During my 21 years pastoring a church in Central California, I was part of the clergy rotation to offer the opening prayer at monthly City Council meetings.
Once a contentious issue required moving the meeting from City Hall to a high school gym to accommodate the number of upset people rallied to attend. Guess whose turn it was to give the prayer? When the time came, I stepped to the microphone but before I could begin a grizzled guy in front of me angrily yelled, “We’re wasting time. Get this meeting started!”
I simply turned (no doubt with a pleading look) to the Mayor on the temporary dais behind me. A no-nonsense, hard-boiled guy with a perpetual unlit cigar in his mouth, the Major stood up and yelled, “We’re going to start this meeting with a prayer! So shut-up!” (He was only slightly more tactful.)
I then offered my prayer, which I don’t remember at all, but I’m sure contained phrases about listening to one another, drawing together as a community, etc. I soon beat a hasty retreat.
Reflecting on my City Council prayer after last week’s presidential inauguration, I thought: “Is it possible for words to penetrate hearts already filled with anger?” Can people moderate their emotions enough…open their minds enough…to let mere words into those places where healing is needed? That day, my words seemed fragile vessels indeed.
And yet, even when hearts and minds are more closed toward one another than they have been for generations, words still do have power.
In these troubled times, I invite you to ponder the words of the poem “The Hill We Climb” by the amazing, 22-year-old poet Amanda Gorman. If you heard these words during the presidential inauguration, they flew past you. Today, I invite you to give them closer attention.
Let them roll slowly through your mind. Pause and ponder them.
When I first read them, two associations instantly leapt to mind. First is the rhythm and clever rhyming cadences beloved by many non-poets in the musical “Hamilton.” Second is the Psalms, with their comparing and contrasting thoughts in paired couplets, rhyming ideas instead of sounds. (Open your Bible and you’ll see this in every Psalm.)
I’ve done my best to arrange the poem below to bring out these parallels. They are not God’s Word, but they are words very accessible to the Spirit’s healing work. They are also an example we all need–words have the power to unite us as well as divide us.
May the Lord use these words to cause us each take stock, repent and renew our hope in the reality of truth and the promise of the ideals of America.
The God who created the universe through speaking words (“Let there be light…”) imbues human words with the power to build up and tear down, to create and destroy, as well.
Just a few words spoken in anger (“You’ll never succeed!”)–or encouragement (“You have a real gift!”)–have prophetically directed the outcome of many lives.
The power of words to proclaim truth is another critical biblical value, again from creation onwards. Think of Satan’s tempting words to Eve in the Garden, “Has God said…?” Ever since, in Scripture a “lying tongue” is significant sin, including in the 10 Commandments to “bear false witness against one’s neighbor.”
Those God chose to speak his words were seldom the wealthy and privileged, but more often the outsiders, those without prestige or power. Today we hear from just such a person: “a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother.”
When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea we must wade.We’ve braved the belly of the beast.
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace,
and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.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.And 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 our 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.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.This effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.In this truth, in this faith, we trust,
for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it at its inception.We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour,
but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.So while once we asked, ‘How could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?’ now we assert, ‘How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?’
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be:
A country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.Our blunders become their burdens.
But one thing is certain:If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.We will rise from the golden hills of the west.
We will rise from the wind-swept north-east where our forefathers first realized revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states.
We will rise from the sun-baked south.
We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.In every known nook of our nation, in 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.
