“How long…?” To sing this song? To wait in the darkness? To see justice thwarted – the hopes of the poor dashed by the greed of the powerful – and peace sacrificed on the altar of violence and atrophied imagination? How long… indeed?!?
• We begin today with this contemporary setting of Psalm 40 by the rock band U2 because it SOUNDS like Advent: l
onging, hopeful but still in the dark.• The song comes from the band’s early days in Dublin when they were young evangelical Protestants surrounded by the demands of the Irish Catholic Church.
Paradoxically it comes from a song collection called, WAR, their 1983 lament against the historic violence between Catholics and Protestants that had long marred the very soul of Ireland.
It is an outsider’s song: a call for peace in a culture of violence – a call for the common good when the status quo celebrates greed – a call for patience in a time of frustration and instant gratification. Like the band’s front man, Bono, has said: It is a song of grief and hope together – it is the blues – because that’s what the Psalms really are: the blues. In the UK preface to Eugene Peterson’s reworking of the Bible called The Message, Bono put it like this:
Before David could fulfill the prophecy and become the king of Israel, 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. But this is where the soap opera gets interesting (because)… this is where David was said to have composed his first psalm -- a blues. That's what a lot of the psalms fe
el 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 whenever un-holy bluesman 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 his tune, "Justice Blues": "I cried Lord my father, Lord kingdom come. Send me back my woman, then thy will be done."Sure it is humorous, sometimes blasphemous, the blues was backslidin' music but, by its very opposition, it flattered the subject of its perfect cousin, gospel. Abandonment and displacement are the stuff of my favorite psalms… For me its despair that the psalmist really reveals and the nature of his special relationship with God: it is an honesty, even to the point of anger, that shouts: "How long, Lord? Wilt thou hide thyself forever?" (Psalm 89) (www.atu2.com/news/psalm-like-it-hot.html
That’s the first thing I would like you to consider on this the third Sunday of Advent: have you ever thought of Advent as our time to really sing the blues? It is no secret, you know, that amidst all the joy and expectation, countless Am
ericans are weary to their core and bone tired by all the hype of this season. Psychologists tell us that seniors, women and single people of all ages have deeper and more profound feelings of depression during this season than at any other time of the year.• This is the blues season, people, the blues writ large – and I think Bono and the boys are onto something because here is something blues artists have known for ever: when you sing and express the blues – when you share the sounds of your wounds together with those you love – God sends you comfort, too.
• Did you know that? It’s something ALL the great blues artists from Howlin’ Wolf and Bob Marley to Koko Taylor and Bessie Smith know: when you share the blues with those you love, blessings come from above.
Now look, I’m not saying this makes any sense, ok? It is just one of those wild and weird spiritual truths that help me have faith in the Lord. Like they sometimes say in AA: you don’t have to understand WHY it works, it just does! That’s a pretty solid, working definition of faith, too, don’t you think? You don’t have to know WHY it works, it just does – so trust it! Bono concludes his insights about HIS blues psalm like this:
We wanted to put something explicitly spiritual on the end of our third record to balance the politics and romance of it; like Bob Marley or Marvin Gaye would. We thought about the psalms -- Psalm 40. But there was some squirming. We were a very "white" rock group and such plund
ering of the scriptures was taboo for a white rock group unless it was in the "service of Satan." But Psalm 40 is interesting in that it suggests a time in which grace will replace karma, and love will replace the very strict laws of Moses (in other words, fulfill them). I love that thought. David, who committed some of the most selfish as well as selfless acts, was depending on it. That the scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers and mercenaries used to shock me. Now it is a source of great comfort.So "40" became the closing song at U2 shows, and on hundreds of occasions, literally hundreds of thousands of people of every size and shape of T-shirt have shouted back the refrain, pinched from Psalm 6: "How long (to sing this song)." I had thought of it as a nagging question, pulling at the hem of an invisible deity whose presence we glimpse only when we act in love. How long hunger? How long hatred? How long until creation grows up and the chaos of its precocious, hell-bent adolescence has been discarded? It was odd, too, you see, because in the vocalizing of such questions they brought us such comfort – to me, too.
