July 27, 2008
Rev. Kip Gilts

         Last Saturday morning in Dallas there was a consecration service for the three new bishops of this jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church.  A youth choir was assembled from several churches in the Dallas area.  They all wore t-shirts that read, “Hope of the World”.  There were probably 150-200 choir members in all.  One-third of them stood in the choir loft, one-third of them in the east balcony, and one-third of them in the west balcony.  They sang beautifully and like many youth choirs had motions to accompany their songs.  There was really only one problem with the set-up.  They put all the guys in the choir loft – front and center.  And there was this one guy who for one reason or another did not seem all that excited about singing at the consecration service for United Methodist bishops.  He could not have been less impressed.  When others were singing with enthusiasm, he was mouthing the words only to show someone that he knew them.  As others were rolling their hands and waving their arms with tightly choreographed movements, he would sometimes flick his wrist.  I suspected that he was fulfilling some community service hours for an earlier mischief.  A friend that was sitting next to me said, “It sure is taking more effort for him to be cool, than to get with the choir.”

I wonder what Principal James Johnson would have said to the young man after his lackluster participation.  James Weldon Johnson was the Principal of Stanton School in Jacksonville, Florida in 1900.  It was a school for African-American students.  He had been asked to speak at the celebrations of Lincoln’s birthday that year.  However, as he was preparing his remarks a poem began to emerge from his soul.  He went with it and came to a couplet that caused the spirit of the poem to take hold of him, “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.”  He sought out his brother, a trained musician, asking him to write the music for the poem and it became a song for the ages – a song of faith, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”.  On February 12, 1900 five hundred students from Stanton School stood and sang this incredible song for the very first time:

 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.

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 fathers sighed?

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

We have come, treading our path thru 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.

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.

It is an inspiring song that certainly spoke to an African American population that had been liberated from slavery decades earlier, but who even today continue to strive for freedom in many parts of our country.   The song has long been known as the National Anthem of African Americans.  I am not sure this designation has done its message any favors.  It seems to perpetuate the segregation that the song sought to eliminate.  Today I want to encourage each of us to do as the song exhorts, lift every voice and sing.

I’m quite confident that this is what Moses had in mind when he and his sister, Miriam, put together a song praising God for their newly found freedom.  Their song, or perhaps better said, Our song, is found in Exodus 15.  I call your attention to verses 1-3 and 11-13.  Hear now the word of the Lord:

 ¹Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. ²The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. ³The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name…¹¹Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, doing wonders? ¹²You stretched out your right hand, the earth swallowed them. ¹³In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode.   

 In this passage the writer reminded his readers of God’s power and purpose displayed in their lives.  Let us pray.

Lift every voice and sing.  I can imagine Moses and the Israelites just escaping the Egyptians who were pursuing them and gaining with every turn of the chariot wheel, composing this song to be sung in praise to their God, and one the boys in the back not being very interested.  I can imagine Moses taking the boys face in his hands and saying, “This is your song as much as it is mine.  Sing it with all your heart.  Lift every voice and sing.

Lift Every Voice and Sing when Life’s Problems are Bigger than you

Moses knew from Day One, back in the desert with the burning bush, that this was an impossible task.  For centuries the Israelites had endured suffering under the Pharoahs and the more he tried to address the injustice, the harder it got for them.  The problem was always much bigger than he was.  Terence Fretheim wrote in his commentary that the Egyptians in this story are metahistorical in the sense that “the chaotic forces of the world are concentrated there representing the anti-creational forces”.  That is, Egypt is a figure, though historical, that represents for each of us those things that seek to undo all that God has done.  This is our story, anyone who has faced a problem bigger than you are, lift every voice and sing. 

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote, “Egypt symbolized evil in the form of humiliating oppression, ungodly exploitation, and crushing domination.” It was against this that the Lord fought, not as an apathetic deity who set the world in motion and sighed, “Do the best you can”, but as an interested, invested Creator and Redeemer who is about the business of setting a chaotic, oppressive world straight.

