Listening to Langston is my run with Maud

I began Sunday’s sermon with an impromptu reading of Langtson Hughes’ poem Dreams.  I just heard news of footage released of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder while he was out for a run in Brunswick, Georgia. I wanted to say something that was both in sympathy and solidarity with my African American brothers and sisters while recognizing that as a white man who, when out for a run, does not think twice about being harmed, I don’t really understand the weight of fatigue from this kind of repeated injustice. Here’s his poem:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

It’s a good poem from an important poet, and I’m grateful that I was introduced to it many years ago. But it wasn’t the poem I wanted to share. I wanted to share another Hughes poem called Christ of Alabama. 

Christ is a Nigger,
Beaten and black--
O, bare your back.

Mary is His Mother
Mammy of the South,
Silence your Mouth.

God's His Father--
White Master above
Grant us your love.

Most holy bastard
Of the bleeding mouth:
Nigger Christ
On the cross of the South.


I didn’t know how to share this in a sermon-a mix of wisdom and cowardice on my part. There is the obvious challenge of reading the poem and using an ugly, ugly word. It is further compounded by the stark perspective of the poem: white Christians have a faith in Christ that brings us in direct solidarity with the most persecuted yet white Christians have historically, and in many ways continually, inflicted suffering rather than alleviated or shared it.  Hughes has someone tell Mary, mammy of the south, to shut her mouth despite the violence being inflicted on her son. God is imagined as the white master above who could do something but doesn’t seem to be persuaded. He's absent. The poem ends with Christ, most holy bastard of the bleeding mouth, remaining on the cross- no resurrection in sight. 

These brief thoughts cannot do this enigmatic and evocative poem justice. There are no easy take-aways here.  But there is a power in the poem that confronts us. We don’t know what to say. That might be its first lesson. Don’t speak.  Listen.  Listen to the persecuted and the suffering. Listen. Listen to the cries of mothers and the breathless words from the holy bastard of the bleeding mouth. Listen. 
Most left Christ on the cross, abandoned him in order to avoid any pain or consequences of being too close. This poem calls us to Christ. Don’t leave. Listen