Dear People of St. David’s,
This coming Monday, we will celebrate Juneteenth. June 19, 1865, a full year-and-a-half after the Emancipation Proclamation, is the day that the state of Texas finally announced that slaves were free. All those years after 1776, finally all Americans could be born into freedom—and they knew it! In the Stroud house, we celebrate hard on July 4, because we love the history of those strong men who met in Independence Hall during a hot and humid summer. But why do we wait to make merry until the 4th of July when full American freedom was declared on the 19th of June?
A few years ago, I was talking this over with a colleague and, in our church-geeky way, we began to talk about a season—the days between Juneteenth and Independence Day—a sixteen-day season to pray for God’s grace and give thanks for the gift of freedom. My friend calls it Freedomtide. I could tell a lot of stories to get us in the spirit of Freedomtide, so hit me up at coffee hour in the next couple of weeks. Here is one to get you going: a story of how God makes us free to love one another the way that God loves us.
When the Episcopal Church was organized (in Philadelphia, in 1789, while some Episcopalians were busy writing the U.S. Constitution) it was decided that bishops would oversee geographical jurisdictions. Those bishops would meet together in a “house” and elect a “presider.” The Most. Rev. Michael Bruce Curry is currently our presiding bishop.
Michael Curry, like many of us, has a story about how he became an Episcopalian. He tells the story of his parents, worshipping together one Sunday morning back before they were married. It was a service of Holy Communion, and it was a little unusual for the time in that both Black people and White people were worshipping together, but there they were. Michael’s father, who was a Baptist, did not go up to receive Holy Communion, but he watched the woman who would later become his wife. He saw the priest offer the cup first to a White man, and then, without pausing, to his beloved. He thought, “I want to be part of this! I want to belong to a place where we may share the Cup of Salvation without thought to the color of our skin.” So, Michael’s father became an Episcopalian, married that woman, and eventually became a priest and the father of two.
For the last eight years, his son has led us all, pulling us along sometimes, and shaking us up sometimes. At least one time, preaching at the wedding of a young prince and a beautiful actress, he reminded us that “there is power in love.” In this Freedomtide, I want to say that the power of love is freedom, the freedom to love one another with the love that God gives each one of us.
Blessed Freedomtide!
The Rev. Nancy Webb Stroud
Priest Associate
(Image above: 2016: Ed (left) and Bill Stroud celebrate Independence Day weekend at the Free Quaker Meeting House, 5th and Arch Streets, Philadelphia. Photo credit of the author.)