There are a couple of despicable characters in the Victor Hugo tale Les Miserables.  The Thenardiers always seem to be up to no good.  In one scene of the musical version of this story Mr. Thenardier is scavenging valuables off the dead rebels in the street.  While doing so he sings, “It’s a world where the dog eats the dog, where they kill for the bones in the street.  And God in his heaven he don't interfere ’cause he’s dead as the stiffs at my feet.  I raise my eyes to see the heavens and only the moon looks down - The harvest moon shines down!”

I would guess that the Pharoah thought the same thing, until Moses reminded him that God was interested in the treatment of others.  Moses’s song declares that the Lord is a warrior, but note that he is a different kind of warrior.  God doesn’t come at the Egyptians with bigger horses, grander chariots, and sharper swords.  Creation itself is employed to exact judgment from the anti-creational forces of oppression.  The phrase, “he has triumphed”, in verse one is actually a verb which usually is translated, “he has risen up” as pride or anger rises up in us almost unexpectedly, or like a wave rises up on us in the ocean.

My first time at the Pacific Ocean was an unforgettable experience.  I was almost nine years old.  I waded out to about waist deep.  It was cold and I was trying to get accustomed to the chill, just as I would do at the city pool in Findlay, Ohio.  I remember looking back at Aunt Peg and Uncle Bill and waving when all of a sudden I was submerged, knocked off my feet, and turned so that I had no idea which way was up.  I know what it means for the water to rise up triumphantly.  That is what Moses was saying.  God overtook those that had so often overtaken others.

You don’t have to have been an ancient Israelite to get this – this is our story.  You don’t have to be an African American principal celebrating the Great Emancipator’s birthday in a segregated school to sing this song – this is our song.  Every voice, which has been silenced by life’s problems that are bigger than you, are invited - even encouraged to sing this song.

Lift ev'ry voice and sing, til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise high as the list'ning skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Lift every voice and sing when life’s problems are bigger than you.

Lift Every Voice and Sing when Life’s Purposes are Bigger than you

It was never God’s intent to liberate Israel and then leave them alone.  From the time of Abraham the story of God’s people has always been that we are blessed to be a blessing.  God has a purpose for our lives that is much bigger than we are.  Randy Pausch understood that life’s purpose was bigger than he was.  So when he was invited to give the “Last Lecture” at his university, Carnegie Mellon University, he gave the lecture of a lifetime.  He spoke of following childhood dreams and living life well.  He promised to give a couple of head fakes through the talk that has been viewed on YouTube over four million times, read in transcripts by thousands, and purchased in a book by even more.  Needless to say, this one lecture touched millions of lives, but it was written for one reason.  Pausch shared that reason at the end of his lecture when he said, “The talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids.”  He understood that there was a purpose bigger than him and as thousands of people thanked him for the talk that inspired them he realized just how big that purpose was.  Randy Pausch died Friday from pancreatic cancer.  His hope was that now his purpose would be released into action.

Moses sang, “In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode.”  Life’s purpose was bigger than any of the Israelites – it was God’s purpose and God’s power that led them to it.

That is why the third stanza of James Weldon Johnson’s poem is so inspiring.

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.

It is so easy to make life all about me, but life will never mean much until it is framed as it was intended.  How often we turn to God in the difficult times when our problems are bigger than we are, and then when life gets righted and we are more comfortable we return to the controls making our lives about us, “Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee.”  We lose sight of God’s purposes and settle for such smaller meanings, “Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.”  Part of that purpose is telling others what we have experienced in our relationship with God.  Fretheim wrote about the importance of Moses and Miriam’s song, “If there was no human response, what God has done would not become known.  It would be like a rock falling into the sea.” 

How has God addressed problems in your life that are bigger than you?

How has God revealed a purpose for your life that is bigger than you?

Lift every voice and sing.  That is what I wanted to tell that young man in the choir last Saturday until God revealed to me how often I am that reluctant singer failing to live out God’s grand purposes for my life, failing to stay as close in comfortable times as I do in trying times.  Lift every voice and sing.  Amen.