as preached May 4, 2025 at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston
“I follow the voice you think you gave to me
But now I’ve gotta to find my own.”
“Bring the beat in
… you put my love on top!”
“There, but for the grace of God, oh, I
I found Heaven on Earth.”
“We built sandcastles that washed away”
“Brought someone some happiness
Left this world a little better just because
I was here.”
The words are not just lyrics. For many they contain snatches of spiritual insight, represent fragments of modern psalms and calls to authenticity, love, purpose, and transcendence. Knowing this, it is a risky thing to offer a service devoted to finding spirituality within the music of Miss Third Ward, the Queen Bey, Beyoncé in her hometown. We are not far from the house on Parkwood where she grew up. We are down the street from her religious home, St. John’s Downtown Church. Some of us have probably seen her around town over the years at places like BB’s, Frenchy’s and Pappadeaux. A few of us, I suspect, like Dr. Rocke, can claim a degree or two of separation from her or other members of the Knowles family.
Usually, when I craft a sermon, I have the benefit of relying on my decades of study as an adhesive for my text. I can trust that if I am not the authority on the subject at hand, I am at least an authority. But Beyonce, while I have been a fan of her music since “Lemonade” I can hardly claim to be a member of the Bey Hive.
Beyoncé, Amen! There are people with us today who can quote her lyrics better than they can quote religious scripture. I suspect that a few of you can cite Beyoncé better than I can cite religious scripture. If I misquote her, I anticipate you might give me a “Hold Up” before an Amen.
Beyoncé, Amen! This is another of our occasional services on music and spirituality. If you have been to any of the others, then you have probably observed that we have not centered them on the usual suspects. We have yet to offer one devoted to the religious power of George Frideric Handel or Johann Sebastian Bach. Instead, we have tended to figures like John Cage, Nina Simone, and Marian Anderson. Next autumn, we will be extending our series with meditations on jazz, protest music, and punk rock.
Whether or not you have found any of these musical offerings to be soul stirring, they are all inspired by a simple Unitarian Universalist theological proposition. We believe that “revelation is not sealed.” We understand, as Unitarian Universalist theological Rebecca Parker eloquently wrote, “that religion cannot be in the dry bones of the past but must be discovered firsthand.”
Dry bones of the past, discovered firsthand in the living flesh of the present, I have shared with you before that one of the primary purposes of our communion is to help us undergo an ancient religious experience. I have named it the resurrection of the living.
The resurrection of the living, the term is inspired by a gnostic Christian text which rejects the idea that resurrection is the literal return to life after death. Instead, the text informs us that resurrection is “truth standing firm. It is revelation of what is, and the transformation of things, and a transition into freshness.”
Truth, revelation, transformation, and transition, I think of the resurrection of the living as waking up to the world as it is. The resurrection of the living, it is responding to questions posed by the Sufi poet Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, beloved by our tradition and beloved by Beyoncé, with the words “I do.” Rumi asks:
Who gets up early
to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
The moment the light begins? I do.
Circling, bewildered, like atoms? It is me.
The moon reflected in a spring? I see.
I do, the spark of the divine within opening to the beauty of universe. I do, the holy flame of consciousness suddenly aware that the beauty outside and the beauty inside are the same.
I do, truth, revelation, transformation, transition, the resurrection of the living, it has happened to you. I know it has. The glimmer of dawn coming over the city skyline, sunbeams smacking against skyscraper glass as if the whole of the concrete mess of human existence was bathed in holy light. The break on the ground some night at the Moody when Beyoncé’s “Sweet * Honey * Buckiin’” crashes over the floor from the DJ’s booth and hometown crowd comes together in a unified voice of, “Buckin’ like a mechanical bull.” The mountain spring where you saw tadpoles the size of fists flicking between submerged grass blades wet with snowmelt proclaiming that life continues. That experience of oneness, that awareness, the disappearance of the me into the is, and the opening where the I of me and of you or the I of us and of the I of that tadpole, that spring, that sound, that glimmer of light, all unify, the resurrection of the living.
