Voices Found :Way beyond the moon! WLWC Easter II Year C, VF 4, 130, 138

 

Voices Found # 130

I've got a mother in de heaven, outshines de sun,

outshines de sun, outshines de sun,

I've got a mother in de heaven, outshines de sun,

way beyond de moon.

I've got a father in de heaven...

I've got a sister in de heaven...

When we get to heaven we will outshine de sun,

outshine de sun, outshine de sun,

when we get to heaven we will outshine de sun,

way beyond de moon.

Words: Traditional

Music: Negro Spiritual, arr. R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1843) 

Jesus was teaching the disciples about God's power to save.  

He said,"What is impossible for the woman born is possible for God."  Then Peter said,

"Look here! We have left our homes and followed you."  And Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or kinfolk or parents or children, for the sake of the majesty of God, who will not get back very much more in this age and in the age to come, eternal life." Luke 18: 27-30, tr. Gafney

 Jesus is not speaking specifically of the experience of African Americans during slavery, however, his words offer hope and vision for all who have been separated from loved ones through the ages. Voices Found includes a collection of spirituals that affirm women's experience not only of the brutality, separation, and torture of slavery;  but also the unfailing  faith of the enslaved women in the afterlife, eternal life in heaven where they would be reunited with beloved family.

Henrietta Morgan, a Voices Found singer and a member of the Voices Found hymnal committee arranged and conducted "I've got a mother in de heaven" and several other feminine  spirituals on the album "Magdalene and the Other Mary," published by Church Publishing, Inc.

Carl Haywood, also a member of the Voices Found Hymnal Committee, undertook the  important research to find spirituals  that focused on women's visions. Some masculine spirituals were already available  in the hymnal 1982, but there were no feminine voices.  Many of the pieces Dr. Haywood discovered are published in Voices Found and recorded with other songs of Holy Women on this album. 

Although born out of the tragedy and brutality of slavery, these spirituals express a universal longing of families separated by war, revolution, disease, and death to be reunited in eternity. They echo the hope Jesus offers in Luke: that for the sake of the majesty of God you will get back...much more in this age and in the age to come.

Voices Found spirituals appropriate for this lesson:

Voices Found # 138, I hope my mother will be there 

Voices Found # 122, O Mary don't you weep (Magdalene and the Other Mary # 4)

Voices Found # 47, O Mary, O Martha (MOM # 14)

Voices Found # 44, Mary and Martha's just gone 'long

A prayer in the upper room:

All these were persevering in prayer together with women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his [sisters and] brothers. Luke 18: 14, tr. Gafney

Voices Found # 4

When they learned the Lord had risen,

Christ's disciples met to pray.

Mary was among the faithful,

bound in love, on Jesus' Way.

God, we see her, Christ's disciple,

loving learning, serving, too.

Like her, may we hear and answer,

"We, your servants, live for you."

Words: Carolyn Winfrey Gillette 

Music: Ecce Deus, Alfred V. Fedak 

https://www.churchpublishing.org/products/voicesfound2

For background and performance suggestions please see The Leader's Guide to Voices Found