A Charge to Keep I Have: A Celebration of African Methodism

Good morning! What a glorious day of the Lord we have today! There is something very special about being part of something big. We are just one of thousands of congregations, millions of people worldwide who are celebrating the founding of the AME church over 200 years ago and honoring those who first conceived of African Methodism.

I want to speak this morning on the topic, "A charge to keep I have"

"A charge to keep I have.

I would like to reread the text for this morning, so if you would please, turn with me to Micah 6:1-8. We heard it first from the King James Version, but now I want to read it from the Message:

"Listen now, Listen to God:

Take your stand in court. If you have a complaint, tell the mountains: make your case to the hills.

And now mountains, hear God's case, listen Jury Earth for I am bringing charges against my people. I am building a case against Israel.

Dear people, how have I done you wrong? Have I burdened you, worn you out? Answer!

I delivered you from a bad life in Egypt; I paid a good price to get you out of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you and Aaron and Miriam to boot!

Remember what Balak king of Moad tried to pull and how Balaam son of Beor turned the tables on him. Remember all those stories about Shittem and Gilgal. Keep all God's salvation stories fresh and present.

How can I stand up before God and show proper respect to the high God? Should I bring an armload of offerings topped off with yearling calves? Would God be impressed with thousands of rams, with buckets and barrels of olive oil? Would He be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child, my precious baby, to cancel my sin?

But he has already made it plain how to live, what to do, What God is looking for in men and women. It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don't take yourself too seriously - take God seriously."

As the text makes plain, the prophet Micah has envisioned a court hearing and God, of course, is the judge. He lays out a case based on how the people of of Israel have sinned. He sounds to me a bit like a tired parent who has given so much for so long and is so underappreciated. Unfortunately, the people of Israel are no different from anyone else - we don't appreciate God's goodness enough either - not that we ever fully could. And so starting in verse four, God reminds the reader of just a very few of the many things he'd done for the people of Israel.

The Israelites respond in verse six by asking how they can make amends. But God is uninterested in their ideas - oil, and calves, and a firstborn child. If they only knew - God would soon give his own firstborn child to cancel all our sins.

Seeing their confusion, God spells out exactly what he wants in verse eight. I'll read it now from New Century Version:

"The Lord has told you, human, what is good. He has told you what he wants from you: To do what is right to other people, love being kind to others, and live humbly, obeying your God."

That is a clear and a serious charge and a charge to keep I have.

So this morning, I'd like to share with you three stories illustrating the three parts of this charge: justice, kindness, and our humble walk with God, and talk a bit about how to meet this charge in our everyday lives.

Let's start in 1787. Most of you probably already know the story, but let's imagine it together. It's a November Sunday morning and we are on our way to St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. It's a white church, well white folks are in charge of it, but we have been going there for quite some time and it's always been fine.

Until today, that is. I was on my way to my usual seat, right over there, when some ushers directed all of us to some other seats, way back there, in the gallery. We were surprised and hurt but decided to stay. We sat there in our assigned, segregated seats until Altar Call when we got up to have a word with the Lord from the chancel rail. But before I could silently say "Good morning, God" those ushers were back, threatening and shoving us and pulling us up from the altar, upset because we had knelt next to white folks.

That was the last straw. When we walked away from the alter, we walked away from that church.

That was the first step in the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The church now has more than two million members at more than 7,000 congregations in more than 30 countries on 4 continents.

I've heard the St. George walkout story many times, but this was the first time I realized that Richard Allen was just 27 years old when this occurred. 27! He and his friends didn't leave St. George because of some disagreement about the proper way to baptize a new believer or whether or not ministers can get married. There were no disagreements about religious doctrine or theology. They left because they weren't being treated fairly.

So when they founded their new denomination, they made sure it was rooted in the concept and practice of justice. That's why we operate colleges and seminaries across the United states, including Shorter College in North Little Rock. It's why so many of our members have contributed to the cause of social justice, people like Frederick Douglass and James and Cecil Cone. This commitment to justice for all people is reflected in our new motto: God our Father, Christ our redeemer, Holy Spirit our comforter, humankind our family.

This is our charge: to treat humankind as family recognizing that all people - AMEs or not, Christians or not, African or not, deserve justice.

What does it mean to accept this charge to promote justice and fairness?

It means, in part, that we rejoice in our shared humanity. Now I'm not saying all people are all the same or that we should all hold hands and sing Kum bay yah, but I am saying that each of us is fully a person. And here's why this is important - it's important because God made people in his own image. God makes that clear throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments, and in the ways God shows his love for us every day. No one is excluded from the honor and responsibility of being made in God's image. It's true for us all - those who are young, those who are old, those who sunburn easily and those who do not, those who use their hands to talk or read, those who cannot talk or read, those who are, as my grandmother used to say, "Sick in the mind, sick in the body, or just sin sick," those who know without a doubt that God loves them and those who haven't realized that yet. We are all God's children.

