He had white horses, And ladies by the score, All dressed in satin And waiting by the door... Chorus: Oooh, what a lucky man he was

Transcription

1 Love Reign O er Me Luke 12:13-21 November 13, 2016 Lucky Man by Emerson Lake and Palmer He had white horses, And ladies by the score, All dressed in satin And waiting by the door... Chorus: Oooh, what a lucky man he was White lace and feathers they made up his bed A gold colored mattress on which he was laid Chorus: Oooh, what a lucky man he was He went to fight wars, for his country and his king Of his honor and his glory the people would sing Chorus: Oooh, what a lucky man he was A bullet had found him his blood ran as he died No money could save him, so he laid down and he died. Chorus: Oooh, what a lucky man he was

2 I. A few weeks ago, I proposed in a sermon that we need to see the sacred in the secular, that is the non-religious, parts of our life. For me this was never more true than when it came to, or comes to, music. A. Especially in my youth, very little religious music inspired me. B. In Jr. High and High School and even during my college years, as far as I was concerned, the sermons were boring, the prayers were unrelateable, and the music sucked. C. I probably could have put up with the sermons and prayers if only the music would have been better, which I think is one of the major draws of churches like Flatirons. D. The music that inspired me wasn t hymns, it was Rock you know the devil s music. 1. Over the years I have come to like a good many hymns, but back in my youth they were just boring and unmeaningful. 2 2

3 2. It was in the songs on the radio that I found inspiration, that I found a relationship to God. These songs brought challenges to my faith that changed my faith. And, they were songs that broadened my religious horizon. 3. So, it wasn t only the music, being rock, but also the lyrics and the themes. E. Religious Rock was in its infancy back then with folks like Barry Mcquire, the Second Chapter of Acts, and Phil Keaggy, (who s a great guitarist), but they were all pretty fundamentalist and really didn t speak to me. II. So what music did feed my religious hunger? A. One was the song I opened with. Emerson, Lake and Palmers, Lucky Man 1. For me it was a retelling of Jesus parable of the rich man. It made me question what was of value to me in life. 2. Certainly, it helped me form the perspective that money was not what we should value. a) Is money the really the measure of wealth? 3 3

4 b) Are you wealthy if: (1) You have bad health from job or environment. (2) There is no future for your grandchildren. c) Are you wealthy if you hate your job? d) Are you wealthy if you have no time for your family? e) Are you wealthy if you live a life that is in opposition to what you value? 3. Money should be used to help enhance what we value. It should not itself be what we value. 4. If it wasn t for that lesson I probably never would have considered going into the ministry. B. But there were many other song s that influenced my faith; one was the Who s song Love Reign O er Me, that we heard as the Prelude. 1. It solidified in me the knowledge that God was love and that love did reign o er me. 4 4

5 2. In those adolescent years when I would lie in bed and feel alone, rejected and abandoned by the world; a feeling I now know was not all that unique to me in adolescence; I would lie in bed with tears flowing as I listed to Roger Daltry cry out, Love reign o er me, and I knew love did reign o er me. I knew I was loved and I was loved by Love itself. C. Then there was the time when church and religion just weren t that cool. It just wasn t what the cool kids were into and then the Doobie Brothers came out with Jesus is just alright with me. 1. And it was like, Hey, yah Jesus is just alright with me too. 2. Jesus was cool. Jesus is cool. III. While those helped to reassure my faith, there were other songs that also had a very profound influence on my faith in another direction. A. Way up there on the list was Jethro Tull s Aqualung 5 5

6 1. It wasn t any one song, but the whole album. 2. There was the title song Aqualung that exposed our prejudices as Aqualung, the heavy breathing old homeless man in tattered cloths who everyone thought was a dirty old pedophile watching the little girls in the playground, turns out to be just a homeless old man who had no ill motives, but simply had nothing better to do than to enjoy watching the children play. 3. Then there was the song My God which talked about our idolatry as we forced God to bend to our religion and to our images of God. 4. And the song Hymn 43 that proclaimed, If Jesus saves, well He'd better save Himself From the gory glory seekers who use His name in death. 5. It didn t end there. There was also the song Wind up that spoke to the hypocrisy of those folks who go to church and be all holy and then how they acted the rest of the week, with the line, So I asked this God a question and by way of firm reply, He said -- I'm not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays. 6 6

7 6. But probably most disruptive and challenging to my faith and life changing in my faith development about that album was not a song at all, but the words written on the cover of the album that ripped a huge whole in the fabric of my faith and made me rethink everything about God and my faith. 7 1 In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created him. 2 And Man gave unto God a multitude of names, that he might be Lord of all the earth when it was suited to Man. 3 And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good. 4 And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind. 5 And these lesser men were cast into the void; And some were burned, and some were put apart from their kind. 6 And Man became the God that he had created and with his miracles did rule over all the earth. 7

