by Keith Davis
Click here to watch the sermon recording on YouTube.
Let us pray:
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…– An excerpt from LISTEN LORD: A PRAYER (from GOD’S TROMBONES)
Good Morning!
I’d like to tell you a story, a story I believe many of you have heard though, perhaps, not told in this manner:
THE CREATION (from GOD’S TROMBONES)
And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely—
I’ll make me a world.”And as far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, “That’s good!”Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,
And God rolled the light around in His hands
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said, “That’s good!”Then God himself stepped down—
And the sun was on His right hand,
And the moon was on His left;
The stars were clustered about His head,
And the earth was under His feet.
And God walked, and where He trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.Then He stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.Then God raised His arm and He waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And He said, “Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings,
And God said, “ That’s good!”Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, “I’m lonely still.”Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Til He thought, “I’ll make me a man!” Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He keeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night;
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This Great God,
Like a man my bending over her baby,
Keeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Til He shaped it in His own image;
And into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.
As an elementary school student in Gary, IN, I looked forward to February’s NEGRO HISTORY WEEK. Yes, I am old enough to have been called a Negro in polite circles, and yes, the dedicated time to study Black History, for most, was only one week. In fact, Negro History Week did not become Black History Month until the bicentennial year of 1976.
During that week, Mr Orlando Johnson, an educator with a rich baritone voice and lots of humor, would regale us with stories and other offerings from Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Arna Bontemps, Langston Hughes, and others including JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, the author of the opening prayer and The Creation story I just read. Mr. Johnson would bring their words to life using a combination of his baritone voice, facial expressions, and vocal animation. Because of this rich storytelling, I became fascinated with the work and life of James Weldon Johnson. For me to do justice to his numerous achievements and contributions to American society and culture would take months of Sundays.
This prolific man, born in 1871 Jacksonville, FL, was a graduate of Atlanta University. A member of one of the Divine Nine Black Greek organizations, Phi Beta Sigma, whose motto is “Culture for service and service for humanity,” he considered his education as a trust. He believed he was expected to devote his life to helping Black people advance. And that belief manifested itself in many ways.
As an educator, he was first a teacher then principal in a segregated school system being paid less than half of what his white peers earned. During his tenure there, he established both 9th and 10th grades to raise the amount of schooling for Black students. In 1931, he accepted The Spence Chair of Creative Literature at Fisk University, a position created especially for him and still in existence, at the age of 59. Additionally, in 1934, he became the first African American professor at New York University.
While working as a teacher in Jacksonville, Mr Johnson, with help from a willing white lawyer, Thomas A. Ledwith, studied the law. He became the first African American admitted to the FL Bar, Post Reconstruction, and to do so through an open court examination in 1897. His examination was exceptionally difficult. His two hour oral exam was before three attorneys and a judge, all white, in a crowded courtroom. According to Johnson, one of the examiners, not wanting him to be admitted to the Bar, stormed out of the room calling Johnson a racial slur as he exited.
As a civil rights activist, he became the first Executive Secretary of the NAACP. He used that hard earned legal education to help challenge disenfranchisement laws, like poll taxes and literacy tests, in the American South. He organized a “silent protest parade” of 10,000 African Americans down New York City’s 5th Avenue to bring further attention to the frequent lynchings in the South.
As a composer, along with his brother Rosamund, he composed more than 200 songs including those for Broadway musicals, movie scores, and popular songs of the day. Their most recognized composition, Lift Ev’ry Voice And Sing, was originally a poem written as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. With the NAACP’S promotional help, it became known as the NEGRO NATIONAL ANTHEM.
As a distinguished man of letters, Mr Johnson gifted us with numerous poems, stories, and books including THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLOURED MAN; essays and poetry to The CRISIS, the magazine of the NAACP, and other major periodicals; and GOD’S TROMBONES: SEVEN NEGRO SERMONS IN VERSE, where one would find today’s opening prayer, LISTEN LORD, A PRAYER, and THE CREATION. He was also one of the pillars of the social and creative arts movement known as The Harlem Renaissance.
James Weldon Johnson’s achievements remind me of what the prophet Jerimiah says in today’s Old Testament reading: AS FOR THE PROPHET WHO PROPHESIES PEACE, WHEN THE WORD OF THAT PROPHET COMES TRUE, THEN IT WILL BE KNOWN THAT THE LORD HAS TRULY SENT A PROPHET. His life and works would seem to indicate a person tethered to God and scripture. In his 1933 autobiography, Johnson appears to take a more agnostic approach to spirituality. He writes:
“The human mind racks itself over the never-to-be-known answer to the great riddle, and all that is clearly revealed is the fate that man must continue to hope and struggle on; that each day, if he would not be lost, he must with renewed courage take a fresh hold on life and face with fortitude the turns of circumstances. To do this, he needs to be able at times to touch God; let the idea of God mean to him what it may.
James Weldon Johnson’s words echoed in my head the night of November 4, 2008. On a conference call with my mother and aunts, we fell silent when Brian Williams, then of MSNBC, announced to the world that Barack Hussein Obama had been elected 44th President of the United States of America. As the silence continued on the phone, I imagined The Great Cloud of Witnesses peering over the battlements of Heaven, ears listening, as the words “LET OUR REJOICING RISE HIGH AS THE LISTENING SKIES. LET IT RESOUND LOUD AS THE ROLLING SEA” rose like incense to greet them.
James Weldon Johnson’s life comes to a most tragic end. In 1938, a car driven by his wife Grace was struck by a train in Wiscasset, Maine. While Mrs. Johnson survived the crash, Mr Johnson succumbed to his injuries. As a testament to his life and life’s work, thousands crowded the streets of Harlem to bid him farewell. His widow, a civil rights force and arts patron in her own right, lived to be 91. She died in 1976.
Mr Johnson’s words and work, I believe, embody the wisdom in Paul’s Letter to The Ephesians. Paul reminds us: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Mr Johnson’s legacy tells us his journey for a better world was not, and ours will not, be easy. Again, Paul reminds us to “…Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.”
I conclude this sermon the way I began it, with words from James Weldon Johnson. May they encourage us all to march on til victory is won:
-I WILL NOT ALLOW ONE PREJUDICED PERSON OR ONE MILLION OR ONE HUNDRED MILLION TO BLIGHT MY LIFE.
-I WILL NOT LET PREJUDICE OR ANY OF ITS ATTENDANT HUMILIATIONS BEAR ME DOWN TO SPIRITUAL DEFEAT.
-MY INNER LIFE IS MINE, AND I SHALL DEFEND AND MAINTAIN ITS INTEGRITY AGAINST ALL THE POWERS OF HELL.
Amen?…AMEN?
Amen