Because we're not all the same, we sometimes have to, as they say, walk a mile in someone else's shoes, to understand how unfair a situation is. Unfortunately, most of us here know what it's like to be discriminated against because of the color of our skin. But how often do we think about discrimination against people who are disabled, people who have less money than us (or more), people who are from another country. The Bible says, "Envy not the oppressor and choose none of his ways." When we learn what life is really like for others, we are more likely to treat them fairly and justly and not end up like the oppressor the Bible cautions against.

And once we have that knowledge we should be willing to take a stand. God tells us to do right by other people. Sometimes the required actions might seems risky or scary, but it helps to remember that God's got our back. When we're doing God's will, it all works out, perhaps not the way we expected or wanted, but it works out just fine.

Now when I was preparing this message, I have to admit, I got a little stuck on kindness, the second part of the God's charge to his people in Micah 6:8. There are so many examples of people being nice:

Osceola McCarty - the wash woman from Mississippi who never had much but saved all her money all her life and then gave it all - $150,000 - to form a scholarship fund to send young people to college.

Or Terry Franz - the guy from Kansas they call the Car Santa. He's a used-car salesman who fixes and donates cars to people in need so they can get to work and provide for their families.

Or Daniel Hernandez - the Congressional intern who on his fifth day on the job likely save Gabrielle Gifford's life.

The more I thought about it, the more examples I found and I didn't know where to start. But then I read the Message. Let me remind you what it says in Micah 6:8 - "But he has already made it plain how to live, what to do. What God is looking for in men and women. It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don't take yourself too seriously - take God seriously."

Compassionate and loyal in love. That phrasing immediately brought to mind all the many people who have been compassionate and loyal in their love for me and my family. That's when I knew I had to talk not about giving kindness, but receiving it.

As many of you know, when I moved back home to Little Rock in December 2008, it was largely to care for my mom, Janet Cobb. She'd been diagnosed with dementia earlier that year and as her only child and recipient of so much of her love and care, I couldn't bear to be away from her in her time of need. But though she raised me to be independent, I knew I could not meet all of her needs by myself. Thankfully we knew people who were compassionate and loyal in love. I am so grateful to all of you. For the "come see bout your mama" calls I got when I was living in Atlanta that let me know how serious my mother's situation was. For the meals, the calls, the cards. For the free legal documents. For visiting with my mom until I got off from work and could be with her. For staying overnight with her when I was out of town. For caring for Ayoka while I cared for my mom. For welcoming Kwadjo to Arkansas with loving arms. For praying with me and for me and my family. For making my mom and me laugh when we might otherwise have cried. For holding me when I did cry. Thank you.

You know, it's often easier to be on the giving side of kindness, whether you practice a one-time random act of kindness or are in it for the long haul. But while we have an obligation to show kindness and mercy to others, we should also be willing to graciously receive assistance when we need it. Sometimes that means setting aside pride, asking for help, and humbling oneself. That can be very hard to do.

But we can't always be on the giving end. Everyone needs help sometime. The Bible says that we should expect hard times, struggle, sadness. But when we rely on God and, here's the key, rely on those God uses, we can meet any challenge.

This is our charge: to give and receive kindness, compassion, and mercy.

So how do we meet that challenge? The second half of the Summary of the Decalogue tells us, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and that's a wonderful place to start. The good Samaritan story provides an excellent example of love in action. He saw a person in need, he had compassion, he had mercy, and he rendered aid. He did it because it was the right thing to do.

There's a saying I try to keep in mind. Kwadjo and I always remind each other of it: it says it's amazing the things you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit. All the time we spend trying to get recognized for our good work, getting our name at the top, making sure it's spelled right;all that time could be spent doing more of God's work. I think it's important to note that the good Samaritan didn't stick around and wait for thank yous and accolades. He helped the man simply because it was the right thing to do, not to get any glory.

Now that doesn't mean that those of us on the receiving end shouldn't show appreciation. Indeed we should, and ideally we'll be inspired to "pay it forward" by being more compassionate to others. Still we offer kindness simply because it is right thing to do, what God wants from us.

And, of course, we have to be willing to graciously receive compassionate kindness, just as we offer it. It may be better to give than to receive, but in the case of mercy it is certainly not shameful to receive.

