Biography
Bishop Woodie W. White is the Resident Bishop of the Illinois Area of the United Methodist Church. A native of New York City, Bishop White was ordained in 1963 and has served pastorates in Massachusetts and Michigan. He was elected bishop in 1984 and serves the Central and Southern Illinois Conferences.During his ministry Bishop White was one of a four member task force to examine racism and race relations in Australia and New Zealand. He has preached in Chile, Argentina and Brazil and has lectured at Wesley Theological Seminary and Howard University School of Religion. Bishop White and his wife, Kim, are the parents of four daughters. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Sing a Song" 
“Sing a song,” the Psalmist wrote, “Oh, sing a song. Sing a song for God has done marvelous things.” The book of Psalms is one of my favorites because it seems to have in it a message for every occasion. When one is sad one sings, when joyful, when confused, you find in the Book of Psalms a word for every condition, every need. It seems to speak so eloquently to those needs.

In Europe there is a little bird called the chaffinch bird. It is a popular bird purchased by the thousands. It looks very much like our male robin, yet it sings like a canary. There you find persons buying this little bird, taking it home in a cage and they discover that the chaffinch bird has a peculiar characteristic about it. For unlike the canary, the chaffinch bird can forget how to sing. Thus the owner has to take the little bird back into the woods two or three times a year so that it can hear other chaffinch birds sing. For if it does not hear the singing of other chaffinch birds the chaffinch bird will mope and mope and eventually will die because it has forgotten how to sing.

That might be a message for the church. If we forget how to sing the good news of Jesus Christ, we will mope, loose our way and, in fact, we too might die.

We are witnessing now a revival of the award winning play, “A Raisin in the Sun.” You might recall that it was a magnificent play set in Chicago about a family held together by “Mama”, one strong-willed woman. There is a scene in that play which I shall never forget. It starts with the young daughter who is a sophomore in college — and you know there is no one, absolutely no one, who knows more than a sophomore — which means “wise fool” — and that’s appropriate. In this particular scene the sophomore daughter has discovered “so much” about life, and in this discovery she says to her mother, “Oh, Mama, there is no such thing as God.”

With that Mama moves toward the center of the stage, every eye was on her, in the silence you could hear a pin drop. Mama was portrayed by Claudia McNeal, who is a magnificent actress. In that deep, resonant voice of hers she says, “Child, what did you say?”

The daughter repeats it, “Mama there is no such thing as God.”

And with that Claudia McNeal slapped her across the face and said, “Repeat after me: In my mother’s house there is still God.”

In my mother’s house there is still God. There is a world, a world that often acts as though there is no God. There is a world in which even those who claim to know God will utter that there is no God. We live in a world of inexplicable suffering. Pain and disaster, the earth shakes, buildings crumble, the innocent die, children go hungry. We live in a world of racism and sexism. We live in a world of classism. We live in a world of deep sin. We live in a world where people shout, “There is no God! There is no God.”

Those who know the message must be able to sing that song that the world might hear it and know it and might respond to it. Sing a song. The church has forgotten how to sing out of its faith, out of its message that Jesus is real. The church has forgotten how to sing.

There was an exciting little book entitled, Tracks in the Straw. It is a book of various stories. One is a little story about a swallow. It’s called, “The Song of a Swallow”. It tells of a swallow who goes to the manger scene, looks into the eye of the baby Jesus and something happens to the swallow. The swallow is changed in all of its dimensions. This story is about the swallow who now is wondering why we, whom it calls its “featherless friends”, no longer sing. The swallow says of us, “Oh you have forgotten how to sing, you have forgotten how to sing. Oh, you make noises, you make sounds,” says the swallow, “but your heart is not in it, and if your heart is not in it, it is only technique, notes, pretense.”

You have forgotten how to sing. The world needs to hear our song. A song of faith. A song of love. A song of hope. The little swallow says, “Of course you know, swallows don’t really sing. Swallows only twitter.” And then the little swallow says this, “But when I looked in the eyes of Jesus, the twitter became a song.” That’s what Jesus does when you look into his eyes. The twitter becomes a song. The heartache becomes less of an ache. A sense of lostness becomes a sense of hope. The twitter becomes a song. We must learn how to sing again so that those who so desperately need to hear the song will hear it from those who know it.

Shortly after arriving here in Illinois, I received a note. The note said in its closing, “Bishop, I met the Lord Jesus 65 years ago and I’ve been singing a song ever since.” And then she signed it by using musical notes. I still hear from this person periodically. I look forward to that ingenious signature with the musical notes. And then she says, “I’m still singing the song.” I pray that we will sing the song, the song of hope, the song of love, a song of justice, a song for those who need to hear the song. So sing the song!

Sing the song when you are alone, when you are burdened and when the night is long. Sing the song when you are up and joyful. Sing the song when it seems as though you are not going to make it one day longer. Sing the song even when you don’t feel like singing. And the song will become something that you will marvel at.

As the swallow said, “When you look into the eyes of Jesus, the twitter becomes a song.”

Those of us who stand in the place of this great tradition know what Jesus does for life. When one is lost, when one is down, then you know when you’re confused, somehow he brings hope and life and justice. Sing a song. Sing a song to the Lord for he has done marvelous things. Sing the song when times seem so unbearable and life seems so unfair, sing the song.

There is an old Gospel song — some of the words are these:
                   I sing because I’m happy
                   I sing because I’m free.
                   His eye is on the sparrow
                   And I know He watches me.

Let us sing to this world of brokeness and division. Let us sing to this world of confusion where we seem to want to destroy ourselves. Let us sing to those who so desperately need to hear. And in the singing one will ask us, “What is the source of your song?” And then we point the world to the source. It is not us, not our strength, not our “smarts”, not our ingenuity. We must then point to the source of the singing which is Jesus and then share Him with those who are lost, lonely, afraid and frightened, who are filled with so much torment and who need
to hear the song.

I was born in New York City, on Lennox Avenue, in the heart of Harlem. One would wonder how anything good could come out of that place, but in that place someone sang the song so that I was able to hear it. To touch the life of a wayward youth, one who was moving in so much destruction, but someone sang the song. If they had never sung the song, I would not have known the Lord Jesus. So now I must sing the song. Sing it to you. Sing it wherever I go. Sing it even when I don’t feel like singing it. Because, in the singing I have discovered the power of Jesus to change even the lowly and the lonely, even the lost and the afraid, even those filled with prejudice and malice. The power of Jesus is to make us new and whole and to know something of the meaning of his life, death and resurrection.

She was a very tough teacher. She gave me a hard time. She seemed to, as I would say, just pick on me. She was southern, she was white, she had the worst accent I had ever heard. Yet I discovered this teacher of mine in college knew the song and she sang it to me in such a way that I could no longer see color or class, distinctions of gender. She was able to show me something that I had missed. Beauty goes far beyond physical attraction. One’s people are broader than one’s nation or race. Loyalty, ultimate loyalty is to Jesus alone. She came into my life. She sang a song that eventually changed me. My life can never be the same. How blessed I am to have been touched by people who sang their songs.

Now won’t you who know the song, sing it? Sing it in your office. Sing it in your living room. Sing it on the campus. Sing it on the farm. Sing it even when you don’t feel like singing it. And soon the source of your singing will touch and change the world and it will never be the same because we sang the song, the song of Jesus and his love. Sing a song!