One of the reasons I wanted to share this series about peace-making through music with you this Advent is right there in Bono’s words: this is God’s odd season when the vocalizing of our blues also can bring us comfort. That is part of what Mary is trying to tell us today, too. Apart from all the cultic paraphernalia that some drape upon Mary – and beyond all the sloppy piety that often smothers the heart of the Virgin – there is something unique and beautiful taking place in her song. We hear God’s grace breaking through a worl
d of oppression, fear, violence and confusion.And it comes to us NOT high church Latin – or incense and priestly robes – but from the SONG of an unwed and pregnant Palestinian peasant girl. I love the way Kate Huey puts it:
Advent is (usually) a time for the prophets like Jesus (and Isaiah) and John the Baptist; men who came out of the wilderness speaking of world-shaking events and exhorting us to turn our lives around in preparation for what is to come. On this Third Sunday in Advent, however, we listen to another kind of prophet, a simple maiden who comes not from the wilderness but from her own village to visit her older cousin, Elizabeth. Mary and Elizabeth are women with voices and something to say, or in Mary's case, something to sing. Women – who are definitely not at "the top of the heap" here, especially not when there's an actual priest in the house, Zechariah, an expert in matters of faith. (But pay attention to the story because) Zechariah is the one in this scene without a voice, literally, since he's been struck speechless during his own angelic visit; now we have the rare opportunity to hear from the women for a change – and what a change they dream of!
And while Jesus and John the Baptist c
ontinue to argue and try to figure the best way to express the loving reversal of God within and among us, the young Mary sings to us about the real heart of the season: not only is God GREAT, but God is… good! Traditionally we call Mary’s song the Magnificat because it magnificently distills the very essence of Christ in Luke’s gospel. In one sweet song it says that:Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit, gives voice to those who are lowly, like the shepherds to whom the angels later announce the birth of Jesus. Like Hannah (before her), Mary sings out of her own experience, her own hope, but (like the blues it is also) out of the experience and hope of her people as well. The Magnificat… is a stunning expression of joy at God's promises kept, a celebration of the tables being turned or overturned… so that the lowly are lifted up, the proud are brought down and the hungry are fed. It testifies that God remembers the people of Israel and all the promises God has made to them forever!
Are you with me here? Am I being clear? Mary is using SONG to not only express her deepest experience with God’s love but also to encourage you and me. That’s the second reason I want you to explore the importance of peace-making through music. Songs can touch us at our deepest and most wounded place – make us weep and moan – and then bring us comfort in the midst of our sorrow.
Do you know the contemporary singer/song-writer Sarah M
cLachlan? I think of her as one of the embodiments of Mary’s heart and soul for our culture: she brings hope and encouragement, she practices grace and beauty and she uses her music to advance the cause of healing in our broken word.• Back in the 1990s – and again just last summer – she organized the Lilith Fair concerts – a forum for women artists to share their music in a supportive and creative environment. And part of the proceeds from these events was turned over to various environmental justice groups.
• Do you know her song, “I Will Remember You?” It became the prayer of the students after the massacre at Columbine. If you saw the movie, “City of Angels,” her smoldering song, “Angel” expressed what the union of sensual/spiritual energy can mean in all its complexity
And then there is her song, “World on Fire” that articulates the peace-making challenge of this moment in time…
In so many ways, the music of Sarah McLachlan captures the essence of God’s servant Mary beyond the hype and romanticism. I like the way the renegade Dominican priest, Meister Eckhart, put it:
We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to
him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.I sense that the musical ministry of both Sarah McLachlan and U2 helps awaken us to the Spirit being born within and among us to give shape and form to the Christ child in our generation. Like Mother Theresa says: “One filled with joy preaches without preaching.”
Now, before I wrap up this reflection, let me add that one of the responsibilities of joy is to share it – and note its absence. That is what compassion is all about: sharing and embracing one another so that God’s goodness isn’t privatized but multiplied. The call to compassion is bigger than any one spiritual tradition, it is greater than all our theologies and doctrines put together, it cuts across any of our real and manufactured divisions and it is at the heart of what Jesus came to proclaim.
+ Remember, Jesus did NOT ask: are you Catholic or Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist?
+ And he didn't ally God's grace with one political party or race or nationality either, ok?
Tell me, when you read these words from chapter 25 of the gospel according to St. Matthew, what does it say?
When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's w
hy:I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.
Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
And this is where the music of U2 is critical: they bring the peace-making challenge of the gospel all over the world – breaking down the barriers between Protestants and Catholics; Christians, Jews and Muslims; rich and poor; gay and straight; women, men and children – without compromising the essence of grace. Like Bono says, “Grace trumps karma…”
So we’re going to close with their most challenging Christmas song, “Peace on Earth,” that was written after the Good Friday Peace Accords were affirmed in Ireland. It seems that a hold-out group of rogue IRA bastards decided that blowing up innocent children in the city of Armagh was more holy than finding a way to common ground. It is a heartbreaking song about the selfish stupidity within us all that gets in the way of God’s peace and joy…
And so the Advent story matures…
images:
1) Lament: http://www.evelynwilliams.com/
2) Bono
3) The blues: http://www.n8w.com/
4) U2
5) Virgin Mary: http://www.postersandprintsblog.com/
6) Ofili: http://www.palestinecry.blogspot.com/
7) Sarah McLachlan
8) Mosaic: http://www.mosaic-mosaic.moonfruit.com/
Rauha...
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