By the light of the flickering bonfire you could see them. Gathering from the little cabins down by the creek, coming up the road from the brush arbor, a few of them on a creaky old wagon pulled by two mules. Something exciting was happening here tonight!
Their laughter told you, too, that this was a night they had looked forward to. Excited voices chattered, and here and there you could hear a challenge or a boast, some sort of contest, some prize to be won.
The smell of food cooking and of meat roasting brought you the unmistakable odor of celebration. People fix food like this when they are about to have a feast, and this feast must celebrate something. This feast must be about something important.
You are astounded, however, when you find out who these people are and what this is really all about. You are astounded, because it doesn’t seem to make sense. For these people, preparing to celebrate … these people, laughing and chattering and singing and some of them even dancing … these people are enslaved on a great Southern plantation in the 1830’ s, and they have gathered for a corn-shucking! You are astounded, because these men and women and boys and girls are here to work the master’s corn crop, a long and monotonous task, and more than that, they are here after hours, they are preparing to work all night; and to top it all off, they seem to enjoy it. They seem to be preparing to celebrate!
This doesn’t make sense at all. How in the world could you explain that an oppressed people, who have no freedom, no political power, no money … how in the world explain them gathering to do more work, overtime work, and still they sing and shout and treat it as if it were one grand party?!
Historian Eugene Genovese, in his book Roll, Jordan, Roll, assures us that this is precisely what did happen. From contemporary histories and from eyewitness accounts, Genovese reports that for many of the slaves, corn-shuckin’ time was the high moment of the year. The bonfires, the singing and the shouting, the cooking and the games … it was all a gala occasion, it was a thoroughly joyous time. And yet it was at its core nothing but more slavery, more drudgery, more work, more oppression, more adversity.
So why then? Why all this merriment when in the end corn-shuckin’ time was just more back-breaking labor for someone else’s profit?
The historian has three answers to that question. The slaves on the plantation, first, took joy in corn-shuckin’ time because they would be eating this food. This was not just for market, this was not just for the tables of the big house. This was for their own nourishment. And so they rejoiced in that.
Second, corn-shuckin’ time was a time for community. It was a time that brought them together, and too often all the African slaves had known was fragmentation. Too often the oppression of the slave system was made even worse because families were broken up and old tribal associations were denied. Old friendships were too often destroyed. And so it was only in com-shuckin’ time when others were brought in from nearby plantations that there was anything like a community of friends getting together.
But there is another reason. There is another element here that no historian can explain, that no psychologist can fathom. There is something else here far more important than nourishment or friendship or any other human explanation.
And that is that these men and women simply chose, deep down in their unconquerable souls, to find joy in the midst of their pain. These men and women, whose names were stripped from them and whose bodies were cruelly used up, simply refused to give up their dignity, they refused to surrender every shred of their humanity. They chose to rejoice, even in the middle of their enslavement. They chose joy.
Com-shuckin’ time: their bodies might be in bondage, but their souls, under God, were free.
The prophet Isaiah, speaking to the people of Judah in a day which looked bleak by anybody’s standards, told them that the Lord their God would, in fact, give them the bread of adversity and the water of affliction. They would suffer at the hands of the Assyrian armies. There would be enslavement and years of hard labor. The bread of adversity: eating whatever little scraps were tossed in their path. The water of affliction: long days of labor under the Assyrian master with scarcely a break for water. The people of God were in for some very tough times.
But what is the prophet’s counsel? What does Isaiah offer a people so oppressed and afflicted?
"0 people of Zion, you shall weep no more. God will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry … and though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself any more. You shall hear a word, ‘This is the way, walk in it’, and you will scatter your idols and will say to them, ’Begone’."
In other words, understand that the bread of adversity and the water of affliction may last for a while, but because our God is a God of justice, because our God will some day not hide Himself any more, because our God will hear your cry, you may say “Begone” to your troubles and you may sing for joy.
Again, understand that the bread of adversity, according to the world’s logic, ought to stick in your throat, for you may be giving your labor to somebody else. You are working to enrich somebody else. And there seems to be no justice in that. But because our God is a God of justice, that bread of adversity He will use to feed you too. Because the Teacher, Christ, will not hide Himself any more, you can say “Begone” to your harshest moments, and you can trust that freedom is on its way.
Understand that the cup of affliction, so bitter and so galling, will pass away, for the God of mercy and of justice will hear our cries. As someone has said, when life turns out to be a lemon, well, then, make lemonade. Trite and commonplace though it sounds, there is the secret to triumphant living. There is a powerful secret of African-American history. The unconquerable human spirit, however oppressed and however afflicted, looking to God’s justice and trusting in Christ, found profound joy even in the middle of enslavement.
Say to the bread of adversity in your life, begone; for
I will make you the bread of nourishment. Say to the water of affliction, begone, for I will turn you into the sweet wine of communion and of celebration.
Surely today at the beginning of Black History Month 1991, you and I can find reason to celebrate, even though some still must eat the bread of adversity and drain the water of affliction. A God of justice has been at work in our land. Most of the overt structures of discrimination have been dismantled. And if too much remains that we can trace to lingering racism; if too much remains that we have to undo, because it tastes of the putrid air of hatred and of prejudice; well, all right. We will trust the God of justice, who will not hide himself. We will trust the Teacher who will show us, "This is the way, walk in it." And we will turn with our faith and our compassion and our commitment the bread of adversity into the bread of nourishment.
And if around this world too many still must drain the bitter dregs of the cup of apartheid; if too many still must want for more than a drop of dignity; then we will trust the God of justice. Who would have believed only two, three years ago that in this very week the President of South Africa would call for dismantling the system of segregation? But if you have been listening to the South African people, you have seen a people who could choose joy in the middle of their suffering. Today you and I can join them in crying, "Begone" to the water of affliction and we can look forward to the sweet cup of communion and of friendship.
You and I can celebrate. We can celebrate this month by joining our God in crying, "Begone" to the idols. Begone to racism. Begone to prejudice and misunderstanding. Begone to classism and to snobbery. Begone to the false liberalism that refuses to see a unique people with a unique heritage.
And most of all, Begone to the systematic destruction of a people whom God has created. Begone to excuse-making and to pity-parties, begone to second best or third best, begone to self-hatred and self-destruction. Listen to the Teacher: This is the way, walk in it. And sing for joy. For freedom Christ has set us free; do not be enslaved again in a yoke of bondage. "Before I’d be a slave, I’d be molding in my grave."
For I tell you, I know of one who one night broke bread with his fellows. Bread eaten while Rome oppressed. Bread consumed while sin reigned. Bread served when many had no bread, only adversity. But this one said, "I have food to eat you do not know, for my food is to do the will of Him who sent me." The bread of oppression in the hands of the Teacher that night became the bread of sustenance, the bread of nourishment. Just as the plantation servants shucked the corn and ground it into bread, though it seemed to represent their oppression, it also meant their nourishment, and they rejoiced.
I know of one who had to drain to the full the cup of sorrow and of affliction. I know of one who even prayed, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." But they bruised Him and afflicted Him and even drained away His very life’s blood. They hid Him away in a tomb.
Oh, but He does not hide Himself. He is here; He is present; and, most of all, He is risen. And to the water of affliction, He is able to say, "Begone", and turn this bitterness into the sweet heady wine of eternal life. Just as the plantation servants pressed the ruby red apples for cider and seemed to be squeezing out all of their own life and vitality, yet they also pressed out love and fellowship, dignity and pride.
Bread of adversity, begone! The God of justice is bringing us bread for both body and spirit.
Water of affliction, begone! The Teacher who does not hide Himself is bringing us refreshment aplenty.
