LUKE 6:17-26
During the month of February, you may have noticed that we have been singing hymns from Lift Every Voice and Sing. This hymnal is part of The Episcopal Church’s recognition of Black History Month and its African-American congregants. We will continue to use these hymns as part of our recognition of the significant contributions African-Americans have made to the United States.
I am glad that there is an official recognition of Black History Month, but what I am concerned about is that Black History Month is not to commemorate African-American’s contributions, but to educate the ‘white folk’ to a whole world of history we are totally unaware of. Dedicating a month to the actual history of slavery does not make up for the other eleven months of the year of intentional omission of their history. We have a long way to go, and the church needs to lead the way.
In The Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints, today we celebrate the Blessed Reverend Absalom Jones, born into slavery, and freed through manumission in 1784. He served as the lay minister for the black membership at St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church with his friend, Richard Allen, and together they established the Free African Society to aid in the emancipation of slaves and to offer sustenance and spiritual support to widows, orphans, and the poor.
Alarmed at the increase in the black population attending the church, in 1791, the Vestry of St. George’s decided to segregate African Americans into an upstairs gallery without notice, forcibly removing those worshippers from the main floor one Sunday. Allen and Jones, and members of their group immediately left that church, never to return.
In 1792, Allen and Jones applied to join the Episcopal Church, and after satisfying all the requirement for membership, African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas became a member of The Episcopal Church. In 1802, Absalom Jones became the first African-American ordained as a priest. Throughout his life, until his death in 1818, he continued to work to abolish slavery and better the conditions of African-Americans. In 1973, General Convention added him to our list of saints, with his feast day being 13 February.
What Absalom Jones and Richard Allen and their followers experience is the biggest black eye on religion. . . and the government . . . and current anti-history groups.
I have heard people say:
”Isn’t it ‘sweet’ that the blacks have the month of February to celebrate their history”?
Let me tell you something, they do not need a month to celebrate their history!!
Since 1440 they have lived it, endured it, died because of it. It is ingrained in their genes and their DNA. Black History Month is for the education of white people who have never been taught, nor thought about what being a slave meant. We sat in our white privilege totally oblivious to the suffering of others. And even today, there is a movement to restrict or prohibit the teaching of the true history of this country. And their power is increasing through affiliation with legislatures who are appealing to the least denominator to ensure hatred and fear is propagated so that they can remain in power.
Here is some black history that is not taught in the schools, and will not be taught if these bigoted, racist people prevail.
Christopher Columbus was the first European slave trader in the Americas. He likely transported the first Africans to the Americas in the late 1490s on his expeditions. He sent more slaves across the Atlantic Ocean than any individual of his time-about 5,000.
Hundreds of thousands of Africans, both free and enslaved were brought to America around 1516, to aid in the establishment and survival of colonies in the Americas and the New World.
Then in 1607, when Jamestown was settled, Africans referred to as ‘servants’ were brought over to do the demeaning manual work required to establish a colony. Furthermore, many consider a significant starting point to slavery in America to be 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. This was the beginning of the aggressive program of promoting slavery in the United States. This history is well documented in the “1619 Project”, written by Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times. Not only does it chronicle slavery, but also celebrates Black Americans’ commitment to rights and freedoms historically denied them.
Between 1525 and 1866, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. Only 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. To put this into a modern perspective, the deaths of enslaved men, women and children that died on the voyages because of illness, crowded ships and cruelty relatively matches the number of people who have died of COVID in the United States.
Any question about the status of Black people in the colonies—free, enslaved or indentured servants—was made clear with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705, a series of laws that stripped away legal rights of these people and legalized the barbaric and dehumanizing practice of slavery.
Not only were these slaves used to further the economic wealth of the European residents, but they also served in the military to protect this fledging country. One of the first martyrs to the cause of American patriotism was Crispus Attucks, a former enslaved man who was killed by British soldiers during the Boston Massacre of 1770. Some 5,000 freed and slave black soldiers and sailors fought on the American side during the Revolutionary War.
Sanctioned slavery existed in the United States until Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Declaration in 1862 and the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. However, that only shifted the foundations of ‘slavery’ to other social programs such as Jim Crow Laws that denied blacks civil rights, the rising of the Ku Klux Klan, and ‘whites only’ restrictions.
And these practices may have become more sophisticated, but still exist today in forms of voter suppression, economic poverty, redlining, and refusal to teach the ‘real’ history of this nation in many parts of the country.
But some churches are trying to atone for their involvement in the slave trade, including The Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church, in its 2006 General Convention endorsed reparations for 250 years of American slavery. Resolution A124 admitted "the complicity of the Episcopal Church" in slavery and the church's "economic benefits" from it. It calls for a study "as a matter of justice," the church can "share those benefits with African American Episcopalians." The Diocese of Maryland, Texas, Long Island, Georgia and New York have active reparation tasks force to commit education and monies to support descendants of the original slaves. Several Diocese and colleges have renamed buildings and removed statues of known slave owners from their campuses. Other mainline denominations are also beginning this process.
