Daily Devotional | Friday, February 12

Friday, February 12

Matthew 7 – “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”

Vivian Malone Jones arrives to register for classes at the University of Alabama's Foster Auditorium as Governor Wallace stands in the schoolhouse door. Image courtesy of the United States Library of Congress

In the New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age Colorblindness, civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander offers, unintentionally, this illustration of Jesus’ warning.

“When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and “whites only” signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, good-hearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners—and wished them well—nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation.”

Richard Allen was born a slave on Valentine’s Day in 1790 in Philadelphia, PA. He would go on to create the first independent Black denomination in the United States, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. (A.M.E.)  photo courtesy of Google Images

In 1968 the United Methodist Church was born out of a merger between the EUB and the Methodist Church itself a 1939 merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church. The 1939 merger was made possible by an overt act of corporate racism, the creation of the segregated Central Jurisdiction. In 1968 the Central Jurisdiction was erased but not its stain on our history. From the moment Richard Allen left to form the AME we, like the nation, have lived with the specter of racism. The only solution to racism is antiracism.

Action step: Today, with brutal honesty pray for clarity around the racism present in our corporate DNA. Are you ready, and who in your church will join with you, in the act of dismantling racism in your church?

Prayer:

Together we will create brave space

Because there is no such thing as a “safe space”

We exist in the real world

We all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.

In this space

We seek to turn down the volume of the outside world,

We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere,

We call each other to more truth and love

We have the right to start somewhere and continue to grow.

We have the responsibility to examine what we think we know.

We will not be perfect.

This space will not be perfect.

It will not always be what we wish it to be

But

It will be our brave space together,

and

We will work on it side by side.

By Micky ScottBey Jones, posted on https://oppeace.org/blog/2019/11/20/an-invitation-to-brave-space/

Posted on PUMC Blog by Isabella Dougan