Worship
for the Lord’s Day
June 28,
2020
A Note
before we begin this day’s worship:
Our sessions from both congregations
at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church and Olivet Presbyterian Church met and
made the decision to return to corporate worship next Sunday on July 5, 2020
barring no significant increase in cases of the coronavirus in our area. We’ve decided to hold a joint service at 10am
at the Bethesda church building for a number of reasons and may continue to do
so throughout the summer.
I
will continue to offer this posted version of our service each Sunday and we
may (key word – MAY) offer a YouTube version or a Streaming version of the
service as well. If you’ve been
following along with this on-line version of our services and would like to
join us in worship, please drop me a note at revwaltp@gmail.com and I’ll be sure to give you any details you
might need to know for joining us.
Today we close a month-long
concentration on African American Spirituals born out of the slavery era. The song, Steal Away, now a
main-streamed gospel hymn, is the anthem and focus of the sermon, paired with
our scripture readings.
Let’s
begin:
Opening
Prayer
Lord
of hope, when the dark clouds assail, You ask us to bear the light of Your love
and truth. When fears seem to immobilize
us, You give us courage and strength to bear Your witness. We thank You for Your call to us. We praise You for Your sustaining love for us.
We honor You with our lives and our
service to You; for it is in Christ’s Name, we offer this prayer and open our
hearts to Your worship this day. AMEN
Hymn For the Beauty of the
Earth This YouTube version is not the usual hymn
tune we sing at church, but it is a common alternative one and one of my
favorites.
Prayer
of Confession
Patient
God, each and every day You offer to us new hope and special blessings. From the rising of the sun to its descent, the
light of Your love pours out upon Your creation. We love all these things, but we want to hold
onto each of Your blessings just for ourselves. Teach us to share openly and willingly with
others. Forgive our selfishness and turn
it to selflessness in service to You. Clear
our minds and spirits from sadness to a sense of joy and adventure. Forgive us for not caring enough for those
who are oppressed in our communities.
Forgive us for not standing on the side of righteousness for those who
have no voice. Forgive us, O Lord, for
taking part in dishonoring another human being, made in Your image, loved by
You as a precious child, and redeemed through grace by the power of Your son’s
offering. We offer this prayer in Jesus’
name. AMEN
Words
of Assurance
Hear
the good news! God has again blessed our
lives with hope and joy. Be at peace,
dear ones, for God is with us. AMEN
Affirmation
of Faith – The Apostles’ Creed
I believe
in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His
only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin
Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended
into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall
come to judge the quick and the dead. I
believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life
everlasting. Amen.
Pastoral
Prayer
Lord, we talk amongst ourselves so
easily about being a friendly church. We
like to think of ourselves as a place where everyone is welcomed. But our welcome should not stay confined to church
walls. We are called to adopt attitudes
of hospitality to others who may not return the favor. We are called to be willing to take the risk
of hospitality in our workplace, our homes, our community, everywhere we go. You reached out to people in all kinds of
conditions. Many of those people had
been rejected by their society, their families. They were in need of compassionate greeting
and friendship. Lord Jesus, as you have
welcomed us regardless of our faults and failings, let us also be a welcoming
presence to all in Your name.
Jesus,
Your Son, taught us a prayer that we often say together; Our Father, who art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy
kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn How Great Thou Art Here’s a truly unique gospel rendition of the
song, sung by Jennifer Hudson. Gospel
was born out of the African American Spiritual movement. I think you’ll love this version sung at the
White House in 2014. Unlike most of the
hymns I’ve included in our worship time away, this is not one in which you’ll
be able to just sing-a-long. Ms. Hudson
goes places with the song that most average singers can’t go.
Scripture
Readings
Old
Testament: Genesis
22:1-14
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him,
“Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2He
said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of
Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I
shall show you.”
3So Abraham rose early in the
morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his
son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the
place in the distance that God had shown him. 4On the
third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. 5Then
Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will
go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” 6Abraham
took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he
himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on
together. 7Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I
am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb
for a burnt offering?” 8Abraham
said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the
two of them walked on together. 9When
they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and
laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on
top of the wood. 10Then Abraham reached out his
hand and took the knife to kill his son.
11But the angel of the Lord called
to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I
am.” 12He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him;
for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your
only son, from me.” 13And Abraham looked up and saw a
ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and
offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14So
Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day,
“On the mount of the Lord it
shall be provided.”
