celebratory jazz service for worship the Sunday before Lent starts. We take a special collection for Gulf Coast relief—and yes, there is still need, even after all this time.
This year, for the sermon, I found some poetry by James Weldon Johnson. I read two of them, with a little explanation of my own wedged between, while Dr. Joe did some awesome jazz piano stuff underneath—he even managed to work in the tunes of all the spirituals mentioned in the second poem. I wish I had his music for you to listen to while you read these, but... I guess we'll just have to settle for the words.Listen, Lord—A Prayer
O Lord, we come this morning
Knee-bowed and body-bent
Before thy throne of grace.
O Lord—this morning—
Bow our hearts beneath our knees,
And our knees in some lonesome valley.
We come this morning—
Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,
With no merits of our own.
O Lord—open up a window of heaven,
And lean out far over the battlements of glory,
And listen this morning.
Lord, have mercy on proud and dying sinners—
Sinners hanging over the mouth of hell,
Who seem to love their distance well.
Lord—ride by this morning—
Mount your milk-white horse,
And ride-a this morning—
And in your ride, ride by old hell,
Ride by the dingy gates of hell,
And stop poor sinners in their headlong plunge.
And now, O Lord, this man of God,
Who breaks the bread of life this morning—
Shadow him in the hollow of thy hand,
And keep him out of the gunshot of the devil.
Take him, Lord—this morning—
Wash him with hyssop inside and out,
Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.
Pin his ear to the wisdom-post,
And make his words sledge hammers of truth—
Beating on the iron heart of sin.
Lord God, this morning—
Put his eye to the telescope of eternity,
And let him look upon the paper walls of time.
Lord, turpentine his imagination,
Put perpetual motion in his arms,
Fill him full of the dynamite of thy power,
Anoint him all over with the oil of thy salvation,
And set his tongue on fire.
And now, O Lord—
When I’ve done drunk my last cup of sorrow—
When I’ve been called everything but a child of God—
When I’m done traveling up the rough side of the mountain—
O—Mary’s Baby—
When I start down the steep and slippery steps of death—
When this old world begins to rock beneath my feet—
Lower me to my dusty grave in peace
To wait for that great gittin’ up morning—Amen.
James Weldon Johnson
James Johnson was an African American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, early civil rights activist, and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He was one of the first African-American professors at New York University and later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk. James Johnson was born in 1971 and died in 1938 and so he would have been in his 20s during the early days of Jazz. As you hear this next poem, I want you to think about his ancestors, only a generation before, toiling in the fields under their harsh masters. I want you to ask yourself how they continued on in the face of backbreaking labor and little hope of freedom. And I want you to answer yourself, “With the help of God.”
O Black and Unknown Bards
O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrel’s lyre?
Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?
Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?
Heart of what slave poured out such melody
As “Steal away to Jesus”? On its strains
His spirit must have nightly floated free,
Though still about his hands he felt his chains.
Who heard great “Jordan roll”? Whose starward eye
Saw chariot “swing low”? And who was he
That breathed that comforting, melodic sigh,
“Nobody knows de trouble I see”?
What merely captive thing,
Could up toward God through all its darkness grope,
And find within its deadened heart to sing
These songs of sorrow, love and faith, and hope?
How did it catch that subtle undertone,
That not in music heard not with the ears?
How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown,
Which stirs the soul or melts the heart to tears.
Not that great German master in his dream
Of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars
At the creation, ever heard a theme
Nobler than “God down, Moses.” Mark its bars
How like a mighty trumpet-call they stir
The blood. Such are the notes that men have sung
Going to valorous deeds; such tones there were
That helped make history when Time was young.
There is a wide, wide wonder in it all,
That from degraded rest and servile toil
The fiery spirit of the seer should call
These simple children of the sun and soil.
O black slave singers, gone, forgot, unfamed,
You—you alone, of all the long, long line
Of those who’ve sung untaught, unknown, unnamed,
Have stretched out upward, seeking the divine.
You sang not deeds of heroes or of kings;
No chant of bloody war, no exulting paean
Of arms-won triumphs; but your humble strings
You touched in chord with music empyrean
You sang far better than you knew; the songs
That for your listeners’ hungry hearts sufficed
Still live,--but more than this to you belongs:
You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ.
James Weldon Johnson
Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
022409
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