“I’m not praying only for them but also for those who believe in me because of their word. I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me.
John 17:20-23 (CEB)
During Children’s Time in Rooted Worship the past couple of weeks we’ve shared stories of significant Black Methodists in recognition of Black History Month. We will continue that practice for the next two weeks as well. After this past Sunday, our children and adults alike now know a little bit about Richard Allen, the founder and first Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church who, along with Absolom Jones, led a walkout of Black worshipers at St. George Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia after having their full dignity denied too often and too long by their White counterparts who refused to afford them the same rights and privileges that they themselves enjoyed. Allen, Jones, and the rest would not remain in a space hostile to their existence and chose to live a more full life. They were not unfaithful to the Methodist Episcopal Church, they were faithful to God, themselves, and the people God had given them.
Much of Methodist history in America, like American history in general, can be viewed through the lens of race. Later, in 1844 the larger denomination split into the MEC and MEC, South over race-based slavery before reuniting in 1939. But that reunion came with a stipulation for racial segregation to appease White southerners. In 1968, when the United Methodist Church was formed, official structural segregation was abolished. But yet, here we are in 2023 sharing the history of segregation with a primarily White congregation.
We imagine that the victims of these stories of discrimination and division to be our Black sisters and brothers. That is true, but not the full truth. Those of us who are White are victims as well. We are not victims of what would be justified retaliation or what some call reverse racism, but rather victims of our own sin and the sin of our ancestors. We still live with the consequences of being separated from one another. We are less than we could be because our ancestors saw our Black sisters and brothers as less than themselves. Ironically, though we White folks are the cause of our separation, we often put the responsibility of reconciliation on the shoulders of Black folks expecting them to leave their Black spaces to join our White spaces.
In their song, Wildfire, the band, Watchhouse, shares this lyric, “It should have been different. It could have been easy. But pride has a way of holding too firm to history.” It is true that we can’t change what happened, so let’s focus on what we can do. We can be honest about what happened and is happening. We can repent. We can carry the burden of reconciliation. We can decide who we want to be in the future and let it change the way we live today. We can not only pray to be one, but also seek to live as one.
by Nick Scott