8 7 But as all these things came to pass, the Spirit that did cause man to create his God lived on within all men: even within Aqualung. 8 8 And man saw it not. 9 But for Christ's sake he'd better start looking. 7. That album did more to help form my faith than all the hymns ever written put together. 8. But it did that, not by reassuring my faith, as is the case for almost all religious music, rather it did it by ripping my faith apart. B. Another album, rather than just one song, that radically affected my faith was Jesus Christ Superstar. 1. Before that album, I was probably much more gnostic. That is, I knew Jesus lived, but I always had him on this deified pedestal. He was human, but not really. 2. It was that rock opera that opened my eyes to Jesus as human. a) Jesus had urges and passions and pain. b) Jesus probably got sick and had diarrhea and vomited. 8

9 c) Jesus probably fell in love. d) Jesus certainly had pain, depression, doubt and anxiety. 3. He may have been filled with the Holy Spirit of Love, but he was also 100% human and that meant he had to deal with all the stuff we do. C. Another song that challenged my faith to expand, rather than reassuring what I already believed, was George Harrison s My Sweet Lord which to sing it brought one at the end of the song to a chant praising Hindu deities. 1. The song ends with a hare Krishna chant. 2. The chant is a recognition of many of the manifestations of God found in Hinduism. 3. It was a window out of the exclusive and parochial teachings of Christianity that excluded other faiths and saw them as sinful. 4. It challenged the idea that you had be Christian to love God and be loved by God. 5. It helped to end the idea that God would have anything to do with condemning billions of people to hell because they weren t Christian. 9 9

10 D. In much the same light, John Lennon s Imagine challenged my understanding of religion all together. Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today. Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion, too Imagine all the people Living life in peace. 1. Questioning the bipolar afterlife of heaven and hell was again a challenge to the religious orthodoxy I had learned. 2. And then imagining a world with no religion. a) Wow. That was an interesting concept. b) What was the purpose of religion anyway? c) It wasn t like he was saying, Do away with God

11 d) He was asking what would it be like if you did away with the demarcations between people based on their beliefs in God over which they have killed each other for thousands of years. e) Would it be more loving just to do away with religion? 3. These where the kind of faith changing questions and statements that one just doesn t find in hymns and praise music. IV. Finally, there we re the songs that gave me some reassurance, but not in an otherworldly way like hymns, but in a very down to earth manner. A. For instance, Paul McCartney s Let it Be. 1. In some ways, I guess it has the same message as the hymn, Blessed Assurance, but it seems so much more real. 2. Not only do I find it to be better music, but better theology. 3. It is simply about his mother telling him to Let it be; that whatever happens, it will ultimately be ok

12 B. To round out the Beatles, I guess I need to give one to Ringo. That would be the song, It Don t Come Easy, which again is a reassuring song, but in a realistic manner that you don t get from many hymns. 1. It s a recognition that It Don t Come Easy. 2. Life doesn t come easy. 3. Faith doesn t come easy. 4. Growing up doesn t come easy. 5. It don t come easy, but just stay with it. C. Then there was a song that actually revealed to me a good purpose for church and community building and that song, also in a very un-hymn like fashion was John Denver s Poems Prayers and Promises about a community of love. 1. The lyrics go I have to say it now, it s been a good life all in all, it s really fine to have a chance to hang around. and lie there by the fire and watch the evening tire while all my friends and my old lady sit and pass a pipe around

13 And talk of poems and prayers and promises and things that we believe in. How sweet it is to love someone, how right it is to care. 2. Yes, we all know what was in that pipe, not very hymn like, but let s remember that Jesus passed the wine. 3. Having a community that is in communion, talking about their prayers and what they value and how right it is to love and care; a place to belong that s what church is about. A community of faith. 4. It s an idea whose time has not passed and is needed now more than ever. V. For me it s not the sanguine praise songs or hymns that were most sacred, it was the songs of the world that challenged my faith and helped my faith to grow. A. That s why I ve always preferred songs that dealt with real people s struggle with their faith

14 B. Some hymns do this, but for the most part hymns don t do much to challenge our faith, they don t do much to face the real challenges of life that tear our lives and our faith apart. C. Hymns and praise songs do a great job of giving us comfort, worshipping God and supporting whatever view of God we have, but they rarely inspire me to look beyond the walls of the box I have put God into. D. The songs that do blow our faith apart and inspire us to look beyond the status quo of our faith they re sacred too. VI. My sweet Lord, love truly does reign o er me, making me a very lucky man. AMEN