John Wesley’s Preface to the text: Hymns and Sacred Poems published in 1739

Directly opposite to this is the gospel of Christ.  Solitary religion is not to be found there. “Holy solitaries” is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness. “Faith working by love” is the length and breadth and depth and height of Christian perfection. “This commandment have we from Christ, that he who loveth God love his brother also;” and that we manifest our love“ by doing good unto all men, especially to them that are of the household of faith.” And in truth, whosoever loveth his brethren not in word only, but as Christ loved him, cannot but be “zealous of good works.” He feels in his soul a burning, restless desire, of spending and being spent for them.

John Wesley’s The Character of a Methodist

A Methodist is a Christian, not in name only, but in heart and in life.  A Methodist is inwardly and outwardly conformed to the will of God as revealed in the written Word.  They think, speak, and live according to the method laid down in the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Their soul is renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and in all true holiness.  And having the mind that was in Christ they so walk as Christ also walked.

Scripture: Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Scripture: Ephesians 4: 15-16
But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

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When you look at our United Methodist hymnal, there are standard sections and titles that you would find in any hymnal…like Communion, Thanksgiving, Praise, Easter, Lent, Advent or Christmas.  But in our hymnal there is this very particular section called Social Holiness.  It follows personal holiness.  It is a phrase right out of the heart of our tradition.  John Wesley is quoted again and again by Methodist nerds the world over, “there is no holiness but social holiness.”  This quote comes from the preface to a hymnal the Methodist Societies published in 1739, which I think puts it in a particular context, the context of worship and spiritual practices.   Wesley names this social holiness and highlights Paul’s writings to the Ephesians, saying we are part of a larger body.  Paul again and again names the connectivity of our faithfulness.  We are parts of a body, we are different and we are all needed for the whole to function.  Faith doesn’t make room for solo artists.  A solo Christian, no matter how self-actualized, humble, smart, gifted and compassionate does not stand much of a chance in the face of the brokenness of the world.  A solo Christian is like a finger without a hand, or a leg without a body.  Faith is connective, not solitary or isolated.  There are no solo artists in faith, we are a band (you decide if we are a marching band or a rock band or what ever kind of band).  

In this section of social holiness you will find hymns that lament the broken world, hymns that name how some go to bed hungry or cry out homeless in the streets, hymns that honor the prophets voices and call us to be instruments of peace, hymns that can or should make those of us with privilege, be it born out of our race, class, religion, gender, nationality or any other elements of our social fabric that can set a limit or offer unmerited authority.  Charles Wesley wrote hymns that name the violence of his day and we can look around in our day and see their application in our own streets.  It would be easy to look at this section of the hymnal and conclude that social holiness is the same as saying social justice.  It would be easy to look at Wesley’s own life and see the work of his faith through the lens of the words ‘social justice’ as we apply them widely in our own culture.

John Wesley and his family knew about poverty.  His own father spent time in a debtors prison.  Wesley’s government estimated that more than half of the general population lived in poverty (Kimbrough).  This means more than half of the people were treated as expendable, often targeted for prison and execution.  While there were ‘Relief Acts’ passed through the British government, the Wesley brothers and their Methodist Societies were connected to systems of injustice and confronted by the violence of poverty in every facet of life.  And they respond.  When in ministry in Bristol, John sees the violence and money of slavery first hand and he becomes an advocate for change.  He sees the mistreatment of laborers, young and old.  The Wesley brothers and the Methodist societies create schools for children, they preach at the coal mines, they set up what we would call micro-loans for people to develop new ways of supporting themselves and their families.  They set up medical clinics and write guides for physical self-care that give the best medical knowledge of the day to the people that could not have afforded it otherwise.  John and Charles carried the stories and struggles of the poor with them.

They preached sermons that seemed harsh because they were not afraid to offend the rich.  When preaching to the wealthy, they offer scriptures like “You brood of vipers” that were pointed and direct.  You can imagine this didn’t go over well.  One English Gentleman suggested Wesley should have preached that kind of sermon to people in the poor house… you know where they need it.  Wesley responded, he would have preached ‘behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,’ to the poor.   Wesley believed the rich and their greed created poverty.  He was not afraid to tell them that.  While some might have blamed the idleness of the ‘have not’s’ Wesley saw three things as the cause of poverty in England… distilling, taxes and luxury.  He urged for personal and legal restraints to keep thousands of people from starving (Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodist, 253).  Wesley asked everyone for money to make an immediate impact in the lives of people.  Everyone in his societies were expected to contribute a penny a week (which may now be about $1.66 a week depending on the “accuracy” of various online calculators).  Rich or poor — everyone gave.  One Methodist left remarking that Wesley was “charitable to an extreme.”  Ironically, this man had been one of the recipients of a micro-loan from the Methodist Societies and as he experienced success by the worlds standards he began questioning Wesley’s generosity and departed.