The final instruction from God in Micah 6:8 is to walk humbly with the Lord, or as the Message says: "Don't take yourself too seriously, but take God seriously." I turned to the Bible for inspiration on a humble walk and settled on Miriam, Moses' older sister.

We all know the story about how Pharaoh got nervous about all the Jews living in Egypt. He'd missed the stories and forgotten the history about how, many years earlier, Joseph had saved Egypt from famine and starvation and Pharaoh just saw a group of rapidly reproducing foreigners who spoke another language. Sound familiar? Anyway, Pharaoh forgot all the Jews had contributed to Egypt, forgot their shared humanity, and decided there were just too many Jews living in Egypt.

So he ordered all newborn Jewish boys to be thrown into the Nile River. Moses' mother, Jochebed, had her own way of complying with this vicious order; a way that might give her new son a chance at life. Instead of tossing her baby boy to the Nile crocodiles, she floated him down the river in a waterproof basket and sent his big sister Miriam to follow the basket as it made its way downstream.

That worked out well. Pharaoh's daughter saw the basket as she bathed in the river and plucked the baby from the water. Miriam was there to offer their mom as a wet nurse.

Year's later, the boy the Princess names Moses returned to his people. Miriam, now a prophet, and her brother Aaron, soon to be a high priest, were at Moses' side when he led the enslaved Jews to freedom by crossing the dry bed of the Red sea. When they finally reached safety, it was Miriam who led the celebratory worship service.

Let me stop here for a moment. There was a period in my life when I read nothing but biographies and autobiographies of people I admire: WEB DuBois (who taught at Wilberforce, by the way), Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Anwar Sadat, James Baldwin, Paul Robeson, and many others. While I thoroughly enjoyed these stories of great lives, I later realized I was looking for perfection. I was subconsciously hoping to find a description of a life not just well-lived, but perfectly lived. I life I could strive to emulate. But, of course, other than Jesus, there is no such life.

Miriam was no exception. She had a jealousy issue. She and Aaron couldn't understand why God chose Moses and didn't share more of His word with them directly. She'd temporarily lost her humility. As a result, she was struck with leprosy, then healed and confined outside the camp for seven days.

Now other than a mention of her death and burial her story ends there. And because we don't know anything more about Miriam as she wandered through the wilderness with the Jews, one might think she died in shame and disgrace. But two verses before Micah tell us how to live the Good life, Micah reminds the Jews that God, in his infinite goodness, sent Moses, Aaron, and yes, Miriam to lead them. So Miriam was not disgraced. Yes, she stumbled on her humble walk with God, but she got up again and kept on going.

That is our charge: To walk humbly with God and be willingly led by God. And when we mess up, as we all do, to get up and keep on walking.

But how do we do that? The first step is to ask God for help. The first half of the Summary of the Decalogue tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind. When we do that, we develop a personal relationship with God. It is through that relationship that we can remove ourselves from the center of our lives and place God at the center. This is important because while Micah describes a walk with God, God is truly in the lead.

Following God's lead requires that we make room for his, often still, small voice. For some that means meditating in the morning or evening so the mind is clear enough to receive God's instructions. Others may spend time outdoors hiking, fishing, or driving while being reminded of the beauty and wonder of God's earth and listening for his direction. For some it may be as simple as turning of the TV and radio for a few more hours each day so that we don't make God's voice compete with the voices of popular culture and so we can received God's guidance. Others just sit still and listen.

And as we walk humbly with our God, he will help us do the work he made us especially to do. God created each of us with a particular purpose in mind. And when we take God's role in our life seriously, we can accomplish that purpose and be the people God wants us to be.

Indeed Micah 6:8 does show us how to live the good life - promoting justice, offering mercy, and walking humbly with God. This is our charge.

Do you accept this charge to live the good life? Richard Allen and Rosa Parks did.

Do you accept this charge to promote justice a fairness among all God's children? James and Cecil Cone do.

Do you accept this charge to be compassionate, merciful, loyal, and kind? Henry McNeal Turner and Frederich Douglass did.

Do you accept the charge walk humbly with your God? Vashti McKenzie and Carolyn Tyler Guidry do.

Do you accept the charge God gives us in Micah 6:8? I hope you'll join me in saying I do! I do! I do, because a charge to keep I have.

A charge to keep I have
Charles Wesley

1. A charge to keep I have,
A God to glorify,
A never-dying soul to save,
And fit it for the sky.

2. To serve the present age,
My calling to fulfill;
O may it all my powers engage
To do my Master's will!

3. Arm me with jealous care
As in Thy sight to live,
And now Thy servant, Lord, prepare
A strict account to give!

4. Help me to watch and pray,
And still on Thee rely,
O let me not my trust betray,
But press to realms on high.