The blues is just a bad dream... or not

NOTE: Here are my sermon notes for Sunday, March 7, 2010. I leave for NYC tomorrow for an art and spirituality conference and may not have a chance to access my computer much - we shall see. This reflection, like the four preceeding ones, is built upon Henri Nouwen's idea that we live into being the beloved of God by living like the bread of the Eucharist: taken, blessed, broken and shared. If you are around, please join us for the feast at 10:30 am on Sunday.

Back about a hundred years ago, when a young, skinny, heroin addicted singer by the name of James Taylor was cutting his first album at the Beatles studio – Abbey Road – in London, he wrapped things up with a song called “The Blues is Just a Bad Dream” that starts out like this…

A tree grows in my back yard
It only grows at night
Its branches they're all twisted
Its leaves are afraid of light
They say the blues is just a bad dream
They say it lives upside your head
But when it's lonely in the morning
You're bound to wish that you was lying dead

As many of you know by now, I LOVE me some blues: I love ‘em hot and cool, I love ‘em acoustic or electric, I like ‘em funny or sad – sometimes even downright raunchy and fowl, too! Because, you see, the blues are one of America’s unique musical contributions to the world – especially when it comes to expressing our grief and brokenness. And the Bible is filled with laments – blues – songs and poems of brokenness in every conceivable key. Like Bono of the rock band U2 once wrote in an essay he dubbed, “Psalm like It Hot”…

One of the writers of the psalms was a musician, a harp-player whose talents were required at "the palace" as the only medicine that would still the demons of the moody and insecure King Saul of Israel. It is a thought that still inspires: think of Marilyn Monroe singing for Kennedy, the Spice Girls for Prince Charles (or recently Bob Dylan and Beyonce or even U2 singing for Obama.)

Before David could fulfill the prophecy to become the king of Israel, however, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God…. And oddly enough, this is where David was said to have composed his first psalm - a blues – and that's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God -- "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?" (Psalm 22).

And I hear echoes of this holy row most often when un-holy bluesman like Robert Johnson howls, "There's a hellhound on my trail" or Van Morrison sings, "Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child." Texas Alexander mimics the psalms in "Justice Blues" moaning: "I cried Lord my father, Lord kingdom come. Send me back my woman, then thy will be done." Humorous, sometimes blasphemous, the blues is backslidin' music but, by its very opposition, it flatters the subject of its perfect cousin: gospel.

And today we’re invited into this same tension as we consider how it is we can live into God’s blessings in the midst of our brokenness. The master poet of God’s comfort, the prophet Isaiah, sings to us from his experience of exile and brokenness in Babylon six hundred years before Jesus, inviting us to bring our wounds to the Lord:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.

At the same time, Jesus is making it clear that while God is not capricious or mean-spirited in doling out some sacred judgment, the Lord does expect us to do our part along the holy road of faith. After all, the point is not simply to own our brokenness yet remain trapped or addicted within it, but rather to unite our brokenness with God’s blessing so that we can experience that balm in Gilead. Jesus put it like this in his parable of the fig tree:

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” To which the gardener replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put more manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, then cut it down.”

Do you see where I’m going with this? Even our pain and brokenness can be used by God to bring blessings into the world. And please don’t misunderstand me here because I am NOT saying that God GIVES us the pain in order to create blessings for another. That would be cruel or even sadistic. No, what I am trying to say is what St. Paul discerned two thousand years ago: namely that God can work good in all things if – and this is the key – if we bring it all – pain, addiction and suffering – to the Lord in love.

Now there’s nothing easy or even magical about this: it is hard work bearing fruit, being pruned by God of all the distractions that keep us trapped and afraid, being patient until the buds appear and the fruit of the vine can mature. And let’s be honest: most of us are not very good at waiting.

I think of the old story about the monk who found that he was very impatient with life in the monastery: the chores annoyed him, the bad singing of his brothers got under his skin and even the structured rituals of monastic life failed to bring him inner peace. So, he moved into a small hermitage in the middle of a dark and lonely forest so that he could cultivate an attitude of patience.

In time a traveler stumbled upon this hermitage and knocked on the door. As the monk and his guest shared tea, the traveler asked, “Why is it that you live out here in the middle of nowhere?” To which the monk replied, “I am learning how to wait upon the Lord.” “I see,” said the guest, “and how long have you been doing this?” The monk said, “It is probably well over seven years now I believe.” Stunned, the traveler continued, “Well, help me out here: if there is no one around to bother you, how in the world can you cultivate real patience?” To which the monk shouted: “Go on – get out of here now – I don’t have any more time for this kind of foolishness.”

And that is the most important insight about our brokenness: when we can name it and claim it for the unique way it wounds us, there is also room for God to bring blessings to us through this wound. Henri Nouwen, a wounded healer if ever there was one, has said:

Our first and most spontaneous response to pain and suffering is to avoid it, to keep it at arm’s length; to ignore, circumvent or deny it. For suffering – be it physical, mental or emotional – is almost always experienced as an unwelcome intrusion into our lives… but here is part of the sacred mystery… human suffering need not be an obstacle to the joy and peace we so desire, it can become the means into it.

