The New Colossus, by Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
 A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she with silent lips.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore;

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me;

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

On the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor

Beloved of God,

Some of us can remember a time in elementary school when we were assigned the task of committing a song or poem to memory.  The “50 Nifty United States” song I learned as a 4th grader at Hawthorne Elementary in Albert Lea, Minne­sota, was one of these.  I can still recall the school assembly when we fourth graders enthusiastically belted out the name of each state—in alphabetical order no less!  The song had a catchy tune, and even now as I write that tune plays in my head some 60 years later!  Things put to memory when we’re young tend to stick.  Which is another argument for committing Bible verses and hymns to memory—they’ll be accessible to us when we need them.  But that’s another topic.

Along with the “50 Nifty United States” song there is a sonnet I committed to memory as a youngster that has stayed with me all these years.  It was written by Emma Lazarus (above).  She offered it in 1883 to the campaign to raise funds for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, but it came to prominence only after her death, when it was placed on the completed pedestal in 1903.  I saw it in person when our family visited Liberty Island in 2014.  Ms. Laza­rus entitled it THE NEW COLOSSUS.  Having seen the place in Rome where Emperor Nero’s original COLOSSUS once stood, I had an additional layer of meaning to add to the content of what she wrote. Nero’s reign (54–68 AD) was defined by his relentless pursuit of absolute authority and a desire to leave his indelible imprint on the Eternal City.  Lazarus’s sonnet offers a counterpoint to the insatiable appetite for power; an appetite so baldly and brazenly operative in our nation’s Capital City today.

        As our boat prepared to land on Liberty Island that brilliant summer day, the words I’d put to memory in my elementary school choir rose to the surface once more.  The poem, which never fails to move me, took on even greater meaning when we docked at Ellis Island.  There we stood in the very room where my grandparents Ingvald and Anna Kindem had stood with their three young children, Olaf, Halvor and Andi, on June 5, 1923, as immigrants from Norway.  In the computerized files, we were able to find their handwritten names on the ship’s manifest and even glimpse a photo of the ship itself—The Stavangerfjord—which bore them and many others safely across the Atlantic to this new land. 

         “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” – Jesus

Millions of others, from diverse countries of origin, have made that trip across the Atlantic during the past half millennium.  Some, like my ancestors and many of yours, came across safely buoyed by the hope that America harbored welcoming shores.  Some, like the Jewish ancestors of Ms. Lazarus, sought safe haven from threats of antisemitic violence being visited upon them in their home countries.  Still others—an estimated 12.5 million souls—made the journey in chains within the holds of ships; not as human beings but as cargo bound for the auction blocks of New Orleans, Charleston, Richmond, and Savannah; prevented—by virtue of the color of their skin—from sharing in the human ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

♪ We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

– Lift Every Voice and Sing, Text: James W. Johnson; Music: J. Rosamond Johnson

250 years in, America has yet to fully come to terms with the truth about our nation’s founding and the traumatic legacy of the racial caste system underpinning it. Today, malignant strains of racism and white supremacy are on the rise, threatening the very democratic principles we point to on July 4^th when marking our nation’s birth. Concerted efforts are underway within the current Administration, within a number of states—aided and abetted by Supreme Court decisions—to ensure that this unjust ranking of human value remains in place in perpetuity.  Instead of ‘fessing up to the collective sin of systemic racism, those who hold the reins of power are doubling down on it.  Efforts to restrict voting rights and to gerrymander new congressional maps that dilute minority votes are proceeding at breakneck speed; the clock is being turned back on the seminal achievements of the Voting Rights Act; diversity, equity and inclusion have become forbidden terms— “whitewashed” from the very government websites that previously championed them.  An unholy alliance between supremist ideologies and so-called “Christian” nationalism has emerged as a significant, threatening force. And a new decision by the Supreme Court has stripped asylum seekers of the protected status that enabled them to imagine a future with hope.

250 years into American’s experiment with government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” the threats to democracy are pervasive and real, and must be opposed by every fiber of our being.  The path to true community and a common good can never be achieved as long as these conditions prevail.  Those of us have been bound the Way of Jesus in Baptism are being called to stand in the breach; we’re being summoned to demonstrate clearly and publicly, through words and actions, our solidarity with the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” and our commitment to the reawakening of justice and compassion for all.

As we mark the 250^th anniversary of our nation’s birth this month, we who claim the name “Christian” are called to stay true to the Way of God made potently visible in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus ; to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”; to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.”  There’s too much a stake to stay on the sidelines. 

 ♪ Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the list’ning skies; let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, let us march on till victory is won!   

– Lift Every Voice and Sing, Text: James W. Johnson; Music: J. Rosamond Johnson

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik