“The Gospel According to Hamilton: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?”

Genesis 9:20 – 27  and Ephesians 6: 5 – 8 – Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN

This Sunday we conclude our sermon series on “The Gospel According to Hamilton” and there is much to celebrate about this hip-hop, revolutionary, boundary-crossing phenomenon. The Broadway show casts founding fathers as people of color. The significant role of founding mothers is honored and revered. Hamilton is an immigrant story, a justice story, an underdog story. While there is much to celebrate, the musical is criticized for falling short in portraying the horrors of slavery and glossing over the role slavery played by American founding fathers. This is true not only in the musical, but in our history books, too. In the last song, Eliza sings, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?” We will retell the story of slavery as we commemorate the 401st anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to the colonies and hold this story beside scripture passages that appear to support the use of slavery. It is time to tell the true story.