Called to Serve. Called to Stand.

On being ordained into a Church that defends migrants and tells the truth about race

This week, I found out I’m being ordained. I also read a powerful new statement from the Episcopal Presiding Bishop on racial justice and immigration. These two things are connected—and they make me proud to be part of this Church.

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This Tuesday, I got the kind of news that takes a minute to land.
I’ve been recommended for ordination to the transitional diaconate in the Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts.

The word that keeps rising in me is awe.

It has been a long, winding road to get here. My vocational path hasn’t always followed a straight line—and like many people raised in faith traditions that didn’t always make space for complexity, grief, or justice, I’ve had to reclaim my call more than once.

But it’s been reclaimed through community—through the Episcopal Church’s liturgy, through faithful mentors and friends, through the steady encouragement of people who have seen something in me when I couldn’t yet see it myself.

If you’re reading this and you’ve been part of that journey—whether through your prayers, your questions, your encouragement, or your presence—I am overflowing with gratitude. Truly. I couldn’t have done this alone.

And so it feels deeply fitting that on the very same morning I received this news, I also read the Presiding Bishop Rowe’s powerful new statement on immigration and racial justice.

In it, the Presiding Bishop reminds us that migration is not simply a matter of politics or policy—it is a matter of Gospel witness. He names clearly that our immigration system is shaped by legacies of racism, and that we as people of faith are called not only to charity, but to justice.

“As Christians, we must be guided not by political vagaries, but by the sure and certain knowledge that the kingdom of God is revealed to us in the struggles of those on the margins. Jesus tells us to care for the poor and vulnerable as we would care for him, and we must follow that command. Right now, what that means is ending our participation in the federal government’s refugee resettlement program and investing our resources in serving migrants in other ways.”

That kind of clarity is rare. That kind of courage is costly. And that kind of statement reminds me why I’m choosing to take vows in this Church.

I’m not being ordained into a Church that’s perfect. I’m being ordained into a Church that is trying—trying to walk toward the margins, trying to repair what’s been broken, trying to tell the truth about sin and empire and liberation.

When our Presiding Bishop says plainly that migration is a racial justice issue, when they affirm the sacred worth of those who are too often dismissed, detained, or disappeared—that’s when I know I’m in the right place.

That’s the kind of Church I want to serve. That’s the kind of Gospel I want to preach.

And in this season of awe, gratitude, and commitment, I’m more proud than ever to be part of a Church that does not look away.

If you want to read the bishops’ full statement, you can find it here

We are called together—for justice, for mercy, for love.
And by the grace of God, I get to step into that call—with all of you.

Warmly,

Julia Matallana Freedman