Revolutionary Love in the AME Church

Recap – Over this month we have been continuing our series on Revolutionary Love by going deep into our AME History. Today’s sermon will remind us about the highlights of what we have been talking about and challenge us to think about how we lean into this Lenten season with deep purpose. 

Methodism Recap

- As Americans were questioning the divine right of Kings, Methodism was pushing back on the power of the institutional church and clergy. Through a very simple practice they leaned into some radical ideas and practices that had theological, spiritual, and socio-political implications

- “Method” was a slur but they flipped it and embraced it (It don’t take all that)

- They grew into a movement, but then they started waffling and holding onto vestiges of power.

Abolitions Movement

- Black Methodists like Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Denmark Vesey, Jurena Lee, and Richard Allen did not lose sight of the deeper implications of this spiritual movement

- During the post-Revolutionary War period the AME Church is pushing the boundaries while simultaneously having patriarchal, colonialistic tendencies which it continues to struggle with today

For Such A Time As This

- During Lent we will be leaning into the story of Esther. A woman called to stand up against the genocide of her people. We will focus on how her spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting gave her the courage and wisdom to stop the genocide of her people. 

- However in the last two chapters she also doesn’t stop her people from rising up to slaughter all the people who were planning to kill them.

- So three things that I want us to really sit with as we close out Black History Month, and lean into Women’s Herstory Month and Lent with the story of Esther.

1. Our ancestors faced odds far beyond what we are dealing with so we should recognize their sacrifice and draw from their example to step up to this moment.

2. We need to be mature enough to learn from their actions while not repeating their blindspots. We owe it to them to take what they built for us and take it to the next level.

3. We must be humble to recognize that we too will fall short - but we should not be stuck in paralysis of analysis and spiritual lack of discipline that might prevent us from moving. 

"None of this is unprecedented; what is unprecedented is that today it is we who have to do the hard work of seeing idols smashed, grieving and picking up the pieces, holding them into the sun, and seeing new refractions of light in their edges."

Reflections Questions

1.     As we discuss the AME legacy - where do you see yourself in that story. Do you feel the blessing and/or weight of that inheritance? Why or why not?

2. Our foreparents were clear that they couldn’t do this work without the saving power of Jesus? As we move into a season of testing - get real about the relationship between your spiritual life and your living into the call of this moment. What is the relationship now? What do you think it should be?

3. We are called not only to resist injustice but to embrace Jubilee (building on Earth as it is in Heaven) where are you helping to envision and live into God’s plan for humanity?