New
Testament: Romans
6:12-23
12Therefore, do not let sin
exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 13No longer present your members to sin as instruments of
wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from
death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not
under law but under grace. 15What then?
Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as
obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which
leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of
sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you
were entrusted, 18and that you,
having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms because of your natural
limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity
and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to
righteousness for sanctification. 20When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to
righteousness. 21So what
advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end
of those things is death. 22But now that
you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is
sanctification. The end is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sermon
– Steal Away
This
month I have tried to bring to your attention to the deep meaning behind a group
of songs that were born out of the slave era in the United States as a way of
bringing some light, through the words and melodies of these spiritual songs,
to the Black Lives Matter movement and the continued oppression of our brothers
and sisters who are People of Color.
I know many people disagree with the idea that
they could possibly be racist. As a
white person, born to an enormous degree of privilege simply because of the
color of my skin, I get it. But our
prejudices are deeply ingrained in us.
Our systemic racism is something we, as white people, rarely encounter
so we have little to no understanding of how deeply rooted in everyday
existence it is on our brothers and sisters of color.
I
rarely give a sermon that has little or nothing to do with the scripture
readings of the day. But as a lectionary
preacher, when you have a theme you want to preach on, those lectionary
readings are sometimes a stretch. Today,
is one of those days. The lectionary
readings have little to do with my month long focus on Black Lives Matter. However, there is one connection I’d like for
you to make. Both the Old and the New
Testament make references to slavery, often.
Today’s New Testament reading uses the concept of slavery in its entire
passage. The Old Testament story is
about Abraham’s faithfulness to God through his willingness to sacrifice his
son Isaac. But Isaac was Abraham’s
second born son, not his first. His
first-born son was Ishmael, born to the slave girl Hagar, who was simply tossed
aside, left to die in the wilderness.
Even through our scriptural stories (like the story of Hagar and Ishmael
vs. Abraham and Isaac) we have a deeply entrenched idea that some lives are
more worthy and valuable than others.
Thankfully, as a global society, we have made the effort to believe that
slavery is morally and ethically wrong and have banished it from existence (for
the most part, as slavery does still exist in some dark parts of the
world).
This
month has been my own naïve/pitiful, but heartfelt, attempt to help bring light
to who we are as a people of God and who we should be in our response to this
ancient, yet still modern problem of devaluing any human being and particularly
our brothers and sisters of color.
Music
has long been a way to express all emotions in the human spectrum. “For enslaved Africans, music was a way to
retain a small vestige of their culture, protest the unfairness and deplorable
conditions of their enslavement, provide hope for a better future, and
communicate with others. In melodies of
simple yet profound beauty, in lyrics of vivid images, and in rhythms drawn
from their homeland, the songs that came to be known as spirituals give voice
to the suffering and hope of an enslaved people. This music expresses a suffering of body,
mind, and spirit, a protest against injustice, a hope for freedom, and a
conviction of worth despite all afflictions.
At the same time, it embodies the beauty of the human soul beneath and
beyond all cruelty. Often sung in secret
gatherings, the spirituals enabled those enslaved to express an interior soul
space that the harshness of slave owners and slave drivers could not
reach. These songs ultimately became a
source of inspiration and courage as that inner spirit of freedom became
outwardly realized in the movement known as the Underground Railroad. If we listen carefully, we may hear in the
spirituals a voice of universal significance; a voice that reaches beyond all
culture, race, gender – beyond all differences – to the core of our shared
humanity.” Steal Away Home: The
Spirituals as Voice of Hope by Norman King.
After
being loaded tightly onto ships headed for North America, captured Africans
were sold at auctions and often forcibly separated from family members and
friends. Slave owners were fearful and
suspicious of any loud musical expressions or any large gatherings of
slaves. Drums were not allowed because
slave owners feared that they could be used to send secret messages. Music was usually only allowed in church or
in conjunction with work, unless it was a “quiet” song. Work songs typically used a call-and-response
form that was a tradition in many Western African regions, and were used to
motivate and lighten the burden of physical labor. Music was also used for worship in church
services, and some slaves were allowed to gather outside of church to sing,
pray, and dance. These “corn-field
ditties” evolved into spirituals, and were allowed because they served to help
spread the messages of Christianity.
