Why Not Sing Kum Ba Yah?

It’s a more complicated question than I thought when I conceived this sermon.

There are several reasons, despite its place in our gray hymnal, that we perhaps should not sing #401 Kum Ba Yah. And one reason why we should, sometimes, sing it with great care.

The first, more or less open and shut, reason we should perhaps not sing “Kumbaya” in our worship services is the corruption of language pointed out in our first reading this morning. If those are nonsense words, misidentified as words in some African language or another, and if the original words to the spiritual were “come by here”, then we shouldn’t ever sing the words “Kumbaya. So, when we do sing it here, as we will after the sermon this morning, I will ask that we sing the words “come by here”.

Now, as I said a moment ago, things get complicated.

Elsewhere in the New York Times article we heard part of this morning, Samuel G. Freedman wrote:

“'Come By Here,'” a song deeply rooted in black Christianity’s vision of a God who intercedes to deliver both solace and justice, by the 1960s became the pallid pop-folk sing-along 'Kumbaya.' And 'Kumbaya', in turn, has … been transformed into snarky shorthand for ridiculing a certain kind of idealism, a quest for common ground."

Stephen Winick, the Library of Congress folklorist Freedman references in his article, elaborates:

"Musically, it came to be thought of as a children’s campfire song, too simple or too silly for adults to bother with. Politically, it became shorthand for weak consensus-seeking that fails to accomplish crucial goals. Socially, it came to stand for the touchy-feely, the wishy-washy, the nerdy, and the meek. These recent attitudes toward the song are unfortunate, since the original is a beautiful example of traditional music, dialect, and creativity. However, the song’s recent fall from grace has at least added some colorful metaphors to American political discourse, such phrases as “to join hands and sing ‘Kumbaya,'” which means to ignore our differences and get along (albeit superficially), and “Kumbaya moment,” an event at which such naïve bonding occurs."

The reduction of the song to snarky, ridiculing shorthand, dismissive of any quest for common ground or understanding, has long disturbed me. Although I grew up on pop-folk, and sang the song around plenty of campfires, I have always heard it as a prayer. My internal response whenever I hear someone – in popular media, or politics, or real life–say something along the lines of “we can’t just all hold hands and sing Kumbaya” or “well, why don’t we all just hold hands then, and sing Kumbaya”, whenever I hear someone using the shorthand to protest an attempt to reach understanding, or to sarcastically advocate skipping too quickly to artificial accord, my unspoken response is always “why not? Why not sing it?” Or at least, why not do the work that snark seeks to belittle?

Why not pursue common ground in situations of strife? Why not seek understanding across the many divides that fracture our society? Now, of course, singing hymn #401, whether we call it “Kumbaya” or “Come By Here”, by itself or accompanied by hand holding, is never going to bring a halt to violence or bridge gaps of mistrust, or make way for peace. Insincere gestures of a friendship or shallow goodwill that merely cover up points of hurt, disagreement and injustice will not heal communities, or bring progress toward reconciliation. While I may bristle against the use of “Kumbaya" as shorthand for such shallow gestures, I have no room for the wishy-washy, touchy-feelyness or weak consensus seeking themselves.

Closing communication gaps, repairing fractured systems or replacing them all together, and establishing trust takes time, intention, and arduous work. Sitting at the table, walking away, sitting back down again. Furthermore, sometimes the time isn’t right for listening deeply to folks on the other side of a divide or for speaking honestly from our side of a divide. Sometimes we have work to do on our side of the table first. We have to engage in self-examination in order to become clear about our experience of the matter at hand, our part in fracturing the relationship or perpetuating the injustice, and our possible role in repairing and rebuilding, as well as the possibility that our main role is to stop causing harm, get out of the way and follow the lead of the people most harmed by whatever situation we’re trying to rectify. In other situations, the internal work we, as individuals or as a group, have to do before coming to the table to seek consensus or reconciliation with other individuals or groups, begins with the same self-examination in order to become clear about our experience of the matter at hand, and then shifts to beginning to articulate what it is we need from the other parties to start healing and repairing a breech that has harmed us.

So, sometimes the answer to the question why not sing Kumbaya is ‘because we’re not ready yet to safely and constructively engage across fractured lines.” And sometimes the answer is ‘because it’s not time for us yet–mostly white, mostly middle-class, mostly cis-gender–to be at the table with those whose prayers the song historically represented. But when we are ready to seek accord with those we want to no longer call enemies, and when we are invited to the table by those who would rather have us as allies than obstacles, then it is likely the time has come or soon will for the singing of Kumbaya metaphorically, meaning seeking genuine consensus of the kind the snark makes a mockery off, and literally as a musical prayer for the presence of that Love sometimes and in some traditions called “Lord”.

There is at least one solid, grounded reason why we won’t very often sing hymn #401 here in this setting. It is a spiritual first composed and sung by people of color living under the oppression of Jim Crow America in Georgia and Florida and South Carolina and other states. Recordings exist dating to 1926 in McIntosh County, Georgia, and 1936 in Raiford, Florida. Listening to those recordings, scratchy as they are, the tune is unmistakable, and the lack of distinction between ‘come by here’ and ‘kum ba yah’ makes the subsequent deception about the song’s title and language of origin understandable but no less disturbing. Though its exact origins remain somewhat murky, this song undeniably arose out of a historical context and life circumstances far removed from the experience of almost everyone in this congregation or any of our families. Not all of us perhaps, but very nearly all of us. And we do well to use great caution when singing songs or engaging in practices that are sacred in traditions that are not our own. In May, when we turn to the Gift of Pluralism, we’ll talk more appreciation, appropriation, misappropriation, homage and what they all mean and look like in a faith such as ours that recognizes many paths to truth and many sources of wisdom.

But today we’re still in the midst of The Gift of Interdependence, and that’s why we will sing hymn #401 in just a couple minutes. Last week I promised that this week I would talk about the final line of that little Chalice Camp song:

It's a blessing each of us was born.

It matters what we do with our lives.

What each of us knows about God is a piece of the truth.

We don’t have to do it alone.

Interdependence means we don’t have to do it alone. And no one else should have to do it alone, either. If someone–our sibling, our neighbor, our marginalized and oppressed co-inhabitant of any city across the country, any country around the world–is weeping, is praying, why wouldn’t we invoke the presence of Love? If someone is singing, laughing, praying, why wouldn’t we sing, laugh, pray, along with them and invite holy Love into the song, laughter, prayer, too? Why wouldn’t we sing a song that holds all that so tenderly?

Before we get to singing the song I’ve been talking about for so long, just a couple thoughts on language. Words matter. Because words matter we will sing “come by here” instead of “kum ba yah” because those are the words in the earliest recorded versions of the song. You’ll have noticed that I said just a moment ago ‘why not invoke the presence of Love’, not the presence of the Lord or my Lord. That’s because Lord isn’t a description or title or name for the Holy that makes sense to me, and I don’t think it makes sense to most of you, either. Those two words–my Lord–might be problematic to some of us when we sing in just a moment now. If you can’t sing them, you won’t sing them. If you substitute oh, Love for my Lord, I’m ok with that. And if you sing my Lord, I’m ok with that, too–whatever your reasons for doing so. Because, while words do matter, it is equally true that to a certain extent, words are just words. What matters more in this moment is that we lift our voices together in a song that seems to promise to anyone, anywhere, that they don’t ever have to sing, weep, pray or laugh alone, because we hear them and, knowing we are one with them, we add our prayer for Love to come by here.

Amen

Thanks to the Reverend Kimberley Debus whose https://farfringe.com pointed me in the right direction for researching this sermon.