That is what our sacred soul singer, Isaiah, is saying, as his song matures. Kate Huey is so right on when she writes that Isaiah is summarizing the very essence of the Bible in these nine short verses.

God promises the things that we most yearn for, deep down in our hearts, the very basics of life: homecoming when we're lost or far away, a rich feast when we're hungry, flowing fresh water to satisfy our thirst, and a community of hope when we long for meaning in our lives--something greater than ourselves, in which and through which we might be a blessing to the whole world. Oh, and another thing: there will be no cost affixed to this wonderful feast, no price of admission, and everyone will be invited to the party. Underneath and through this message runs a deep and tender compassion for the human predicament, our habit of getting entangled, trapped, in ways and habits that cut us off from the source of what we need most, or worse, being taken captive against our will by forces beyond our control.

Isaiah KNOWS brokenness – Isaiah can sing the blues – and name and claim his wounds – because Isaiah knows in his flesh that God aches to meet us exactly where we hurt the most to bring us blessing. That’s why at the end of his blues, Isaiah shifts into a sweet, soul singer - think of the movement from Robert Johnson or Wilson Pickett to maybe Marvin Gaye or John Legend: come to me – why spend your life on that which does not satisfy – come to me and I will fill you from the inside out with the best food of all!”

Do you remember some of the names for Jesus used in the gospel according to St. John? Here’s today’s Bible quiz: There are seven of these names – reflecting the perfect number seven in the Hebrew tradition that mirrors the six days of creation and then the blessed Sabbath – and all the names start with “I am” – another reference to our Jewish origins, right? For when Moses asked the Lord for a name, how did God reply? “I am who I am – and I will be who I will be…”

• Well, John has Jesus picking up the name I AM all throughout his gospel: I am the bread of life, right? I am the light of the world – I am the door to the Lord – I am the good shepherd – I am the resurrection and the life – I am the way, the truth and the life – and I am the true vine.

• Each name is a poem – a song – an invitation into being filled with the best food of all that brings healing and hope and authentic blessing to us through our brokenness.

Our brokenness has to be named and claimed – or as I prefer to say we have to learn to sing the blues in addition to the spiritual and gospels – for the blues is where the blessings can come to our brokenness. I know this sounds crazy. It is upside down, right? And yet that is how the upside down kingdom of God works: if we run away and hide from those wounds, they will always have power over us. If we deny and defy them, they will reach up and grab us by our throats and show us who is stronger.

But if we humbly and honestly share them with God – who aches to bring us comfort – then, my friends, we can feast on the best food of all: the bread of life and the banquet of God’s grace and healing. That’s what old JT, our blues man, discovered. He has been clean and sober for over 27 years – but he went through hell and divorce and failure and addiction and a whole lot of suffering before those blues could bring him blessings.

• But in time – with practice and patience – with a loving community and a faith and trust in a power greater than himself… that fig tree did not have to torn down for it produced great and wonderful fruit.

• Do you remember how he put it in his first big hit: won’t you look down upon me Jesus you got to help me make a stand? You’ve just got to see me through another day. My body’s aching and my time is at hand: I won’t make it any other way.

And what was true for the blues man, my friends, is no less true for you and me: if we want to live into God’s deepest blessings – feast on the best food of all – we have to come to the table with our blues. Perhaps the most authentic and healing invitation to the table of God’s love comes from an old Celtic liturgy for Maundy Thursday that is saturated in the blues to my ears.

Come to the table, beloved, that table of all who confess Jesus as the Christ and seek to follow his healing way. Come to this sacred table not because you must, but because you may. Come not because you are fulfilled, but because you know in your emptiness you stand in need of God’s mercy and assurance. Come not to express an opinion, but to seek a presence and to pray for a sprit. Come to this table, then, as you are. Partake and share. This table is spread for you and me that we might know again and again that God has come to us and shared our common lot – and now invites us to be fed from the inside out. So come…

credits: 1) Crumb Guitar by R. Crumb @ www.bookpalace.com/acatalog/CrumbGuitar.jpg 2) Blues Guitar by Suzanne McCourt @ www.allposters.com/-sp/Blues-Guitar-Posters_i... 3) Blues Guitar @ www.bluesguitarlesson.net/.../ 4) Blues Man by Justin Bua @ www.allposters.com/-sp/Blues-Man-Posters_i2104086_.htm 5) New Orleans House of the Blues by Diane Milsap @ http://diane-millsap.blogspot.com/2008/08/house-of-blues-new-orleans-original-oil.html 6) Mississippi Blues by Anthony Armstrong @ www.itsablackthang.com/jazz-blues-art.htm 7) Harmony by Andrew Nichols @ www.itsablackthang.com/jazz-blues-art.htm
8) The Blues by Romare Borden @ www.art.com/products/p10115853-sa-i1292378/romare-bearden-the-blues.htm
9) The Blues Singers @ www.artcameroon.com/african_art_online.php