Wesley’s social holiness called for justice but social justice may not give the fullness of its meaning.   Working for justice is sacred work and a means of grace. But this is only one of the various means of grace.  Reading scripture, praying, fasting, being in a small group and taking communion, and being in worship…these are all means of grace.  They are part of a personal transformation that doesn’t happen in solitude or isolation.  Wesley’s faith is social and communal just as our Trinitarian God.

God is communal in God’s own nature.  God, the source, parent, father, mother is rather linked to the Prevenient Grace Wesley saw as present all around….grace is seeded within.  It is the spark that longs for the spark of God around us.  Justifying grace, the kind of grace where hearts are strangely warmed or people feel so transformed they can only describe it as being born again.  This is an awaking, an experience.  Richard Rohr describes it as a moment when you feel big and small at once.  This grace comes out of the Lutheran voices that urged Wesley to see grace as a gift that can not be earned.  It is like the Son, the incarnate God found in Christ, that lives and breathes, laughs and struggles so we can open our eyes to a way of living and dying.  But Wesley will not stop here.  He brings all of his experience to the table in Sanctifying Grace, the work of the Holy Spirit that keeps working within us and around us and through us.  This is the grace that comes with practice.  The grace that moves us from our tendencies of selfishness and destruction into the image of God.  This is where the means of grace come to life and move us to perfection.  That is right…Wesley believed we should strive for perfection.   If  we don’t have this big goal then what is the purpose.  Social justice is fueled by a social faith rooted in a social God.  That’s social holiness.

This theology, the fine balance of what might have been conflicting theologies woven together often got Wesley into arguments.  He believed too much in works…like the church of Rome, which didn’t go over well with a lot of folks, folks like his grandparents that might have been more Puritan in their theology.  Some questioned his belief in justification experience.  Some thought he was an enthusiast which was a label no one was enthusiastic about, at least not any of the good thinking people.  Some argued he was disrupting the Church of England.  Some felt he was charitable to an extreme or perhaps his directness confronted them and they just were unable to deal with it.  He argued perfection and grace, not predestination where God picks some winners and some losers.  Some thought they had reached perfection and Wesley had to tell them, “try again.”  Wesley was in constant discussion with people that differed from him and he stayed as connected as he could in all these disagreements, agreements, struggles, differences and hopes.

At the end of the day, salvation was not one moment of justification.  It was a life shaped by the communal God in a communal faith by the means of grace.  Salvation, right here, right now fueled his work.  Perhaps it can continue to fuel and re-fuel ours.  See - we can join Wesley in uncomfortable places.  We can read the old hymns and see the violence of war.  We can read the old prayers and see the misuse of power, privilege, money and might.  We have a social faith, a social holiness and a social God.  We gather in small groups to check in with our souls and to ask hard questions.  Brokenness looks different than the slave ships in Bristol’s harbor or children in need of schools in Kingswood or laborers without rights.  Maybe.  We look out on our world and we are painfully aware of brokenness.    We look out and see the victims of gun violence, some children, some civilians in other countries, some in military uniforms, some in service, some teachers, some spouses, some law enforcement; all sacred and tragically killed.  We look at the brokenness and we see people in power and authority abuse their work.  Church leaders preaching hate and crucifying LGBTQIA people with their words.  We see the news of healthcare professionals, law enforcement officers, and political leaders abuse their power when they are called to heal, protect and serve.  We look at our world and we see refugees rejected and immigrant families broken in two.  It is so overwhelming that the easy solution is to complain about those people or just check out.  But the gift is we are part of a social faith.  Holy is communal and we don’t carry it alone.  Sometimes when we have a little more to give; we give a little more.  Sometimes when we need a little support, courage and resilience; we have folks that can support us.  This is social holiness, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God.

Amen.