Today’s service has THREE choices.  You may view the Live Stream at this link: https://fb.me/e/3GOKZyIKb , hear it in the church parking lot at 107.1 FM, or join us in person inside in air conditioned comfort (masking preferred). 

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Gathering Music                  Polly Dunford

Welcome and Announcements                 Ed Yokley  

Community Prayer and Praise Notes         Ed Yokley

Introduction to Service             Rev. Dr. Steve Morgan

History of Juneteenth

Scripture Lesson     Psalm 137:1-4

Reflections             Rev. Dr. Steve Morgan

Liturgy of Commemoration and Acknowledgment  

ONE VOICE:

On this day we commemorate and celebrate, on the one hand, the coming of the word of liberation to the last group of enslaved African Americans on June 19, 1865.

VOICES RIGHT:

On the other hand, we remember as well the unspeakable suffering and dehumanization they and so many hundreds of thousands of others experienced for hundreds of years because of their skin color.

VOICES LEFT:

And we acknowledge with horror the Christian and American shame of slavery and domination of one race over another.

PROPHETIC VOICE TO WHITES FROM THE BLACK EXPERIENCE

“The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.”  (Frederick Douglas)

STORIES OF SHAME AND HOPE

MUSIC      “We Shall Overcome” (African American spiritual), verse 1           Handout

1) We shall overcome; we shall overcome; we shall overcome someday.

O, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome someday!

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ONE VOICE:

For too long, we, who are white, have been silent about the true cost of racism.

VOICES RIGHT:

We have not fully acknowledged the ways of our participation in racism and the degree of our white privilege.

VOICES LEFT:

We have wanted to believe that being nice and good and polite was enough.

PROPHETIC VOICE TO WHITES FROM THE BLACK EXPERIENCE

“We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will. And we shall continue to love you.” (Martin Luther King Jr.)

STORIES OF SHAME AND HOPE

MUSIC       “We Shall Overcome”,  verse 2               Handout

2)  We’ll walk hand in hand; we’ll walk hand in hand; we’ll walk hand in hand someday.

O, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome someday!

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ONE VOICE:

Today, we commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.

VOICES RIGHT:

And today we celebrate the progress our nation has made.

VOICES LEFT:

But the day also reminds us of the progress we have not made.

PROPHETIC VOICE TO WHITES FROM THE BLACK EXPERIENCE

"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression."  (W.E.B. Du Bois)

STORIES OF SHAME AND HOPE

MUSIC        “We Shall Overcome”, verse 3                       Handout

3)  We shall live in peace; we shall live in peace; we shall live in peace someday.

O, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome someday!

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ONE VOICE:

We do not come in confession, because neither we nor our families have owned slaves.

VOICES RIGHT:

But we do painfully acknowledge the legacy of slavery and of racism and of our white privilege, as well as the legacies of black deprivation and dehumanization.

VOICES LEFT:

So, we come in recognition of these shameful truths in hope for reconciliation and liberation from the curse of racism’s legacy – for both black folk and us white folk!

PROPHETIC VOICE TO WHITES FROM THE BLACK TRADITION

"We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history.  What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice." (Carter Woodson, historian)

STORIES OF SHAME AND HOPE

MUSIC       “We Shall Overcome”, verse 4           Handout

4)  We are not afraid; we are not afraid; we are not afraid today.

O, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome someday!

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ONE VOICE:

Therefore, we vehemently reject the sin of white supremacy, the racism it sustains, and its whitewashing of history.

VOICES RIGHT:

We renounce white supremacy with its lie of black inferiority and the racism within ourselves and which saturates our country and our political, economic, and legal systems.

VOICES LEFT:

And we rededicate ourselves to the life-long work of anti-racism toward building a common life built on justice and equality.

PROPHETIC VOICE TO WHITES FROM THE BLACK TRADITION

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

STORIES OF SHAME AND HOPE

MUSIC     “We Shall Overcome”,  verse 5           Handout

5)  God will see us through; God will see us through; God will see us through today.

O, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome someday!

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ONE VOICE:

Thus, we come in grief to mourn.

VOICES RIGHT:

And in petition to learn and grow.

VOICES LEFT:

And in hopes for reconciliation and the unleashing of a new spirit of accord with a new ordering of life in justice and opportunity for all people and all kinds of peoples.

PROPHETIC VOICE

"Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color."  (Author unknown)

STORIES OF SHAME AND HOPE

MUSIC “We Shall Overcome”, verse 1 Handout

1)  We shall overcome; we shall overcome; we shall overcome someday.

O, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome someday!

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ANDERSON AREA REMEMBRANCE AND RECONCILIATION MEMORIAL INITIATIVE

Five persons who were lynched in Anderson County between 1894 and 1911:

• John Laddison, from Rock Mill Township

• Reuben Elrod, from Piedmont

• Elbert Harris, from Iva

• Willis Jackson, from Honea Path

• Edward Sullivan, from Williamston

VICTIM’S STORY   -   Edward Sullivan       As you are able, please stand

PRAYER

Holy One, Author of Liberation and Justice:

As we remember these five victims from our area, as well as the thousands of others in so many other places, we pray toward liberation for ourselves from the bondage of racism and that we may, in the spirit of Jesus, resist injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves and wherever we experience them in our private and public lives and finally be freed of this national curse.

Closing Hymn     “Lift Every Voice and Sing”             Hymnal #339

        Words by James Weldon Johnson; Music by J. Rosamond Johnson

1)  Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty.

Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;

sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march on, till victory is won.

2)  Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod, felt in the days when hope unborn had died.

Yet, with a steady beat, have not our weary feet come to the place for which our parents sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;

we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

3)  God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;

thou who hast by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee;

lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;

shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand, true to our God, true to our native land.

Benediction           Rev. Dr. Steve Morgan                               

Shalom

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Calendar of Services  

June 26 — Rev. Dr. Steve Morgan

July 3 - Rev. Lucy Youngblood

July 10 or 31 - Dave Johnson/ another guest

July 17 - Rev. Dr. Steve Morgan

July 24 - Rev. Deb Richardson -Moore

August 7 - Dr. Elaine Nocks

August 14 - Rev. Johnny McKinney

August  21 - Rev. Dr. Steve Morgan

August 28 - Rev. Laura Collins

Tues., June 22: Summer Solstice Day walk at 6 pm because of the hot weather. Bring food if you would like to. Earth Care Team will meet following

A work trip to CDCA in Nicaragua is being planned for 2023.  More details to follow.

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The Church Garden is taking a different direction this summer by planting a cut flower garden.   If you have healthy viable seeds or plant starts of flowers to share, please contribute.  Thanks!

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Special prayers for Linda McFall as she begins a new line of treatment at MUSC in Charleston for her non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  She will be away for 6 weeks or more and wants her church family to know that she is remembering us too.

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Remember in prayer: Linda McFall; Mike Johnston; Taylor Bishop (Whitney’s niece); Family and Friends of Terry Ann Hayes; Jason Harding; Steve Hallowell; Pat Weddle; Glenn Burns; Tim and Michael Little-Bell and family; Jackie Moore; Whitney Bishop; Latha and Cheryl Semones; Immigrant families; Victims of all violence, oppression, and injustice; Victims of COVID-19; People of Ukraine; Families of Uvalde, Texas; Victims of mass shootings.