REPENTANCE AND RECONCILIATION
Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth
The 2003 Session of the North Carolina Annual Conference will
meet in Fayetteville next month -- from the afternoon of June
2nd until June 5th. On the first morning of this Annual
Conference, on June 3rd, a Service of Repentance and
Reconciliation for clergy and laity will be held.
"Repentance for what?" one might ask.
"Repentance for race-based sins" is the answer.
At this time in our life together, the North Carolina
Conference wants to admit or confess that Methodists in eastern
North Carolina have sinned against other Methodists of different
races, because of the color of their skin. By the grace of God,
we have been brought to see that discrimination and racism are
wrong. Indeed, they are evil. In fact, they are sin. Therefore,
the sins of discrimination and racism -- from generations past,
from our time, and on this day -- cry out for confession. Only
with repentance can there be true reconciliation among all
United Methodists of various races in the North Carolina
Conference. Only with truthfulness can there be renewed and
renewing fellowship.
In the Service of Repentance and Reconciliation, there will
be special emphasis on the racist sins committed against
African-American and Native-American Methodists. Some of these
sins have been violent, even bloody. Some of them have been
hidden and passive. But all of these racist sins have been
committed against people whom God has created, and therefore
they are against God the Creator Himself.
Contrary to what might be first impressions, this Service of
Repentance and Reconciliation will not be an exercise in
political correctness. Nor will it be an exercise in "white
guilt" that involves much self-beating by the racial majority.
Rather it will be an exercise in truthfulness and repentance.
After all, repentance is not just feeling sorry for sins past
and present. Rather real repentance involves a turning from sin
and a turning toward God and reconciliation and righteousness.
Back in the 1950s, the American novelist Flannery O’Connor,
who has since gone on to glory, wrote: "What you actually seem
to demand is that the Church put the Kingdom of Heaven on earth
right here now. Christ was crucified on earth and the Church is
crucified by all of us, by her members most particularly,
because she is a church of sinners... The Church is founded on
Peter who denied Christ three times and couldn’t walk on water
by himself. You are expecting his successors to walk on the
water."
Peter was not perfect. Peter’s successors were not perfect.
The Methodists in eastern North Carolina of generations past
were not perfect. Nor are we United Methodists in North Carolina
of our day. They in their time made, and we in our time make, up
"a church of sinners," as O’Connor put it. Therefore, it is
important that we face up to our sins (past and present), repent
of them, and be reconciled with those whom we have sinned
against.
We must repent. Not because we "demand...that the Church put
the Kingdom of Heaven on earth right here now." We must repent
because our sins deserve repentance, and because we need
reconciliation with God and with others.
If this happens, when this happens, it will be a miracle of
God’s grace among and in us. It will be yet another sign of the
Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
