Sermons from Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
February 11, 2024
“Have You Not Heard?”
Isaiah 40: 21-31 – New Revised Standard Version
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
and spreads them like a tent to live in,
23 who brings princes to naught
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom, then, will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
He who brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because he is great in strength,
mighty in power,
not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted,
31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
I want to tell a story that’s been passed down over the generations among the people of the palmetto dunes in South Carolina. Picture a woman stolen from Africa forced to pick cotton in the oppressive summer heat. Her clothes are drenched from the humid air and her toddler is clutching her leg as she worked, crying out for attention. She is a woman with such dexterity that she could pick cotton with her right hand and caress the forehead of her little boy with the left. But eventually, exhausted, she fell to the ground. He begged her to get up, well aware that if the slave driver saw her “taking a nap,” his mother would be beaten. As he tried to shake her, an old man rushed over – a man the Africans called Preacher and Prophet. The slave drivers called him Old Devil. The boy looked up and said, “Is it time?”
The old man nodded his head and smiled. He bent down to the ground and whispered into the woman’s ear: “Cooleebah! Cooleebah!” At that moment, the woman arose with the dignity of a queen and looked down at her son. She grasped his hand, looked to the heavens, and all of a sudden, they began to fly.
The slave drivers rushed over, stunned at this human flight. While they were distracted by watching this woman and her son fly away, the old Preacher Prophet ran around to all of the other Africans crying out “Cooleebah! Cooleebah!” Upon hearing the word, they too began to fly.
Can you imagine the sight? All the dispossessed flying? All the disempowered flying? All the three-fifths of a person flying? These men, women, and children of Africa taking flight?
The slave drivers rushed over to the old man and demanded that he bring them back. “I can’t,” he said. They beat him, commanding him to “bring them back!” But with blood running down his cheek, he just smiled and said, “I can’t.” “Why not?” “Because the word is already in them and since the word is already in them, it cannot be taken from them.” [1] [2]
“Have you not heard? Have you not known? The Lord, the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, God does not forget you, God does not grow weary or faint. God gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Could the people actually fly? But haven’t you ever flown? Hasn’t a word or simple phrase ever lifted you up from the bottom? A word like “remission.” Phrases like, I forgive you. You got this or it gets better. But, there are also words that can cause us to crash to the ground. Works like, cancer. Phrases like, he was in an accident. You’re a failure or you’ll never amount to anything. God hates fags.
The Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III told this story of the people who could fly and said, “the Preacher Prophet gave them the power of a single word.” He reminded them of the power. The word Cooleebah, he said, means God – a word that can be used to lift others to flight. But we also know that sometimes God is a word used like a weapon.
You know, don’t you, haven’t you heard, that a single word spoken with great intention can cause someone to have a break through. Or spoken carelessly, a single word can cause someone to have a break down. One word has the power to cause healing or hurt. How about two powerful words, like “remain seated”?
Let me tell you about Septima Clark.[3] Born in 1898, her father had been enslaved in South Carolina, but education lifted her beyond her circumstances. She went to college and was certified to be a teacher but Charleston wouldn’t hire Black teachers so she taught on South Carolina’s Johns Island. She came back three years later to teach at the Avery Institute, one of 500 schools started by Congregational churches following the Civil War to lift African Americans to new heights, schools that include top flight Howard University.
While there, Ms. Clark joined the NAACP and participated in a successful effort to get Charleston to hire Black teachers, where she then began to teach. And in 1945, she worked with Thurgood Marshall on a successful case seeking equal pay for Black and white teachers, which increased her pay three-fold. But in the 1950s, South Carolina made it illegal for public employees to belong to civil rights groups. When she refused to disaffiliate, she lost her job and went to work for the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. She was hired to lead workshops for people who wanted to change their communities using non-violence, like she had done.
Many who participated in the civil rights movement were prepared at Highlander – how to face violence with a non-violent response. They trained people like the Freedom Riders, students who desegregated lunch counters, those who walked across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma or were slammed to the ground by the power of fire hoses in Birmingham. One woman who attended Ms. Clark’s workshops decided she would remain seated the next time she was ordered to move to the back of the bus. Septima Clark inspired and taught Rosa Parks and countless others that they too could fly – by remaining seated.
Ms. Clark, sometimes referred to as the Mother of the Movement, was a devout Christian. She asked a lot her students preparing to endure the indignity and violence of white supremacists determined to chain Black citizens to the ground. I can hear her,
“Have you not heard? Have you not known? The Lord, the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, God does not forget you, God does not faint or grow weary. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” And sometimes, God will be your rock, there with you as you stand your ground or remain seated.
Ms. Clark didn’t stop there. She found her calling travelling all over the South training local people to become Citizenship teachers and start Citizenship schools – 800 of them. Citizenship schools taught people such skills as how to write their name instead of using an X, balance a checkbook, how to read road signs and basic literacy. Most significantly, they taught citizens how a democratic system of government is supposed to work and how to vote in elections. It was extremely dangerous work and many of her friends were killed for teaching citizenship. It’s amazing how the power of a single word like “vote” can both empower the disenfranchised and frighten the powerful.
And Amanda Gorman described so beautifully what can happen:
“We the successors of a country and a time
Where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one.”[4]
“Have you not heard? Have you not known? God has not forgotten you and gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
In the time of the Prophet Isaiah, destruction and exile had generated such despair and chaos in the people that they doubted God.[5] But Isaiah reminded them to compare the power of the God of creation with the power of their oppressors. He told them, their oppressors are simply grasshoppers who are blown away by a strong wind. Can we really compare the Creator of the universe with those trying to harm us? Isaiah said, “Scarcely are they planted, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when God blows upon them and they wither away and the tempest carries them off like stubble.” Ah, “but those who wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings like eagles.”
By the way, the story of the people who could fly was a true story. True because their oppressors were of no significance. They were tiny, frightened, little men, like grasshoppers. Compare that to the God of creation. It’s a true story just like those who feared the power of women like Septima Clark were scared of things like equality, voting, and democracy. But surely you know that our heritage in the United Church of Christ, our legacy, is like Amanda Gorman’s vision:
“Yes we are far from polished, far from pristine,
but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose;
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us.
To conclude her brilliant poem, The Hill We Climb,
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution,
…rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover.
And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes we step out of the shade, aflame and unafraid.
The new dawn blooms as we free it;
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.
But why wouldn’t we be? Haven’t you heard?
[1] The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales 1985 by Virginia Hamilton
[2] Story told by Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago
[3] Learn more about Septima Clark at www.sistermentors.org and www.biography.com
[4] The Hill We Climb
[5] Richard A Puckett, Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 1, p. 317