Juneteenth - Freedom

So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman; we are children of the free woman.  So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.  Ephesians 4:31-5:1

 The celebration of Juneteenth is about news of the proclamation freeing all slaves reaching Texas, the last area where slavery was allowed.  This was on June 19, 1865, nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.

As we celebrate Juneteenth in the US, I often reflect on the impact of slavery on people like me.  No, I was never a slave, but I am a descendant of them.  My thoughts center around how each day, I am given a privilege that was born from many who suffered and endured through way much more than I ever had to just be given an opportunity to stand with others.  The poem, “Still I Rise,” by Maya Angelou has a phrase that surmises much of what I feel on a day like today and it drives me each and every day:

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

 An often-overlooked aspect of that period is the instrumental impact faith played in this.  You see, in the South, fears of slave insurrections led to prohibitions on black churches meeting openly in many parts of the South.  However, Christianity began to take a foothold in the black community in the early 1800s as the roots of the black church began in the North.  One of them is where my foundations of Christianity began: The African Methodist Episcopalian Church, led by Richard Allen, which was founded in 1816 in Philadelphia after breaking with the Methodist Church due to its views on slavery.  He along with others Black churches believed that they too were children of God worthy of the same status as any other free Christians while white churches only offered a ‘second-class’ status.  As written by Kimberly Sambol-Tosco, a graduate student of history at Penn, she stated:

“During the Antebellum period and after the Civil War, black churches, not just in the North, but throughout the nation, offered African Americans refuge from oppression and focused on the spiritual, secular, and political concerns of the black community. Following emancipation, the church continued to exist at the center of black community life.”

She later noted that the independent black churches were “symbols of African American demands for self-determination.”

Within our life’s framework, the threads of freedom are intricately woven through the story of Christ. For those who may not have realized it, the message of Christ setting us free resonates powerfully in the narrative of how the church flourished within the African American community. Against formidable odds, faith in a God who knows, sees, and empowers all became a wellspring of inspiration—not only the bedrock of the church but also the beacon by which each of us, through Christ, breaks free from the shackles of sin. As we celebrate this holiday, let us not only commemorate the liberation from human bondage but also embrace the freedom to surrender to the one true King, Jesus Christ. How will you perceive this holiday moving forward? How will this knowledge fortify your faith? My prayer is that we gratefully acknowledge the freedom we all experience through Christ. Amen.