When “Kum Ba Yah” Isn’t Enough

Well… we’re here. It’s Lent again. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you had a sad, pensive, heavy-handed Ash Wednesday. And I hope you remembered your mortality.

This past week, we gathered with First UMC of Newton. Though it was a dreadfully rainy, windy, gloomy day—perfect weather for Ash Wednesday—it’s always a struggle to get more than a handful of folks at worship that evening, regardless of the church and regardless of the size.

It turns out that we don’t especially like dwelling on our mortality. We aren’t good about sitting in silence, or contemplating sin, or examining our souls for what is weighing us down. Scriptures like today’s Gospel reading aren’t the ones we teach our children to memorize, and they aren’t passages that bring us comfort.

On top of it, when it feels like our lives are especially out of whack, it can be hard sitting in the pews with each other. In the knapsacks of our hearts, some of us carry frustration, some of us carry hope, some of us carry nervousness, and some of us carry nothing especially interesting. People are like sponges sometimes. Whatever is inside us has a habit of seeping out onto the floor. I don’t know about you, but it can be hard being in a church where there are so many sponges; it’s hard not to soak up other folks’ stuff.

All that to say, it’s easy to feel out of place in a church. It’s easy to feel a little on your own, or a little out to sea, or like you’re in a different place with different needs than others. This Lenten season can feel especially tricky, because it often focuses so much on our individuality. Ash Wednesday stirs up a lot, and some people observe it more closely than others. Scriptures like today’s might seem easier to understand for some people, and harder for others. And alongside these rhythms, we often ask questions during Lent like “how do I become more authentic in my faith?” “What will heighten my personal spirituality?” Or “What is a spiritual discipline I can practice on my own?”

The theme for this Lenten season is “Singing Until There’s Resurrection.” And our particularities—whatever is in the knapsacks of our hearts, and our beliefs, and our needs—those particularities are the starting place.

When it feels as if everyone and everything is out of whack, and when it feels like the world is unfixable, what do we do? And how do build this church into a place of belonging, even when it feels like everyone’s on a different page. What do we do when holding hands and singing “Kum ba yah” isn’t enough?

Well… perhaps ironically, even though “Kum ba yah” isn’t going to fix the world or anything around us, singing itself might change us. After all, God’s people have sung for thousands of years. It’s a spiritual discipline that at face value seems superficial, but if we trust the Spirit’s work, it will shape this church and our lives.

With that, let’s turn to the Scripture.

From the Gospel of Luke, chapter 13, verses 31-35:

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

This passage is a little weird! Jesus is saying some weird stuff. So let’s peel back the layers of the onion a little bit, and see if we can decipher this a little bit.

We start off in verse 31 with the Pharisees. For those who have been in churches for awhile, especially if we grew up in Sunday school or vacation Bible school, we have some feelings about the Pharisees. We heard that they were no good, mean-spirited, bumps on a log. They were bad eggs. But today’s passage says that they warn Jesus to leave. How could they be bad eggs and do that? Great question, Betsy, I’m glad you asked!

The Pharisees are complicated. Like every group of people, there was difference of opinion in their ranks. In Luke 7, Luke 11, and Luke 14, Pharisees make Jesus their honored guest at dinner. In other chapters, they are described poorly as “lovers of money” and “hypocrites” who reject Jesus. BUT they were not the biggest bad guys in the room. The real, big, bad villains in the Gospel stories are the Sadducees. Though both the Pharisees, who are in today’s Scripture, and the Sadducees are religious leaders, there is a big distinction. Sadducees were intimate conspirators with the Roman Empire and its rulers. The Pharisees, though certainly painted in a negative light, had no love for Rome. In today’s passage, that could be one of their motivations. The enemy of their enemy was their friend. Jesus might not have been their favorite, but he certainly wasn’t Rome.

Here we are: verse 1, and there are already four characters in the mix:

• There are those Pharisees, who fundamentally disagree with Jesus, but who hate Rome.

• There are the Sadducees off camera, who fundamentally disagree with the Pharisees and Jesus, but conspire with Rome.

• There are the Romans, particularly Herod, who care only for their self-interest, and who will coerce others into schemes.

• And fourthly, there’s Jesus.

At first glance, it might seem like Jesus hates Jerusalem. He says, it was “not willing” to be gathered together with one another. He says they “kill the prophets” and “stone those who are sent” to it. If we’re not careful, we will flatten Jesus into a modern-day American Christian, and read some anti-semitism into his words and deeds.

Jesus didn’t hate Jerusalem. As a Jewish man, he loved Jerusalem. It was a holy city, built around the temple, the home of God Almighty. The Gospel of Luke states Jesus traveled to Jerusalem yearly, making pilgrimages during high holy days.

So Jesus, our fourth character in this scene, is fundamentally at odds with every other character: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and Rome. But he loves Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is now our fifth character. And Jerusalem is a mess. It is at odds with Rome, and led by disparate groups of leaders. As the Gospel describes it, Jerusalem seemingly rejects Jesus, refusing to be gathered as a flock under its mothering hen. But come Palm Sunday, it will be a different story. Celebration will greet Jesus.

Across all these characters, and all their thoughts and feelings and particularities, we see that these differences were not superficial. They were deep as they run. The world likely felt intractably divided, intractably polarized, intractably politicized. Like them, we often feel that way. “Kum ba yah” isn’t enough.

“Singing itself might change us. After all, God’s people have sung for thousands of years. It’s a spiritual discipline that at face value seems superficial, but if we trust the Spirit’s work, it will shape this church and our lives.”

