A Man Against His Father

Matthew 10:24–39

“I have come to set a man against his father.” I am going to go out on a limb here and bet that none of you dads out there, when you open cards given to you for Father’s Day today will find this quote from Jesus inside the card. It is a curious choice from those that designed the Revised Common Lectionary to make it possible for this text to fall on a Father’s Day. Yet, what if…what if…these words of Jesus are exactly what we are supposed to hear on a feel-good family day. In these words, Jesus instructs his disciples that ultimately, they are accountable to God. And therefore — if one gives first one’s loyalty to God, it will, at times, set you against people you know and love dearly. Members of your family. And by logical extension of this — your peer group, your Facebook friends, and, yes, even your church family. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” To let Jesus be Lord of your life, it means, you are necessarily going to be set against some people. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas once said, “You haven’t preached the gospel if nobody has gotten up and walked out.” As I read this Scripture, I began to think — how could I, in a sermon, live out Jesus’s call to serve God first, knowing that it will set me against some people. Then, I had an “ah-ha” moment. “I know, I could preach again on racism for the 4th Sunday in a row.” Surely somebody will get exhausted with it and walk out, get upset, or take offense. And so on this solidarity Sunday, I’ll do so in even more explicit terms.

I want to begin by looking at our own church’s — that is the Methodist Church’s own history — both good and bad on this issue. John Wesley was an abolitionist — he opposed slavery and was very clear about it. In his treatise, “Thoughts on Slavery,” published in 1773, Wesley denounces and calls sinful in great detail the abhorrent practice of American slavery. Wesley dismantles the sinful lie, that slaves taken from Africa, were from savage nations, documenting each country’s unique abundance, culture, and beauty. Wesley called out the cruelty with which slaves were treated as well how the very institution of slavery was an insult the the grace and liberty that God gives every person. And Wesley denounced the greed — the love of money that was the driving force of slavery. He rejected the notion that slaves were a necessity in an agrarian economy. He called on slave owners and those in the slavery trade to repent. Again, this was in 1773. These were controversial words then. And this was a major reason why John Wesley remained opposed to the independence of America until his death. Wesley believed that the cries of freedom from leading American revolutionaries were hypocritical, because they themselves owned slaves. Wesley was influential on many abolitionists of his own day, including William Wilberforce, who was a leading voice in Britian for abolition, which was eventually achieved throughout most of the British Empire in 1833. In fact, the last letter that Wesley wrote before he died was to William Wilberforce, urging him to continue his work. In that letter, Wesley recognized what Jesus says in our Scripture this morning — that standing for something is going to set you against other people. Wesley said that Wilberforce must have been raised up by God, otherwise, this continual and forceful opposition would have worn him down. Wesley took the time to listen to black voices and then in his own words said black lives matter. Here’s how Wesley puts it in this letter to Wilberforce, “Reading this morning a tract wrote by a poor African, I was particularly struck by the circumstance, that a man who has a black skin being wronged or outraged by a white man, can have no redress; it being a LAW in all of our Colonies that the OATH of a black man against a white goes for nothing. What villainy is this!”

Going beyond what attracted so many to Methodism in Colonial America and into the revivalist periods, one can see why Wesley’s advocacy for black persons would make Methodism an attractive spiritual home for black people in America. Two popular African American black preachers, Richard Allen and Harry Hosier, were at the 1784 Christmas Conference, which is when Methodism was officially founded in America. Yet, racism took early roots in American Methodism — from its earliest days, in many churches black persons were forced to sit in church balconies and could only take communion after white persons. Richard Allen, who had been at the founding conference of American Methodism, protested the rising segregation in worship services by leading black folks out of a Methodist church and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, or as we know it today, the AME church. Other denominations would form as protest movements against practices of racism and slavery common in the Methodist church, including African Methodist Episcopal Zion (or AME Zion), Christian Methodist Episcopal, African Union Methodist Protestant and Union American Methodist Episcopal Church. Each split happened — in part because someone stood up and was willing to follow God first, even when it set them against others and it also happened because others did not stand up, but rather prioritized keeping the peace, rather than engaging conflict.

