“Son of man, can these bones live? … Then he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” — Ezekiel 37:3–4

“How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” — Psalm 137:4

Introduction: The Question of Exile

In my car today, charioting from one appointment to the next, a familiar voice came across the radio—a voice calling the city of Baltimore to the church's annual “End of the Summer Revival.”

It was the voice of my late pastor’s son—his progeny—like Eleazar succeeding Aaron, carrying the charge his father had borne for more than forty years, summoning the city once again to gather, to worship, to remember.

Was this cosmic design, fate, or sheer serendipity? For I am one who seldom has the radio on in the car, usually eclectically ensconced in my own inner music, musings, and moments

And with that sound, memory jettisoned me back to the future. In my mind I could see the pastor’s mother making her annual pilgrimage from Selma to Baltimore, closing out the meeting with her stirring southern rendering of “It Pays to Serve Jesus”—or some hymn just as sure to move us toward Zion.

In her sacred cadence we were bound for that holy hill, convinced we were on our way to Canaan's fair and happy land where our possessions lie.

And though Baptist by denomination, but now at this euphoric moment more akin in true Holiness fashion we were often led by my mother—barefoot, shed of her high-fashioned shoes, hats, and fineries—in ebullient, effusive exaltation of our God.

Like Miriam of old, Mama needed no one's approval to erupt in praise and signal that both horse and rider had perished in the sea. In that uniquely Black Church phenomenon, the theology of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament were conjoined in song:*

O Mary, don’t you weep,

O Martha, don’t you mourn,

Pharaoh’s army got drowned—

O Mary, don’t you weep.

Somehow, those echoes led my mind down an unexpected road to T. S. Eliot’s century-old epic masterpiece, The Waste Land.

Perhaps it was the cadence, perhaps the ache—but the phrase struck me again: “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”

And so, as I prepare for my own church’s Holy Convocation next week, I find myself standing in the company of two great exiles—the prophet of Babylon’s valley,  the 6th century b.c. (b.c.e., for the academicians amongst us) pan-exilic Hebrew prophet Ezekiel; and the soulful prophet of Chicago’s streets: Mr. Curtis Lee Mayfield.

Curtis Mayfield: Prophet in a Higher Register

Few voices touched the pathos of Black suffering and ignited the ethos of Black dignity like Curtis Mayfield. He saw us kaleidoscopically, as “people darker than blue.” He understood, like Jeremiah’s Ethiopian who could not change his skin (13:23), that we have no skin-whitening desire to change ours—and that the deeper violence is the attempted erasure of memory, the assignment of shame to the very color God made sacred.

In "Super Fly," he gave us more than a movie score; he gave us manna in the wilderness. He offered not just rhythm but sustenance, not just entertainment but testimony. 

Mayfield’s upper register voice carried both trumpet and tear—piercing with truth and flowing with tenderness. Like Baldwin, he exposed the rot without erasing the richness. His voice descended like manna and rose like incense, feeding wandering souls in a strange land.

Ezekiel: Bones and Breath

Ezekiel knew the sound of exile. He saw bones bleached by despair, a people cut off, a nation scattered. Yet into that silence God commanded: “Prophesy!”

And as the prophet spoke, bones rattled, sinews tightened, flesh covered, and Spirit breathed. What was dead began to live.

Mayfield’s haunting high voice did the same. In a valley of systemic violence, drugs, poverty, despair, and intent his songs called forth life.

Even in his protest, Mayfield was preacher. When he declared “Freddie’s dead,” it was more than a lyric—it was a lament, a warning, a call to conscience.

Ezekiel might have called them dry bones; Mayfield called him Freddie. Both spoke of lives cut off too soon, and both dared to believe that life could still rise again.

“We people who are darker than blue, don’t let us hang around this town and let what others say come true.” — Curtis Mayfield

Our Present Moment: Forgotten Jerusalema

But today, have we forgotten our Jerusalema? Too often, the songs of Zion—the ring shouts, moans, chants, the holy calls—are dismissed as archaic, antiquated, arcane, and anachronistic—undesired, unmarketable, and unwelcome.

We risk a worship emptied of weight, a song traded for spectacle.

We risk what the martyred Gandhi warned of: religion without sacrifice, (see Gandhi's 7 Social Sins); and what Bonhoeffer, who also paid with his life, named as worship without discipleship—cheap grace (see The Cost of Discipleship).

And in their own ways, Ezekiel and Curtis Mayfield stand in that same company: martyrs of exile, bearing the wounds of displacement and the cost of song, yet refusing silence.

 One prophesied to bones in Babylon’s valley; the other sang from Chicago’s streets in a psalmic tone uniquely his own. Both declared that life could rise again where the myopic saw only death.

A Word for Convocation

As we move toward Holy Convocation, I hear Ezekiel and Mayfield concomitantly speaking saying:

• Ezekiel: Prophesy to the bones.
• Mayfield: Sing for the people darker than blue.

• The Psalmist: Remember Zion, even in Babylon.

Together they remind us: the Lord’s song can still be sung in a strange land, but only if we sing with memory, with cost, with holy fire.

Closing Charge

So let us return. Let us remember Zion—not only the ancient hill of Scripture, but the Zion our ancestors sang about in the fields, the Zion that rang through the sorrow songs and freedom hymns, the Zion that echoed in Selma’s march and Harlem’s shout.

Let us sing as Mayfield sang, as Ezekiel saw, as the psalmist prayed: with songs that carry both sorrow and joy, both lament and liberation. Songs that are manna, not mere porridge. Songs that are fire, not froth.

Songs that keep us rooted in our Jerusalem—the Black Jerusalem of struggle and hope—even when exile carries us far away.

Voices rise. Bones live. Revival comes.