Can I Get a Witness?
Strange Fruit
Mary Andreolli
Isaiah 49:1-7
(Audio)
Here is fruit for crows to pluck.
Abel Meeropol found a photograph.
In the photograph two Black men, Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith are hanging from a tree. Beneath them, the photographer captured a blur of onlookers, except one man. His face and body are in focus. He stares into the camera pointing to Thomas and Abram. Lawrence Breitler was the photographer who filmed this lynching August 7, 1930. For ten days and nights, according to A Time of Terror, Breitler printed thousands of copies and sold them for 50 cents.
Strange Fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Now I don’t know how many of you have heard the name Abel Meeropol. I hadn’t until I stumbled onto this story on PBS. Abel Meeropol, appeared to be a rather ordinary man. He was a Jewish schoolteacher in the Bronx. Married. Enjoyed writing poetry. But, on the day Meeropol found Breitler’s photograph I believe his life changed. You see, in response to witnessing the horrors of a lynching, caught on film, Meeropol did something extraordinary. He wrote a poem. It was published in the New York Teacher’s Union magazine. And then, Meeropol set this poem to music. And these 89 words, which Colin sang this morning, became the song Strange Fruit. Two years later, this song was introduced to Billie Holiday. According to her accompanist, Billy Holiday insisted on singing Strange Fruit, although she broke down after every performance. Strange Fruit became the anthem of the anti-lynching movement and a contributing song of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 60s. In 2001, Strange Fruit was voted Song of the Century for its historical significance.
Abel Meeropol found a photograph.
In our Hebrew lesson today, Isaiah Chapter 49, verses 1-7, we encounter another song. This song, some Old Testament scholars believe was written not by Isaiah, but by someone who knew his writing very well – perhaps a follower of Isaiah and his work. The author of this song, called the Servant song, is said to have written it while in exile.
You see, in the sixth century, Babylonians, as part of their international conquests, invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple of God. Then those who were artisans, merchants, part of the ruling class in Jerusalem were exiled to Babylon in a series of deportations.
Beyond his exile, “we know practically nothing about this Jewish poet and songwriter, not even his name.”
To learn of his witnessing work then we must listen to the song itself.
Before we begin, please know the sources I pulled out of my theologian’s toolbox to do this work include Walter Brueggeman and Claus Westerman, Old Testament Biblical Scholars, James Cone, a founder of Black Theology, and my experience with the text itself.
So, in this second of four Servants songs in the book of Isaiah we find the language of gathering and restoring written for those who were torn from their homes in the city of Jerusalem and forced to make a new way in the foreign city of Babylon.
Now don’t get me wrong, those who were exiled were allowed some freedoms. Scholars believe they could move about the city, acquire land, and engage in business.
But the one thing the exiles held most precious, they couldn’t do.
And that was worship God in God’s temple.
Israelites in exile were permitted to practice their religion, but the question remained how?
They were no longer a part of their worshipping community in Jerusalem.
And, losing a part of their worshipping community meant losing a part of their identity.
The exiles lost a piece of themselves.
I believe our Jewish songwriter, whom we can call Second Isaiah, was all too familiar with this sense of loss.
After all, he not only witnessed the destruction of his city,
and the burning down of his place of worship,
but he too was expelled from his home.
He too, was an exile.
And Second Isaiah did an extraordinary thing.
He wrote a song.
He wrote a song even when in earlier chapters of Isaiah he called out to God “What shall I cry? All peoples are like grass.”
All peoples are like grass.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck.
With the gradual demise of the Babylonian Empire and the rise of king Cyrus the Great, a decree was issued allowing the Temple to be rebuilt in Jerusalem.
The exiles were even allowed to return home.
But how do you go home when you don’t have a home to go back to?
Second Isaiah wrote a song.
He wrote a song as a Servant and as an exile.
He wrote a song of hope.
It is a song of provisioning and protecting revealed in Second Isaiah’s language of being hidden.
Once in the shadow of God’s hand.
And again in God’s quiver.
Here, the servant and the exiled are being readied.
It is a song of confession about laboring in vain for the cause of God. And yet, despite his sense of working for nothing, this Servant professes, his reward remains with God.
And it is a song of commissioning where the work of the Servant is the return of the Israelites – a sort of homecoming.
In this Servant’s song God replies:
I have known you since before you were born. I know you in every part of your being. And, although you may feel as though your work is for nothing right now I am expanding it’s scope. It is no longer simply returning the exiles of Israel to their home in Jerusalem.
No, this is too light a thing. I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the very end of the earth.
Meaning, no one shall remain in exile.
All shall be gathered into God.
Second Isaiah was a Servant, he was an exile, and he was a witness. To know second Isaiah is to listen to his song, a song that still speaks to us today, as a church, and as individuals.
Anthony Pusey bought me a charm.
I didn’t even know liked me.
I was 15 and very focused on my studies.
Anthony and I shared a lot of classes together so we’d help each other with homework after school.
Only at school though. You see Anthony was Jamaican.
Which to my dad meant he was Black.
And, I was told early on, with the cruelest of words, I was not allowed to date black boys.
And, no black boy would ever be permitted in our home.
One day Anthony stopped by my house, which was very much, a surprise. My parents weren’t home, so I stepped outside to talk to him.
I have to admit now I was a bit rude, panicked by the thought of my dad coming home at any moment.
I made small talk for a while, leaning out, still holding onto the screen door.
Anthony handed me a small box and said he’d just stopped by to give it to me.
Then he walked away.
I went back in my house and opened it.
Inside was a small charm that said “Foxy Lady”.
I wore that charm for a number of years.
Anthony Pusey never returned to my parent’s house.
And, as much as it pains me to say, I’m not sure a Black man or woman has ever been welcomed into what was once their home.
I believe, Calvary Baptist Church wrote a song.
And if you listen to it, it sounds like the Servant’s song.
It includes words and phrases like “reaching out to the world”, “trusting”, “prayerful”, “multi-ethnic”, “multi-racial” and “welcoming”.
Like the Servant’s song and Meeropol’s song it is poetry with historical significance.
It is a song for all of us exiles whom I believe were being provisioned in the shadow of God’s hand while this beautiful building was renovated.
A song for us all of Servants who may confess there are days when our daily work seems so futile.
It is a song for all of us right here, for we are commissioned to something more.
We too have been called as followers of Jesus Christ to speak out about the dehumanizing horrors that rear hate beyond a photograph.
We too, have been prepared to proclaim the Good News throughout this city and to the farthest ends of the earth.
We too, are witnesses readied for every new possibility of love that exists in a world disrupted by Christ.
No one shall remain in exile.
All shall be gathered into God.
Calvary Baptist Church wrote a song. And it is a song of hope.
Thanks be to God.