The resurrection of the living, the principle claim of our statement “revelation is not sealed” is that the holy–however we might define it–can be found in all things. The tadpole, the sunbeam, the skyscraper, and the pop song, all become occasions to say, to sing, as Beyoncé does in her version of “Ave Maria,” “I found Heaven on Earth.”
Heaven on Earth, sometimes we all need a little help, a prompt, to wake up to the beauty of the world as it is. In such moments, an artist like Beyoncé can offer a nudge. When she reminds us “I found Heaven on Earth” she is inviting us into ongoing revelation.
Heaven on Earth, I read a fair number of books on homiletics, the study of preaching. The one I am currently reading is written by a couple of conventional Christian theologians. In their advice to preachers they advise that the strong presentation is the one in which the religious orator creates a text where the “hinge … occurs in a dramatic way as the preacher shifts to present God’s action on our behalf.”
God’s action on our behalf, the truth found in ongoing revelation, in the resurrection of the living, and in a lot of Unitarian Universalist pulpit work is somewhat different. Instead of trusting the divine with our destinies, our tradition encourages us to wake up to the world as it is and recognize that we are responsible for finding and making religious truth. We are called to discover that the sacred is here–in the beat, between breaths, in the voice, in the all of our common life. The holy is not what happens to us. It what we awaken to and bring forth.
This does not mean that many of us do not affirm Rebecca Parker’s words:
There is a love
Holding me.
There is a love
Holding you.
There is a love
Holding all.
I rest
In this love.
It means when we find someone who “forgot,” we are charged to tell them, “You are gift.” That is what the Unitarian Universalist theologian Julian Soto enjoins us to do in their poem “Bring your broken hallelujah here.” They write:
You have to get yourself together. They
overstated the value of perfection
by a lot. Or they forgot. You are the gift.
You are the gift, Beyoncé has been spreading that message for a long time. Her genre bending bangers, pop ballads, and inspired vocal feats call us to affirm that you are the gift. And they challenge you, me, us, to bring forth that gift, to “break into blossom,” as a poet wrote.
You are the gift, truth, revelation, transformation, transition, Queen Bey affirms the resurrection of the living in so many of her songs. Consider the truth she spreads when she reminds women in general and Black women in particular of their power in songs–maybe we should call them hymns–like “Run the World (Girls)” or “Flawless.”
“Who runs the world?,” she asks.
“Girls,” she answers.
Listening to her sample the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie we find a critique of patriarchy. We hear:
We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller
We say to girls: “You can have ambition, but not too much
You should aim to be successful, but not too successful
Otherwise, you will threaten the man”
And:
Feminist: A person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
Then Beyoncé sings: “We flawless, ladies, tell ‘em.”
“Who runs the world? Girls,” the empowering truth that she offers is necessary one for these times. In Houston, in H-town, in Queen Bey’s hometown, in Texas, in the United States, and, I fear, throughout much of the world, we are faced with a regime that seeks to assert white male supremacy. We know it whenever the current President says the quiet part out loud. We know it from the assault on civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, labor rights, really any kind of rights, that he has launched during his disastrous first hundred days. We know it from his efforts to dismantle higher education, destroy university research, and direct public educators to teach lies. We know it from his work to turn falsehoods into truth and deny that the theft of indigenous land and the forced labor of Africans built much of this country.
“Who runs the world? Girls,” the truth we are called to wake up here is that challenging that that threat comes from striving to build a multiracial democracy. Such a multiracial democracy will undermine white supremacy through the celebration of Black cultural and political power. Such a democracy will, “Feminist: A person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.”
“Who runs the world? Girls,” Beyoncé’s revelations have far more than just political resonance. In her “Ave Maria” we can hear “I found Heaven on Earth” as a reminder of the beauty of the world that is there if we wake up to it. In so many of her love songs it is found in the beloved. But her message is not simply one of the revelation of the holy in romantic relationships. It is that there is beauty all around us.
