House of Bishops Spring Meeting
March 13, 2015, Kanuga Conference Center
The Reverend Canon Stephanie Spellers, Chaplain to the House of Bishops
It was November 27, 1836, and The Rev. George Washington Freeman ascended the pulpit at
Christ Church-Raleigh. With bishop Levi Ives looking on, Freeman offered this good news to the
faithful: “No man nor set of men in our day, unless they can produce a new revelation from
heaven, are entitled to pronounce slavery wrong.”
He went on, “Slavery as it exists at the present day, is agreeable to the order of divine providence.”
He said lots more. Delivered not one but two sermons. It was … memorable.
What was Bishop Ives to do? There was no Title IV. Within three days, he launched a public
response to Freeman’s sermon. It opened: "Rev. and Dear Brother, I listened with most unfeigned
pleasure to the discourses delivered last Sunday, on the character of slavery and the duties of
masters.” It closed: “With high regard, your affectionate friend and brother in the Lord, L. S. Ives.”
The Bishop begged Freeman to have the sermons published as a tract – with his Foreword, of
course. It became a hit. Mind you, about this time, battles over slavery were sweeping American
churches. Mind you, about this time, bishops in the Mother Church of England had for decades
been writing anti-slavery sermons and tracts and even books assailing the American Church’s
stand on this most vexing issue of the day. Even the Pope had weighed in against it!
But the authorities of this Church said … so little. Until October 22, 1844. On that day, this body,
the House of Bishops, selected the Rev. George Washington Freeman to serve as missionary
Bishop in charge of Arkansas, the Indian Territories, and the new Republic of Texas.
In seminary I learned the Episcopal narrative about slavery. This was not that story. I heard that we
had our share of slaveholders, but what church didn’t in those days? I heard we could hold our
heads high because – unlike the schismatic Methodists, Presbyterians and Baptists – we did not
split. We took up our cross and witnessed to a fierce and reconciling love in the midst of turmoil.
We stuck it out.
That’s the narrative. It is not true. In fact, the confederate dioceses did break away; General
Convention simply refused to acknowledge it. In fact, here in NC, more than 50% of slaves were
held by Episcopalians, though we made up fewer than 10% of the citizens. In fact, Episcopalians
North and South depended on the institution of slavery and the conviction of black inferiority to
sustain our church’s unmatched wealth and privilege.
So maybe our textbooks are right. We did not split. Of all the churches in America, the Episcopal
Church was arguably the most hospitable, the most willing to bend, the most ready to
accommodate slaveholders and traders. That’s our narrative. That’s our DNA.
I have been steeped in these histories for weeks now, preparing to teach a course on
“Episcopalians, Solidarity and Reconciliation” at General Seminary, where I now live and work.
I’ve read these accounts until I couldn’t read anymore, because they made me sick. They hurt my
heart, like images of Eric Garner in a chokehold, like mothers weeping in Ferguson, like the voice
of my nephew calling from jail in Sweetwater, TN. I imagine it’s hurting you, too.
What do you do with it? What do you do with the truth about someone you love, the nation you
love, the church you love? We know what James Theodore Holly did. He left. Holly was a black
nationalist, and he reckoned black folk in America would only and ever be seen as subservient,
animalistic, inferior, subhuman. Maybe he saw Ferguson in the distance. So he grew a church in
the new black nation of Haiti, with scraps of support from the Missions Board.
And it’s true, in 1874, Holly became the first black Episcopal bishop, but hold the champagne.
Know this: the same body that welcomed George Freeman as a bishop 30 years earlier refused to
ordain James Theodore Holly. No, it took an evangelical Episcopal group, the American Church
Missionary Society, to consecrate him Bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Episcopal Church of
Haiti. They welcomed him at Lambeth; he rarely returned to the United States.
What do you do with this truth? If you’re not going to leave, if you’re not going to give in to
bitterness, if you’re finally tired of saying, “I didn’t know,” if you’ve held the beautiful liturgies of
repentance, if your task force has issued its final report – what do you do with the truth about the
church you love?
I have prayed with this question, and I have prayed for you in this House with this question. I have
begged God for good news, a good news that doesn’t skirt or sugarcoat the truth, but doesn’t leave
us useless piles of sackcloth and ashes for the rest of our days.
So I asked. The first thing I heard from God was this: Beloved, take a deep breath. If you need one,
too, go ahead and take it. And if your heart needs to break a little, go ahead and let God break it.
And then God drew my eye to Acts. But Lord, we all know this story. Philip is the church. The
Ethiopian eunuch stands for black groups we’re sent to evangelize. It’s why all these black
churches are called St. Philip’s. But just as the other narratives kept falling apart, this one did, too.
Who says the church is Philip? Maybe the Episcopal Church has more in common with the eunuch
in the chariot. Maybe we need some outcasts to come alongside and help this church to interpret
the true meaning of the scriptures, some nobody who might help a church full of somebodies to
repent, be born again.
And maybe we can follow Philip, but not the way we thought. Look closer. He was so attuned to
the Spirit of God. An angel told him to get up and walk the wilderness road from Jerusalem to
Gaza. So he got up and went. And when the Spirit sent him to the eunuch’s chariot, he didn’t
worry if he’d be received or rejected. He didn’t walk. He ran to it. When he got there, he didn’t
open his satchel and show him his goody bag of Christian paraphernalia.
No, he asked him a question: What are you reading? What are you up to? And when the eunuch
welcomed him to draw near, to enter the chariot and converse with him, Philip got in. Oh, he
shared the good news of Jesus Christ that day, and the eunuch got baptized, but make no mistake:
they both got converted.
What do you do with this DNA of ours? What do you do with this truth? Like no other church in
America, maybe we’re supposed to step back from our history of domination and excellence, and
be converted to practice and embody the Jesus Way. Try out those three mission practices from
Luke 10, so simply laid out in the TREC report (that’s right: the TREC report preaches!). It says:
follow Jesus together … into the neighborhood … travel lightly.
What do we do with this DNA, this truth? Take up the art of humble listening and walking
alongside the other. Let your heart ache, let your belly twist, in solidarity with someone else’s
pain. Let your heart sing at the good news only they can proclaim.
What do you do with this DNA, this truth? Tell the real good news of Jesus Christ, loud and clear
enough that it drowns out false proclamations like Freeman’s still embedded in the walls of our
churches. And don’t worry about mixing politics and faith: his mistake wasn’t getting into the
pulpit and talking politics. It was speaking a word that ran counter to the gospel of Jesus Christ,
who you know came to bring sight to the blind, to set the captive free, to proclaim the year of the
Lord’s favor for the least of these. Bishop Freeman didn’t tell it. Bishop Ives didn’t tell it. We still
can.
What do you do in a church with this DNA? What do you do with this truth? I have prayed the
question. God finally gave me back this prayer, my prayer for you:
May the Spirit of God draw you out onto the wilderness road.
May she send you chasing after chariots, beyond all reason or propriety.
May she bring you to dark-skinned eunuchs and Samaritan women
and young ones who dream wild dreams,
and may they receive you into their homes, their worlds,
so you might teach and convert one another.
And may you enter the waters of baptism together,
and die and rise in Christ together,
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.