In the Diocese of Southern Ohio, there is a Reparations Task Force, working to create memorials to those blacks who were lynched/murdered in Ohio. This task force is chaired by Rev Karl Stevens at Saint Stephen’s on campus.
As we heard in today’s gospel reading, Jesus’ message is one of inclusion, not one of exclusion. The good news Jesus proclaims is not only for the Jewish community, but it is for everyone. It is not just for the religious elite, but it is also for the common laypersons. It is not just for the powerful and the privileged, but it is also for those on the margins: the women, the widows, the children; the poor, the sick, the blind; the immigrants, the oppressed.
The most frequently used word in this scripture is the word “blessed”. To be “blessed,” means living in an awareness of the presence of God, not free from struggle, but oriented to God’s kingdom. In each of these blessings, there is a dichotomy between the struggle and what the promise is: the hungry will be filled, the weeping will give way to laughter.
Jesus used the words ‘blessed are’ over 400 times in the Bible, and almost exclusively addressing those who are the poor, the lesser of society, and the least. His words are simple, straightforward and concrete.
The Kingdom of God that Jesus is offering is for ALL people – and it is especially offered to those most vulnerable. It is an upside down Kingdom of God, where the last would be first and the first will be last, the poor will be blessed, and the slave will be free.
Jesus presents a totally different standard of living - the opposite of the world’s standard. He says that the poorer you are, the more blessings you will receive. When you are hungry and in grief, a great blessing is coming your way. On the other hand, if you are rich and laughing at this moment and when people speak well of you, your life is in trouble.
Eugene Peterson paraphrases it best in these verses in The Message:
But it’s trouble ahead if you think you have it made. What you have is all you’ll ever get. And it’s trouble ahead if you’re satisfied with yourself. Your self will not satisfy you for long. And it’s trouble ahead if you think life’s all fun and games, There’s suffering to be met, and you’re going to meet it. “There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests—look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular. (Luke 6:24-26)
This was a radical concept – especially in a world where it was those who had religious and societal power who were seen as worthy of receiving blessings, and where those who were poor, sick, or had any physical ailments were believed to be sinful and thus cursed for their sins.
We must always remember that Jesus came for the last, the least and the lost. He came to bring glad tidings to the poor and freedom to the oppressed. He provided hope for the hopeless and taught the people the importance of faith. Then He asked them to be servants if they wanted to be the greatest. In short, He wants all of His followers to be like Him and to walk in His path. That is the life that is truly blessed.
Perhaps what we now have to do is ask the bigger question. What sort of attitudes and actions make for better living for all? Kind and considerate behaviour,
encouraging the best outcomes for the weak and vulnerable and being prepared to make some sacrifice for others is very different from those who become obsessed with personal gain. Reflecting on the gospel account, the options given and choice made are not about some impractical and unattainable spiritual dream. The positive choice is to follow Jesus’ advice - whether we do or not is our choice.
To be the most faithful to the gospel, Luke calls us to set aside our preconceived notions of being blessed, and be willing to embrace the kind of upside-down reversals that Jesus presents. Luke’s version of the Beatitudes is meant to startle us out of our complacency and inspire us into action.
We are challenged to look at our lives and our world with new eyes. They challenge us to clarify our values and determine that things for which we are willing to take a stand. Packed into these verses are very real instructions for the disciples, AND those of us who claim to follow Christ today, to reverse the social, economic, and political injustices that surround us.
God has provided more than enough so that no one needs to starve in our world, no one needs to be without full and proper medical and dental care in our country. And no one needs to be homeless in our city. It is difficult to feel “blessed” when life is difficult, when bad and evil things seem to dominate. However, one of the promises God makes throughout the Bible is that He will bring judgment to the evil of the world. “Blessed are” those who trust that God will make good on those promises.
As Christians, it is necessary that we work toward those ends now. For as we work towards helping the poor and the disenfranchised now, we prove our citizenship in the eternal Kingdom of God.
Let us remember who we are, the blessed and the cursed, and let us respond to the winners and the losers, the rich and the poor, the hungry and the full, the celebrated and the cursed, the good and the bad, our neighbour and our enemies with compassion. Just as “our loving God is compassionate.”
Let us choose to follow him in this holy work.
A poet said it well:
Compassionate God,
we recognize that our world is a broken place,
hurt by poverty, famine and disease.
We admit that sometimes we make the world a broken place,
tolerating prejudice, conflict and self-interest.
We confess that our hearts also suffer with anger,
resentment and jealousy.
Renew us in Your love, O God,
and heal us with the comfort of Your abundant love.
Awaken us to the role we can play in healing Your creation.
Strengthen us through the power of the Holy Spirit
to hear Your word and move forward in faith.
And as we remember Absalom Jones, let us pray:
Set us free, heavenly Father, from every bond of prejudice and fear: that, honoring the steadfast courage of your servant Absalom Jones, we may show forth in our lives the reconciling love and true freedom of the children of God, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Delivered at Saint John’s Episcopal Church, Columbus, OH; 13 February 2022