Even during this time, the church was officially opposed to slavery. This was the church’s position. But the church’s strong roots in abolition began to fade. Methodist historian Kenneth Kinghorn says “Despite the anti-slavery position of America’s churches, the mood of the nation was to segregate whites and blacks. Mobs railed against Bishops Asbury and Coke for preaching emancipation; angry people threatened them with clubs.” Over time, the church accommodated to a racist culture. The 1808 General Conference Committee on Slavery reported that “We deem it improper to further agitate the subject.” It was a sensitive issue. But Jesus said, “I have not come to bring peace….for I have come to set a man against his father.” The bishop’s pastoral address at that conference aimed for peace, at least between white Methodists, instead of the agitation of which Jesus spoke. Again, Kinghorn says this: “The Bishop’s Pastoral Address to the 1808 General Conference exhorted the church ‘to abstain from all abolition movements and associations.’” The bishop’s reason included: “(1) some abolitionist groups lacked a religious base. (2) Many abolitionists stridently demanded the immediate release of every slave in America, ignoring the social chaos that would follow, (3) concern for states’ rights created opposition to passing federal slave laws that limited the sovereignty of the states, (4) Abolitionism was threatening to divide the church, and (5) A growing number of Methodists wanted to own slaves because they were economically profitable.” Nevertheless, up to a decade before the Civil War, the Methodist church still prohibited bishops from owning slaves. However, in 1840, the church elected a bishop who owned slaves, James O. Andrew. Debates ensued and finally plans of separation were formed, creating a separate Methodist church in slaveholding states, called the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Many saw the separation in the church as a bellwether for what would happen next in the nation. I should add, that our own church, Epworth was founded as part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. At the end of this section in his history, Kinghorn writes, “Many of those ministers who opposed slavery did not stand against it because they wished ‘to keep peace in the church.’” But Jesus did not come to bring peace.

At the 1870 General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the recommendations of a committee from the previous General Conference was acted upon, creating the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, now known as the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church or CME as the black exodus from the larger Methodist body continued. In 1939, the split Methodist Episcopal Church would reunite. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South only agreed to the merger if a policy of segregation within the church was maintained. A separate “Central Conference” was formed for African American congregations as the church was reunited. So, African-American churches were governed separately from white churches. This segregated central conference was still in place during most of the Civil Rights movement. Huntsville’s own Rev. Joseph Lowery came from this segregated central conference within the Methodist church and provided significant leadership in the Civil Rights movement. Yet at the same time, the white bishops of both our Conference and the Alabama West-Florida Conference were among the 8 white so-called “moderate” clergy who urged the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to wait for a better time to press forward with civil rights, whom Rev. King called out in his now famous Letter from a Birmingham City Jail. There was white support for the Civil Rights movement in our Conference, but there was also indifference and resistance. And a desire to keep the peace.

When the Methodist Church merged with the United Brethren church in 1968, the Brethren church, which was unsegregated, made the abolition of the segregated central conference a condition of the merger. The United Methodist Church has tried, in many ways, to make progress on racial justice, including through the teaching of the social principles that we read earlier in worship, the establishment of the General Commission on Religion and Race, the work of the Board of Church and Society and many other efforts. Nevertheless, it is a wonder we have any African American congregations within our denomination at all. So many of African-American Methodists left to be part of these other denominations that broke away from the established Methodist movement — and who can blame them.

All of this history of racial injustice within our own tradition is on top of the injustice of slavery and Jim Crow that kept African American people in poverty and limited their opporunity for so long. We know that poverty and lack of opportunity, just like wealth and opportunity, tend to get passed from generation to generation. And so we cannot claim that this is all in the past. It just isn’t.