Consider a video like the one for “Formation.” While she sings about celebrating Black beauty, “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros” she offers visually stunning images from Black life. Southern mansions, Black churches, dancing in parking lots, shotgun shacks, a car underwater as a reminder of Hurricane Katrina, stills from almost any of them could easily grace the walls of a major museum. Made during the President’s first term, “I twirl on them haters, albino alligators,” the message is clear. “Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation,” when Black folks, and Black women in particular, come together they have great power.
Angela Davis, “Black women have had to develop a larger vision of our society than perhaps any other group.” “To me we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world–Black people,” Nina Simone, they said it differently but the revelation is the same. The path to undermining white supremacy runs through Black women’s power. A society structured around putting incompetent White men into power has been built upon the repression of women and people of African descent. It can be transformed, she seems to be saying, by putting their love on top.
Love on top, Beyoncé’s music does not only invite us to undergo the resurrection of the living through waking up to the truth and experiencing revelation. She also points us to transformation. Consider our earlier song, “Sandcastles.”
“We built sandcastles that washed away,” her ballad to love in transition can be heard as a reminder that we are always on the verge of transformation. The song speaks of a love that has almost been lost but has somehow been regained. “And although I promised that I couldn’t stay, baby / Every promise don’t work out that way,” she sings.
She does not tell the story of the transformation. She simply seems to imply that it ever remains a possibility. “Dishes smashed on my counter from our last encounter / Pictures snatched out the frame,” something happens in the song that allows her to reclaim what has been lost.
This spirit of transformation is laced throughout her work. In some of her visual imagery and a few of her lyrics she references the Pan-African tradition found right here in Third Ward. “Black Parade,” if you have not heard, it is infused with the kind of Yoruba and African spirituality practiced by friend of the congregation and local icon Baba Ifalade. In the song, we can hear similar wisdom to that which he offers as a path for transformation.
Growin’, growin’ like a Baobab tree
Of life on fertile ground, my ancestors put me on game
Ankh charm on gold chains, with my Oshun energy, oh
Transformation comes, she is telling us, when Black people reconnect to their roots and ancestors. Doing so allows for the waking up to the world as it already is, “I can’t forget my history, it’s her-story… We got rhythm … we got pride … We birth kings … we birth tribes … Now here we come on our thrones, sittin’ high,” she sings.
Lifting up the transformation, the possibility of resurrection, offered in those lyrics is a project worthy of a long essay. The same is true of almost any of her efforts. We have not even gotten into the ways in which her albums “Cowboy Carter” and “Renaissance” reclaim whole genres as Black music. Country music, Black music, if you doubt me look up DeFord Bailey or ask yourself why Linda Martell sings with Queen Bey. House music, Black music, as an old House head who grew up in sweaty warehouses in Detroit and Chicago, I can tell you that her choice to work with Honey Dijon is not just about the mixtress’s preternatural ability to juggle beats. It carries with a deep symbolism.
In some sense these albums undo erasure. In the face of a music industry that so frequently renders country music Garth Brooks or house David Guetta, Beyoncé’s musical stylings are reminding all of us that when it comes to music throughout the United States, “I Was Here.” The nation’s, really the world’s, musical tradition has been shaped by Black people.
Beyoncé’s rich songbook encourages us to consider that transition into freshness, to wake up to the world as it is, to recognize the beauty and power that is and has come to being not just because of all of us but because of Black women in particular.
I was here
I lived, I loved
I was here
I did, I’ve done everything that I wanted
And it was more than I thought it would be
I will leave my mark so everyone will know
I was here.
Beyoncé sings those words. They are true for her. May her music, or any music, or any beauty that we encounter, the shimmer of buildings, the bump of bass, the flash of tadpoles, help each of us recall that it can be true for all of us.
I wanna say I lived each day until I die
And know that I meant something in somebody’s life
The hearts I have touched will be the proof that I leave
That I made a difference, and this world will see.
Or maybe, just, Beyoncé, Amen!
