see them as an extension of ourselves. So, honey, I’m blessing us today to stay in this messy movement together.”
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