The Editor is in America on this day, a remarkable day:
In the morning I watched the Inauguration on a big-screen television in Kansas City, Missouri, in a room full of young, white, evangelicals who watched intently, and applauded at the end of the new President’s speech. In the evening I joined, with many of these young people, in worship with an African-American congregation of the same evangelical denomination. The combination has been deeply moving in many ways.
One cannot but be moved by this day, and be hopeful, except a cynical heart of stone. This is a report on the spirit of the day, rather than the politics.
The church placed a picture of Obama with Martin Luther King behind him on the screen behind the pulpit. Such symbols are out of place in a house of worship, as much as a national flag; but on this day, as on no other, the symbol portrayed the exuberant celebration shared by all African Americans. Yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr, Day—the 80th birthday of King; today they saw what none of them thought would happen in their lifetime come to pass. The symbol can be forgiven on this day.
The first hymn was introduced as ‘The African American National Anthem’. I could not sing with them, for the words were written in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson, a school principal for whom slavery was still a living memory. I listened, and saw how much the words still pertain to these people, and grasped a little more of the reason for the exuberance of this celebration.
I also recognised quickly that I had heard the words before today. They are the opening words of the benediction of the Inauguration ceremony by the Revd James Lowery. The words of the hymn deserve a reading:
Lift every voice and sing,
‘Til 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 ‘til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning 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 through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Til 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 has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has 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.
This was a worship service of an African American congregation which is part of an evangelical denomination which voted 99% for Bush and McCain. I wish that 99% had been able to attend this service. Firstly, they would have to look at the Obama presidency in a different light. But, secondly, they would look at Jesus Christ in a different light.
The preacher, a senior figure in this same denomination (seen in the photo above), quoted quite a bit from Martin Luther King, Jr. His sermon title invoked Obama’s campaign slogan with ‘Remembering the Dream’. But the sermon was not about King, or about Obama. The preacher affirmed that Americans remember King’s 1963 speech about his dream, but that few remember the dream itself—and its hope for equality and justice for all Americans. Yet, his ultimate point affirmed that the fulfilment of that dream will be found in the resurrection, in Easter morning. He called it the dream of Jesus.
On this day, a day of celebration, observing the exuberance, this was good focus.
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