There is this moment toward the end of Glory, the 1989 film that depicted the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, an all-black unit during the Civil War, that has stayed with me. As the soldiers of the 54th prepare to assault a Confederate fort in South Carolina, its leader, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick, takes a moment to look out on the Atlantic Ocean. He watches seagulls skim the surface of the water, and you can see fear, terror in his eyes, as he pauses, knowing that when he turns to face the fort he and his soldiers will very likely die in the battle just about to take place. There is this moment in Shaw’s eyes in which you know that he so doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to see this part of the journey unfold, can’t it be someone else to take on this difficult, terrifying task? Yet this moment of fear gives way to resolve: Shaw turns to the fort and rejoins his men, and together they head into battle and into history. I’ve often wondered what passed through Shaw’s heart and mind in that moment, this incredibly human pause, on the brink of something life-changing, something of the magnitude of life and death. How did he muster courage in that moment? What kind of spiritual resources did he have to find a way past that pause? And when that moment comes for me, for us, do you and I have the courage, the faith, to do as Shaw does, to face the most difficult challenges, even as these challenges may be that which gives our lives true meaning?
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus also pauses for a moment. The Pharisees meet Jesus and warn him that Herod is out to kill him. Their warning is a well-meaning caution to this person with whom they have been tussling, that the local ruler of the Galilee region, the man who killed another prophet, John, Jesus’ cousin, now has his sights on Jesus. I wonder what was on Jesus’ heart and mind when he was presented with this warning. Where do his eyes linger on as he ponders this news, about being a targeted man, this very real possibility that his life is in danger? Do his eyes reveal, even for a flash, the fear and terror that must come when faced with something so imminent and dangerous? Perhaps in that brief moment there is for Jesus the fantasy that he need not journey toward Jerusalem, the place that kills prophets, that maybe someone else can do the job, maybe he can turn away and live life just squabbling with the Pharisees. Instead, what we see is Jesus responding to the warning by being true to himself, to his purpose: he instructs the Pharisees to tell Herod that his message, his ministry remains constant: he casts out demons, and heals the ill. Jesus continues to do the hard work of liberating people from oppression, callousness, and poverty and toward well-being, authenticity, and generosity, exactly what he preached on in his inaugural sermon in his hometown of Nazareth, right after his own wilderness experience in the desert: to proclaim good news to the poor, release for those imprisoned, recovery for those ill and disabled, freedom for the oppressed. He pauses, yes, but doesn’t turn away from his journey toward Jerusalem, a journey that began when he came out of the wilderness with the clarity and conviction that to the very end of his days he was beloved by God, and that therefore everyone was beloved by God. His ministry has been one of relentlessly speaking truth to power, of exposing the corruption and hypocrisy and hubris of the powerful, and for this those in power conspire against Jesus. But Jesus responds by asserting his purpose, and then imagines God nurturing the children of Jerusalem as a mother hen protects her chicks under her wings. I can’t help but wonder what spiritual resources Jesus had that allowed him, in the face of imminent danger, to respond with such generosity, sorrow, and hope, to imagine God drawing God’s children near.
Perhaps Jesus prayed a simple prayer from a song that he couldn’t have known and yet probably sang all the same: come by here. Kumbaya, my Lord, come by here. Today, when we think about this song, we think of Boy Scouts and guitars and campfires. Or wishy-washy hippies. Or as a recent New York Times article puts it, Kumbaya moments are seen as an expression of false unity, false hope, false optimism in the face of danger, whether political danger or otherwise. And yet Kumbaya, come by here, is nothing less than a powerful yearning for God’s presence in the midst of our darkest moments, when we are called to be true to ourselves because our lives depend on it.
Civil rights icon Vincent Harding recently talked about the true meaning of Kumbaya. In 1964, college-aged volunteers from around the country gathered in Oxford, Ohio to begin a two-week orientation, at the end of which would result in their traveling to Mississippi to live with black family hosts, organize and register them to vote, teach in alternative summer schools, and above all work with the local community to fight against segregation and poverty, to empower ordinary African Americans to imagine a future of justice and dignity. A week into this orientation for what would become known as Freedom Summer, three principal organizers—James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner—traveled as part of an advance team to Mississippi, only to go missing and eventually found dead: murdered by members of the KKK. Word got back to the volunteers and organizers in Ohio that the three men were missing. The director of Freedom Summer, Bob Moses, told the 1000 mostly white volunteers that the three men were in all likelihood dead, and that no one would think less of them for withdrawing from the project, that he was grateful that they had come that far already. The entire room fell silent.
Harding recounts, “[Bob Moses] said let’s take a couple of hours just for people to spend time talking on the phone with parents or whoever to try to make this decision and make it now. What I found as I moved around among the small groups that began to gather together to help each other was that, in group after group, people were singing ‘Kum Bah Ya, come by here, my Lord, somebody's missing, Lord, come by here. We all need you, Lord, come by here.’”
Harding concludes, “I could never laugh at Kum Bah Ya moments after that, because I saw then that almost no one went home from there. They were going to continue on the path that they had committed themselves to and a great part of the reason why they were able to do that was because of the strength and the power and the commitment that had been gained through that experience of just singing together ‘Kum Bah Ya.’”
Kumbaya. Come by here, Lord. Sisters and brothers, in a moment we will gather around this table—whoever you are, wherever you find yourself on life’s journey—where we experience deeply this hope for God to be with us, to dwell in us, in that crucial moment when we are on life’s edge. I am about to begin the first of many chemotherapy sessions. Come by here, Lord. My supervisor brings me into her office and says, I’m sorry but we’re going to have to let you go. Come by here, Lord. Two weeks ago, we buried our father, and oh how I miss him so. Come by here, Lord. One in five children will suffer from malnourishment and poverty tonight in the United States. Come by here. Two and a half million people are incarcerated in this land of freedom. Come by here. More than 2000 people have been killed by gun violence since Newton. Come by here, Lord. Come by here, because in our vulnerability and need we yearn to be true to you and to ourselves, to be and become all that you intended us to be. Give us the courage to come together, as you draw near to us, to face all that imperils us, your children and your world. Come by here, God, nourish us with your grace that we may step forward on our journeys to make your dream come true.
Sisters and brothers, this Lent, let us ask God to come by here, together. Let us find the faith and courage to sing together Kumbaya, so that we may move forward, together, to do the hard work of bringing God’s reign here on earth.
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