September 30, 2007

The Rev. Sarah D. Hollar

    In the passage just read, Paul lays out 2 difficult commands for the new Christians at the Church in Ephesus. He tells the members, if you want to be true followers of Jesus Christ, you must be willing to speak the truth in love and you must commit yourself to growing up. 

      Truthful, loving critique and patient, thoughtful maturity do not come easily. They are hard won attributes. Because the world of man is not pure and pristine, we continually face competing values that call us to challenge one another. And, our understanding of what is acceptable and justifiable changes over time as we do mature and continue to evolve and grow in our faith.

     Today, we accept Paul’s charge to proclaim truth and demonstrate our maturity.   We say the hard true thing and we name it with gentleness because we recognize that even with years of practice, we are not yet measuring up to the full standard of Christ.   So with love and humility we say, Albert McCoy was a good Christian man of his time. He loved his wife, he was a good father, a good friend, a benefactor of his church and he was a slaveholder. He may have treated his property very kindly but at the end of each day, they were still his captives. It is hard to reconcile this reality of his life with the other Christian virtues he lived. 

     But the grace of God prevails. Albert McCoy left a legacy of faith and morality to his children. They learned and practiced its principles well. His son, Thomas was a good Christian man of his time. He loved his wife and his family and his church.

At his death, Thomas McCoy provided for his church very very well. He left them an endowment to maintain their grounds, to pay for their clergy and he left them funds and the responsibility to maintain the McCoy Slave Cemetery.

     For years the congregation of St. Mark’s did basic and periodic work at this site. But as we continued to mature in our faith, we realized more was required in our stewardship of this holy place. We wanted and we needed to honor the people interred in this ground and so we expanded our commitment of care for the McCoy family’s Slave Cemetery. Our youth build benches so visitors could reflect and pray over the souls of the departed. Men and women cleared brush, laid wheel barrels and wheel barrels full of mulch to create a pathway to the site. The functional but ugly chain link fence was removed and member, Kellen Osburn took on refurbishing the cemetery as his Eagle Scout project. A split rail fence appropriate to the founding of the cemetery was constructed. New plants were added and protective barriers were installed at the road to keep the site free from disrespectful intruders. Another member, Michael Thompson, researched records hoping to find the names of those buried here but in the absence of detailed accounts, he wrote an overview of what this place signifies. We believe the words honor the men and women and any child buried here. We hope they also honor the trust the McCoy family gave us to care for this holy space.

     Michael will now read the inscription that stands as a tribute to those enslaved on this land and those who bequeathed this land. May the words also encourage all who visit this site to continue to speak the truth in love and to grow in every way more and more into the full standard of Christ.       Amen.