I’m going to date myself a little bit.

When I was growing up, children’s Christian education was a little bit different. There were kids everywhere, oozing out of churches, and faith formation was also more common in families during the week.

One of these differences in children’s Christian education was related to its economics. Christian education was much, much more than church programming. It was a market. There were graphic tees with parody sayings; Christian movies like Left Behind; Christian novels (also like Left Behind); there were WWJD bracelets for sale; and “hell house” tickets, which were essentially Christian haunted houses that ended with an altar call. Culturally, you were a Christian not just from your beliefs; you were a Christian from what you bought.

For kids who grew up in all this, there was one cultural artifact that survived all others: VeggieTales. For those who don’t know, VeggieTales was a set of VHS tapes that featured talking vegetables who proselytized the whole family. And during these VHS tapes, there was often a segment called “Silly Songs with Larry the Cucumber,” when a cucumber sang silly songs.

In seminary, every once in a while someone would sing a silly song ironically. When that happened, anyone who knew the song would immediately jump in, without a second of hesitation. If you heard someone jump in, you knew a lot about them, because they were sucked into that same children’s education market and 90s Christian culture. Even if you didn’t like the person who was singing, for a minute, you were on the same page, wholly in sync, and ready to reminisce on those weird experiences and books and movies you shared. The room around you and that other person seemed to sparkle for a moment.

…

If we return to our Scripture, we know we’re not first-century Jews or Jerusalemites. We aren’t the characters in this Bible story, and our actions won’t change what’s in the Bible. But Jesus, who is written into the pages of our Bibles, and whose actions are codified within it, isn’t stuck there. His love and hope and presence remains alive, still being poured out upon us through the Sacraments and the work of the Holy Spirit.

The very same Jesus who desires as a mothering hen to gather the children of Jerusalem is still at work. In all their particularities and differences, in every divergent opinion and perspective, and the breadth of their thoughts and feelings, Jesus desired for them to be gathered together. And Jesus desires for us to be gathered together, too. Not in spite of our particularities and differences, but with the full embrace of them.

When I described the silly songs, which instantaneously connected people across ideological lines, it felt like being gathered together. There was a magnetism where everything clicked in a surprising and joyful way. It was as if a group of chicks raced toward a mothering hen, finding a weird and unexpected place of comfort.

When we plan funerals, we often plan hymns that are widely known. You’ve probably heard what happens when people sing a familiar hymn, despite coming from a diversity of religious backgrounds. Take “Amazing Grace” for example. Singing “Amazing Grace” at a funeral brings Catholics and Protestants together. Children and youth can sing it just as well as adults. When people’s memories fail, “Amazing Grace” is often a hymn that sticks despite everything else. The hymn can be sung in English, Spanish, French, German, Afrikaans, Japanese, Tagalog — virtually every language on earth. “Amazing Grace” is often one of those places where Jesus gathers us in. We can feel that magnetism, those wings stretching out among us, and drawing us together with people we’ve never met.

Today, we are singing a verse of “Kum ba yah.” And it might seem ironic, given that the sermon title is “When ‘Kum ba yah’ Isn’t Enough.”

But we make a mistake when we talk about “Kum ba yah.” It isn’t a children’s campfire song, or a hoaky tool to get nerds to feel a sense of camaraderie. Though we don’t precisely know its origins, we do have a strong, educated guess. It was sung in North America, along the coast of the southeastern United States, by enslaved and formerly enslaved people. It was frequently sung by the Gullah, who endured some of the most brutal conditions of slavery in the United States. The song found a home especially in Georgia, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century as folk spiritual.

The verses of “Kum ba yah” are many. The repeated phrase, “kum ba yah,” is loosely translated to “Come by here,” a recurring plea for God to be present. Some verses of “Kum ba yah,” ask for deliverance. Some are about gratitude, joy, or laughter. Some affirm our human condition. But there’s a verse for everyone.

In this Lenten season, God desires to gather us in, under wings that shelter us and give us comfort. Throughout the Scripture, God’s people sing out: it is Miriam and Deborah who sing in deliverance; Simeon who sings in praise; and Mary who sings in thanksgiving. The early church sang their faith in secret enclaves and tombs. The church throughout history has always sang.

We sing, not because “Kum ba yah” will fix anything around us, but because it will change us. It will gather us in together, day by day, week by week, as a spiritual discipline blessed by God, and given to all God’s people. It will be the vehicle for us to hear one another more fully; to develop our skill of empathy, and to fix our attention on the transcendence of music, which ultimately draws us to the transcendence of God.

“Kum ba yah” isn’t enough. But we sing anyways. Because it will change us inside, and change our relationships with each other.

“Amazing Grace” doesn’t fix the grief that we carry. Singing a silly song with another seminarian doesn’t improve your grades. Singing “Kum ba yah,” didn’t end Jim Crow laws.

But we sing anyways. Again and again. Day after day. It will change us inside, and it will change our relationships with each other.

So this is how we’ll meet each other in whatever we carry - the heavy stuff, the light stuff, the fun stuff, and the scary stuff. In singing, we hear someone crying, someone praying, someone laughing. It’s how we listen to others and listen to God. It’s how we’ll walk the long journey ahead of us, all the way from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday to Maundy Thursday to Golgotha and to the tomb. We’ll keep singing, and singing, and singing—knitting ourselves closer with one another—until there’s resurrection. And God has promised a resurrection, indeed.