Yet, at a time such as this as we are wrestling with cries of racial injustice, particularly when it come to policing and the criminal justice system — we should be mindful of our history of not listening to black voices and not taking their claims of marginalization seriously. We should follow John Wesley’s example — and read their words, consider, with great empathy their experiences. And when they tell us that there is systemic racism evident within the policing system, it should not have to take video after video for us to realize that there is a problem. Therefore, it is appropriate — indeed imperative — if we are to be taken seriously as a church committed to racial reconciliation, living up to the best of Wesley’s example, but mindful of the worst parts of our history that we consider advocating for reforms in policing and the criminal justice system. I’m not talking about being anti-police, but advocating for policies that help foster trust and transparency between police and communities of color. Advocating for reforms in policing isn’t being anti-police. On the contrary, I believe it is pro police. As revelations have rocked the church with regards to clergy sexual abuse over the past few decades, trainings, background checks, and Safe Sanctuary policies have been put in place. Outside of the church office hangs a sign for a hotline that you can call if sexual abuse or misconduct happens in the context your relationship with your pastor. These things are not an attack on clergy, but actually help us keep up the good reputation clergy need to do our job effectively. There are extremists who equate cops with pigs and clergy with pedophiles. This is just another form of hurtful stereotyping. But we cannot let it get us off track from the important work that needs to be done. We can and must affirm both the difficult and necessary work of the police, while at the same time advocating for reform and accountability, without resorting to stereotyping. Yet, we should also be mindful that if we really believe in the Lord’s prayer, that God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven, that law enforcement will be unnecessary because we will live in deep communion as God intended. This the great Christian hope for the future of God’s creation. I mentioned last week that we’ll be starting a small group experience called JustFaith and as part of that experience, we’ll look at some specific reforms that are being proposed in our community and discern whether to put our names and effort behind them.

Our bishop urged us a few weeks ago to listen to the voices of our African American friends and collegues in ministry. Certainly the African-American community is not monolithic, but when we do this listening, we should not only seek out those African-American voices that tend to confirm what we already think. That isn’t listening, it’s cherry picking. Our bishop commended to us a blog post written by Rev. Donald Smith — pastor of Center Grove UMC and soon to be District Superintendent. If you haven’t read his, blog, I encourage you to take the time to do so. I included it a few weeks back in a church-wide email. In his blog, Rev. Smith said, “My sensitivity is shared by many African American parents who see in George Floyd their sons, fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, grandsons and grandfathers. That is why they must have, “The Talk” with their male children about how to respond during an encounter with the police. The Talk is conducted because too many black men have been senselessly killed in incidents from Emmitt Till to the Scottsboro Boys, to Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. Recent events in the deaths of Breonna Taylor by police in Louisville, Kentucky, and Ahmaud Arbery by two citizens in Georgia; the false accusation of Christopher Cooper for threatening the life of a white woman in New York and Archie Charles Williams who spent 37 years of his life in a Louisiana prison for a crime that he didn’t commit, all add to the cries of justice and the need for The Church to respond.”

Friends, this is another pivotal moment in the life of our society and in the life of the church. It is easier for many of us white folks not to talk about racial justice, because then nobody in our family, our friends, our church will be upset with us. But Jesus did not come to bring peace, but rather, in moments like these to stand for what is right. To stand for justice. And when you talk about matters of justice, with any level of specificity beyond top level platitudes and start talking about things like police reform, removing names and monuments erected during the Jim Crow or Civil Rights eras intended to glorify the Confederacy, or the reality of white privilege — beware, you may find yourself standing against family members or friends or even fellow Christians. I do believe these conversations should be filled with grace and nuanced, but they cannot be avoided. Our church has a checkered history on race relations, because, as historian Kenneth Kinghorn suggested, Christians and ministers wished “to keep peace in the church” and did not engage in conflict when situations demanded it, as John Wesley did. As Jesus Christ calls us to do. This cannot be accomplished by the church in a single sermon or Sunday worship service. The organizers of solidarity sunday asked participating churches to commit to three things to help us with this work. First — for church leadership to participate in training to combat racism. Second, to commit to monthly congregational awareness of the ongoing work against racism, so this does not become a forgotten moment. And third, to advocate for a specific set of reforms in local policing. I want to again encourage you to join us for this small group Just Faith experience, where we will have the chance to pray together, read Scripture together, read other books, share immersion experiences, and talk deeply and substantively about this issue and many others. This is where I intend for much of this important work to be done, I hope you’ll join together in this important conversation. Tenatively, I’m planning on having an information session after worship to learn more about JustFaith on August 2nd and we’ll go from there. I hope you’ll join me. Would you pray with me?

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