Praying with James Weldon Johnson

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

James Weldon Johnson was a diplomat, lawyer, early civil rights activist, and Harlem Renaissance poet and author. Johnson was born on June 17, 1871 in Jacksonville, Florida to a freeborn Virginian father and a Bahamian mother.  Born into an intensely segregated society, Johnson and his brother were raised to challenge societal expectations of people of color. Johnson graduated from Atlanta University in 1894 and became a grammar school principal. In 1895, he founded the Daily American newspaper and in 1897, became the first African American to pass the Florida Bar exam.

In 1914, Johnson became involved with the NAACP and by 1920 was serving as the organization's chief executive. During his time with the NAACP, Johnson was a powerful advocate against racial violence supporting the campaign to pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching bill and speaking at the 1919 National Conference on Lynching. Johnson was also one of the leading figures and architects of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to his famous authoring of Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, which became known as the Black National Anthem, Johnson published hundreds of poems and stories. His works God's Trombones and The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man are classic pieces of African American literature that demonstrate not only Johnson's masterful writing but also his uncanny ability to capture the power and beauty of Black spirituality, life, and faith.

Today I am reading Johnson’s poem as a prayer, and singing each verse as a psalm to end the three prayer sections. Verse one is a call to worship, Johnson invites the assembly into physical action, so I am led to empathy for the material conditions of God’s children. Verse two is a rehearsing of history, through lament and triumph. In singing it, I am struck by the chaos and clarity embodied in the mounting medical needs of our day. Verse three is a prayer of confidence in God’s guidance, perhaps the most “prayer-like” portion of the song. It leads me to pray over all God’s children whose songs are stifled by corrupt and careless powers of our day, yet the Lord would bid all of us sing. We pray and lament - and lift every voice - in an anthem of resistance to a nation that exists to kill our hope.

Let’s pray together. Lord we come to you this morning, weak and wounded, sick and sore. We are wearied by years of silent tears. We are afraid to plan for futures unknown, victories promised yet un-revealed. We need a God of Revelations, we need a Redeemer who rescues to the utmost. We need the Spirit of Comfort Eternal. We need a choir of voices, lifting lament and praise up to the listening skies. We need you to hear us, and we would be still, O Lord, to hear your answer. 

We pray for the immediate rescue of young people tormented by the lack of understanding in this time of isolation. We pray for rescue from situations of abuse and insecurity. Will you gather your children into your refuge? Keep them safe from hurt, harm and danger. Renew their strength and settle them into safe places. 

We pray for workers who cannot spare the wages they might lose. We pray for recognition of their work, from mayors and governors, senators and those in the executive branch of government.We pray for people who lost their jobs for calling out the incompetence of the white house, and for people whose employers are mistreating them.

We thank you O God, for employers who are still paying people and taking a loss, and for small and local businesses struggling to stay open. Send your wisdom O Lord, open the door for your children. Deliver those hard to come by resources directly to people who actually have need of them. Send a Holy Spirit stimulus, Lord. Establish the work of their hands. Provide for them, O God who makes a way out of no way.

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 seas. 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.

Listen, Lord: we lack the mental and emotional capacity to be hopeful all the time. We really just can’t. We need you to show your mercy to us, we need you to show your strength. For with every new day begun, we find ourselves burdened and bent low, unable to march on. We lament the anxiety that grips and winds us so tightly. Help us to fight the paranoia that permeates our reality. 

We join the cries and prayers of Pastors, chaplains, and other spiritual caretakers. We lift up medical workers, their clients, patients and families. 

We ask you to stand at the bedside of people in dire need of healthcare, perhaps not even related to COVID, who are yet terrified to go to the hospital. 

We are praying with people who are sick and believe they are infected, but do not “qualify” for a test. What striking loss and confusion they face. Will you heal them in their homes?  Your children are crying out to you from rooftop helipads, intensive care units, tent cities and tenement slums, from all the corners of the world, from our different corners of desperation.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening 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 ancestors 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 bright gleam of our Black star is cast.

How shall we sing, O God, in this strange and stolen land where your people perish? We have put away our harps. We have taught our children the songs of mourning, and we have taken up residence in this season of sadness. We are people at risk of racial terror, and we hate it here. 

We lift up Native people at risk, especially in places with new spikes in coronavirus cases growing concerns about the resources needed to respond. 

Lord be a shield for Asian people at risk in this season. They should not have to wear red, white and blue, disguise their accents, or prove their patriotism and diminish cultural pride in order to avoid physical attack.

Be present, Lord, with Black people at risk. Many areas experiencing little to no tests for COVID are predominantly Black working class neighborhoods, the same places where access to medical care was a constant challenge in the first place.

We need a miracle. We need sleep. We need a mighty God to hear from heaven and come down to see about these children, answer our misery, and lead us out of it, Lord. Take us away.

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 on the path we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee; lest our hearts, drunk on 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. 

Help us, Lord! Invite us from every place to lift every voice and sing to you this morning; let us lift our eyes and look beyond the hills, where our help comes from. Amen

Scriptures: Nehemiah 9, Psalm 137, Hebrews 12

Experience: Alvin Ailey’s Revelations https://youtu.be/uAGFJCW_Toc

Images: Lift Every Voice, Stephen Towns // Lift Every Voice & Sing, Augusta Savage // Masai Woman III-Yellow Berit Bredahl // African Girl, Vladimir Nezdiymynoga