Dear people of Grace,
The second verse of the great African-American spiritual hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing” goes like this:

Stony the road we trod, Bitter the Chast’ning 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 fathers 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 white gleam of our bright star is cast.

A friend admitted to me one time, “I can’t bring myself to sing this hymn – it feels disingenuous. My ancestors might have owned slaves and, even if they didn’t, I know we benefited from slavery. I’m a middle-class white dude – how can I sing these words as if they were a part of my story?”

Firstly, I want to pause and acknowledge the truth of my friend’s words. This is indeed a sad truth with which we live! But I did have a response to him, and this I share with you now. I think it goes a long way to explaining how our relationships with each other are connected with our prayer life and our communion with God.

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) introduced a teaching to the Church which he named the totus Christus, The Whole Christ. This doctrine applies the Body of Christ language found in the epistles: “Christ is the head of the Church, the Body of which he is the Savior” (Eph 5.23). “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another” (Rom 12.5). While the totus Christus, as a doctrine, admittedly gets rather complicated, I bring it up to draw attention to the point that we are all bound together through Jesus.

So, when we sing Lift Every Voice and Sing, we, the gathered Body, affirm in unison the struggles of our African American brothers and sisters: past, present and future, both in our church and in our country. Together, we channel the cry of the oppressed to the Father, through Christ, and also stand in solidarity, as a body caring for its members who have suffered injustice. As St. Paul says, “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1Cor 12.26).

When I pray to God, the relationship I enter into is not simply between my individual self and God. It is a relationship which incorporates God, me – the individual member, and the entire Body of Christ. I cannot be whole without you. I cannot watch you suffer and be unaffected. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1Cor 12.21-22).

When we pray, when we respond to God in an expression of relationship, we don’t just relate our own experiences and feelings. We also bring before God our feelings for our brothers and sisters. We relay their fears and pain, we share in their joys as we would celebrate our own, and we remember each other before God.

You all remain in my prayers. Please, pray for me.

Blessings and peace,
Deacon Nick