Hopkins Chapel AMEZ, thank you for having me. Thank you for giving up a Sunday with Rev. Boyce so that I could be here and he could be there, at Central. I’ll do my best to meet the high standard you’re used to. But y’all help me!
I’ve been a preacher for a long time now, and I really love preaching – but it didn’t start out that way. I felt called to the ministry as a little kid – sitting up in the balcony, watching the pastor give the sermon, and getting this overwhelmingly strong sense that I was supposed to do something like that. I pretty immediately told God that I’d happy let God decide my vocation… but please, please could it not involve public speaking.
But you know: if God is calling you to do something, God’s going to use you do it – even if you don’t think you can. So every week when I step up and out and do this thing again, it feels like a miracle.
Now some sermons are easier than others. Some sermons kind of write themselves. I’ll have this sense from the beginning – this overwhelming sense! – that I need to preach about something particular. This week, I had that feeling! It started last Sunday when I heard the Sunlight Singers perform, right here. I kept thinking about this one story – but you know, I was a little reluctant to preach about it because it’s an embarrassing story. “God, I don’t want to tell that story. They’re just meeting me! They’re going to think I’m a goofball!”
But did you hear today’s Scripture? “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10).
So, here it is. Here’s the humbling story I knew I had to tell you today.
This story is really about this picture.
This is my Senior Pastor portrait. Central has a wall of pictures like these, all sorts of important looking white men (and they’re all white men). And then there’s me! One white girl.
Not too bad, huh?
I mean, a girl could feel pretty good about herself, looking at that picture on the wall with all the other “Senior Pastors.”
A girl could feel dangerously good about herself, you might say.
Because what does today’s Scripture say?
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10).
You know God helps us with that, right? God helps us stay humble.
That’s what happened to me. It was about four days before Christmas Eve, and I was nervous. I wanted to give a good sermon for all those people who only come to church once a year. I wanted to tell them about Jesus! But also… I wanted to look good. I wanted to look like the kind of preacher who could hang on a wall of preachers.
One evening I was walking around our church basement. We were having a little “blue Christmas” service, a time for people to bring their “blue” feelings at Christmas. I thought we needed a few more candles. I’m still kind of new but I figured odds were these candles were in the basement, in a certain room that collects all our odds and ends.
This room has a bit of a design flaw where the light switch is on the other side of the room from the door. So I walked in and carefully walked across the pitch-dark room. You know, I wouldn’t want to trip over something in the dark, right before my big Christmas Eve sermon – that’d be silly! I turned on the lights and looked around for the candles – no luck, oh well. I turned the lights back off and turned back around to face the pitch dark. I didn’t wait for my eyes to adjust, because I’m a fool. I figured I remembered where all the furniture was. I just started walking. Like, kind of fast walking because, you know, I’m an important Senior Pastor with her picture on the wall.
I never saw it coming.
POW! Something rang my head like a bell! I went down like Mike Tyson had knocked me out! I hit the floor like a Looney Toons character!
I laid there, stunned. What had just happened? Remember, it’s still pitch dark – I can’t see anything. As I was laying there, stars and chirping birds circling my head, it came to me: there’s a thin but very solid metal pole in the middle of the room, a support beam I had forgotten about. I had run smack into it. I was hurt, but even more, I felt the fool. I just started laughing at myself. I couldn’t help it. Some “Senior Pastor”!
But y’all, it gets better. I hit the pole right here, right on my eyebrow. So do you know what happened? I gave myself a black eye. I’ve never had a black eye before. I didn’t know that it gradually gets worse over the next few days. I didn’t know it’s at its very worst at the four day mark. And what was happening four days later?
Christmas Eve.
My right eye was bright purple for Christmas Eve. Like bright purple like someone colored it with a grape marker. I figured I had three choices: (1) let everyone see it and ask about it all day long; (2) wear an eye patch; or (3) buy some bright purple eye shadow and match the left eye to the right best I could. Which is what I did.
What does James say again? “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10). Oh, I was humbled. And you know what: it was a good thing. I didn’t go into Christmas Eve thinking this was my service, my big show. I needed to be brought down a notch… I needed to get out of the way and let God show off.
But there’s one more thing. The thing that has to do with this picture.
In all that I also chipped a tooth. I mean, this is how hard I hit that pole – my teeth chattered together and chipped, right here on the front. Now, don’t worry – I’ve been talking this whole time and you can’t even notice, right? It’s super small. It’s nothing. But I know it’s there. I know it’s there, as a matter of fact – because this picture was taken not long after all that went down. Every time I walk by this picture of very important-looking Senior Pastors on our wall, I see what no one else sees: a chipped tooth. A goofball of a grown woman that God is choosing to use despite her faults. And I’m glad that’s what I see; it reminds me: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10).
…
You know, I don’t think this Scripture only applies to us as individuals. People aren’t the only ones who need to stay humble. Institutions do, too. Sometimes an institution can get real full of itself. A church can get pretty full of itself. I serve a church that has a lot of reasons to think its a pretty big deal. Central is the longest ongoing institution in the city of Asheville. We’ve got a prominent spot on Church Street. And have you seen the building? It looks like Duke University over there! We’re so gothic and important!
But we’ve had black eyes.
For example: It’s no coincidence that all those pictures on our “Senior Pastor” wall are white faces. Those are good men, but their white faces reflect a racial preference.
We weren’t always so lily white; Central was fortunate to have black members in its congregation in the beginning. We told them they could come – but they had to sit in the back or in the balcony. We told them they could have communion – after the white folks. We told them they could listen to our white preachers – but a black preacher wasn’t welcome. That was the last straw. In 1868 your predecessors had enough. They walked out and formed a church of their own: Hopkins Chapel.
For a long time Central put on pretty good makeup. You know, a little eyeshadow goes a long way. No one talks about it or thinks about it… over time, no one remembers it.
Until 2018, when members of our church were researching it for our 180th anniversary. Then they saw it: a chip in our pearly white teeth.
Now, I’m proud of them – because they could have chosen to cover it up. Instead, they chose to own up. They pulled out the stained glass over our doorways that read, “M.E. South” – for “Methodist Episcopal Church, South,” the pro-slavery branch of our denomination that we once aligned with. They pulled that out and hung it up as a way to say, “See? See this chip? Don’t you forget, Central UMC. Humble yourself.”
They asked forgiveness. Rob Blackburn, my predecessor, wrote a letter formally asking for your forgiveness. Forgiveness is a good by-product of humility.
And then, you did something for us, something amazing: you accepted our forgiveness. We didn’t deserve that! One letter doesn’t make up for all the men and women we relegated to the back! One stained glass window doesn’t change the fact that we cared for you so poorly, that even when you left it didn’t get our attention! We don’t deserve your forgiveness! How do you do that?
Oh, but I know how. It’s because you know James 4:10: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10).
You know that humility is not thinking less of yourself – but seeing yourself accurately, realistically, as one who is both the miraculous creation of God and also humble before God. Humility lowers the people who need lowered and raises up the people who’ve been mistreated. Humility puts us where God intends us: all on the same level.
What you’ve done for Central – it’s changing this church. I’ve had a relationship with this church for a long time, and I can tell you: it’s different than I first knew it to be. I think this act of humility and your gracious, positive response is changing us.
In other words: we are better with you.
We didn’t always act that way, so let me say it again: we are better with you.
We are so much better with you.
Amen.
Prone to Wander 
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