They
were accompanied by clapping, stomping, and shouting. Slaves were all too aware of the hypocrisy of
the slave owners and their promotion of Christianity. However, the slaves related closely to the
Christian themes of being “saved,” of finding a spiritual or temporal “home” or
“promised land,” of triumphing over strife, and with Old Testament figures who
were viewed as inspirational heroes.
Since it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, the spirituals
were passed along orally. There were
often many versions of songs, so it is not uncommon to find changed phrases or
even phrases that are similar in different songs.
Many
of these songs had alternate meanings for the slaves. Some were merely inspirational, evoking a
longing and hope for freedom and the control of one’s own destiny. Others served as a means of communication
between slaves. They gave specific
instructions about how and when a
slave
could escape toward freedom, such as leaving in a particular season or at a
certain time of day, and the best means of escape. The river Jordan was often used as a metaphor
for the Ohio River and the free country that lay north of it. “Home” meant a place where all were welcome
to live freely. “Chariots” and later
“trains” were specific references to a means of escape such as the Underground
Railroad, and “stations” meant places along the journey where slaves could stop
for help or provisions. Some songs even
cautioned slaves to be discreet about their plans for escape. Stories of Moses or other biblical heroes
often referred to freedom fighters such as
Harriet Tubman,
and biblical villains such as “Pharaoh” referred to slave owners and their
foremen. The texts of the songs could
not speak directly against slave owners, but biblical themes and other songs
with seemingly innocuous meanings were allowed.
After
slavery was abolished, two separate perspectives on spirituals emerged. Some African Americans wanted to put the past
behind them along with anything that reminded them of the hardships and
injustice. Others saw the spirituals as
a historic art form and sought to weave them
into the
musical culture. The music continued to
evolve in the churches, and was even performed in secular settings—sometimes
with less religious word substitutions. The Fisk Jubilee Singers from Fisk
University in Nashville, Tennessee are credited with spreading spirituals
throughout the United States and Europe through a series of tours from 1867 to
1872. Other professional groups followed
such as the Tuskegee Institute Choir, Loudin’s Jubilee Singers, and Stinton’s
Jubilee Singers.
It
was also common at the turn of the twentieth century for African-American
school boys to form groups known as “quartets” which would perform in
schoolyards and on the street.
Economic
strife that made rural living a hardship encouraged movement into urban areas,
and a new category of artists known as the “blind singers and footloose bards”
emerged. With the “Black Renaissance” of
the 1920’s, the spirituals became influenced by a movement toward sophisticated
forms of poetry and harmony. Classically
trained soloists performed moving renditions of spirituals, and choral versions
with intricate harmonies were published.
In addition, as rural African-Americans moved into cities, the music
evolved into Gospel songs with the addition of instrumental accompaniment.
"Steal
Away" is one of those black American spirituals, or Negro spirituals, as
they were once called. This traditional
American song is a by-product of the so-called Underground Railroad, the
catchall term used to describe means slaves used to escape their owners to go
to the northern United States or on into Canada to live in freedom.
Its
words and those to other Underground Railroad songs had a double meaning:
"Steal away to Jesus, on the surface," meant dying and going to
heaven, but also symbolized escaping to freedom. The melody to "Steal Away" has a
stately melancholy in its slow pacing and glorious sense of resignation. It is somewhat dirge-like in its sweet gloom
and innocent solemnity. While the song
symbolized optimism for a better life for slaves, it seems to convey only a
spiritual hope, making the words "I ain't got long to stay here" seem
more a prayer about impending death than about escape to freedom.
Supposedly,
the song was composed by Wallace Willis, a slave of a Choctaw freedman in the
old Indian Territory, sometime before 1862.
Alexander Reid, a minister at a Choctaw boarding school, heard Willis
singing the songs and transcribed the words and melodies. He sent the music to the Jubilee Singers of
Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Jubilee Singers then popularized the songs during a tour of the
United States and Europe. "Steal
Away" is a standard Gospel song, and is found in the hymnals of many
Protestant denominations.
In
understanding the meaning behind our own spiritual and gospel songs, we owe an
enormous debt to this horrible era of our history and to these slaves for their
music, that was born out of pain and suffering they bore in their bodies and in
their spirits for generations at the hands of cruel masters.
May
we learn from history and have a deeper empathy for those who experience life
from another perspective. Thanks be to
God.
Benediction
God
of peace and mercy, send us into Your world with confident joy. Help us reach
out to others and care for them as You always care for us. AMEN
