Isaiah 40:1-11;
Psalm 85:8-13
(Begin the
service by playing song by Odetta)
I
am an unrepentant lover of folk music.
My dad was a big fan of The Kingston Trio. I became a bigger fan of
Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Doc Watson. Today my taste ranges from Terry
Allen to Townes Van Zandt. Folk music is based on real human stories. When you listen to folk music it is OK to have
a little dirt under your finger nails. Folk music portrays the dreams and
occasional nightmares of the human experience.
Perhaps it is all rolled up in how you might interpret the line, “I’ve
been chasing grace and grace ain’t so easily found”.
The beauty of folk music is that the
search for grace continues even when the journey seems to have come to a
dead-end. Folk music is based on
hope. It is based on the possibility
that one day righteousness and peace will kiss.
It is based on the dream that one day our valleys will be lifted up and
our roads made straight.
This week marks the 6th anniversary
of the death of Odetta. I suspect many of you have never heard of her. Maya
Angelou once said, “If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and
soul like Odetta’s would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and
painlessly we would hardly recognize time.” At the age of 5 Odetta’s family
moved from Birmingham to Los Angeles New York Alabama
Her voice was a remarkable instrument, complete
with both soft-spun timbres and a powerful cutting edge. For some her voice may
not be as sweet as one would like, but the more you listen to Odetta, the more
you are transformed by the way she phrased the words she was singing.
I once heard Odetta sing “Every Valley”,
a spiritual based on the 40th chapter of Isaiah. I will never again
be able to listen or sing that song without having her powerful voice fill my
mind and soul. She understood the incredible possibilities that erupt when
valleys are exalted and mountains made low. She sang as one transformed by the
joy and relief that one feels when God touches our hand and tenderly says, “Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people. Your imprisonment is over; you are free to live in
the glory of the Lord.”
It was Odetta, and people like her that
helped me understand that much of the writings of Isaiah and many of the Psalms
are folk music. They were written to deal specifically with the pains and joys
of human life. Passages like Isaiah 40 and Psalm 85 are truly the music of the
people. They tell a story within the context of one’s life, a story passed from
generation to generation, giving hope to people who claim the words as their
own. You don’t have to know anything about the Babylonian Captivity to receive
inspiration from the phrase, “Comfort ye, Comfort ye, my people.” Likewise, it
is not necessary to know anything about the person who wrote the 85th
Psalm to be captured by the promise, “Steadfast love and fidelity will
meet. Righteousness and peace will kiss
each other and faithfulness will spring up from the ground.”
All of us can remember the anger and
confusion that broke our hearts on the morning of September 11, 2001. Voices
calling for vengeance and songs by folks like Toby Keith urged us to arms. But
it was the folk singers who remained the voice of courage and hope. Just weeks
after his city had been devastated one such voice wrote these words,
There’s a blood red circle on the cold
dark ground,
And the rain is falling down.
The church door’s thrown open,
I can hear the organs song but the
congregation’s gone.
My city of ruin. My city of ruin.
Sweet bells of mercy drift through every
tree,
Young men stand scattered like leaves.
The boarded up windows front the empty
streets,
All my brothers down on their knees.
My city of ruin. My city of ruin.
Come on rise up, come on rise up.
With these hands, I pray for strength
Lord;
With these hands, I pray for faith Lord;
With these hands, I pray for your love
Lord.
My city of ruin, rise up,
Come on, rise up. (Springsteen)
The
Psalmist of any generation, these people who sing “folk songs”, live in the
season of advent. They are very much aware of what is happening in the moment
and yet they somehow are able to glimpse into tomorrow and find hope. For
myself, Advent is not complete without the voices of an Odetta or
Springsteen. Each of us has that voice,
that poet, that singer, that lifts our hearts even if our city is in ruins. In
this season of Advent, I encourage you to take the time to recall those voices.
Allow them to remind you that in the darkest moments, God comforts us. Allow those voices to take you back to a time
when you had given up hope, but hope had not given up on you. Allow them to comfort your soul with visions
of the deepest valleys being lifted up and the highest mountains no longer remaining
an obstacle.
In
those memories lies the vision of Advent.
For in the darkness there will be a
great light.
One day the wolf and the lamb
will lie down together.
One day a child shall
lead us,
And his name
will be called Emanuel.
On
that day God will be with us,
On that day God will heal our broken
hearts,
On that day God will sooth our
raging spirits,
On that day God will
touch our wounded soul.
But
until that day,
Keep singing about a hammer of justice,
Keep singing about cities rising
out of ruins,
Keep singing, “Comfort
ye, Comfort ye”;
Keep
singing that folk music,
That Godly music,
To people in a barren land.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment