Huey Lewis and the Good News
Here's the sermon I preached today at Northminster Presbyterian Church in Slidell/Pearl River. (The section titles are just for you reader people.)
Huey Lewis and the Good News
Judge Not James and John
Judge not James and John, that ye be not judged.
All the brothers wanted was to be successful, happy, and powerful.
It’s what they were supposed to want.
It’s what we’re supposed to want.
Recall that at the start of our text, Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to be mocked, spit upon, flogged, and killed.
Then James and John ask if they could have executive board positions in the Kingdom of God. In my opinion, it would have been totally appropriate if the next verse had read (clear throat)
“Jesus then dope-slapped the two men across the back of the head, saying unto them, ‘Didst thou not hear a single word I didst just sayeth?’”
But, in a sense, it’s really not their fault: the brothers had no clue, not a single solitary clue, what power is, or what glory is. They didn’t hear Jesus’s words about his suffering and death because it made no sense to them at all. They heard “rise again” and were ready to start wielding some real power, some “do what I say” power, some “tell me how amazing I am” power.
Tsk. Not a clue.
We can’t be too hard on James and John, though, because I don’t think we understand what power and glory is either. So judge not the sons of Zebedee, for they could judge us as well.
What is Power and Glory?
We think of glory as Olympic gold medals. We think of glory as NBA championships or successful corporate takeovers. We think of glory as victories on the battlefield or the football field.
When we think of the glory of Christ, we don’t use Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to rework our understanding of glory. Instead, we hammer Jesus into the forms of glory we already know, glory with lots of triumphant music, bright lights, and touchdown dances.
We think of power as the ability to beat up people we don’t like. We think of power as the wealth to buy and sell anything or anyone we want. We think of power as standing above other people, telling them what to do.
When we think of the power of Christ, we do not use Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to rework our understanding of power. Instead, we hammer Jesus into the form of power we already have, with lots of “do what I say” and yelling and explosions and judgment.
If you’re shaking your head right now (physically or mentally), thinking that you are not like those heartless dictators or shallow attention-seekers, then you’re lying to yourself. We’re all that way, at least some of the time. We are all James and we are all John. At least sometimes, we all want to be at least second-in-command to God, occasionally filling in when the All-Powerful takes the day off.
James and John, and, to be fair, the rest of the disciples, saw power the way they’d been raised to see it: Caesar had power. Herod had power. Pilate had power.
And soon, they thought, Jesus would have power. They wanted power too. No harm in asking, right?
But Jesus tells them that they’re completely wrong. Power and glory do not come from getting people to serve you, but getting yourself to serve other people. If you want power and glory, do not look to Caesar or the president or the Super Bowl, Jesus says. To find power and glory, don’t look to strength, don’t look to wealth, don’t look to beauty or fame or confidence or knowledge or degrees or “leadership positions” or big money or even status in the church.
To find glory and power, look to love. The power of love. Like in the 80’s song by Huey Lewis and the News.
“The power of love,” Huey says, “is a curious thing.”
Any Love Is Good Love
Now, before we talk too much about love, let me say that I’m not going to divide love into sections or categories. Those of you who’ve spent a lot of time in Sunday school have probably heard that the Greeks divided love into different kinds with Greek names, a hierarchy of sorts with some love being better, or at least holier, than others.
Well, for this sermon, I’m going with Bachman Turner Overdrive: “any love is good love.”
- The love we have for God, the love we have for our parents or children, the love we have for our friends, and the love we have for that pretty girl or handsome guy are all good love, and they all have power.
- Love that makes you sing “Amazing Grace” and love that makes you sing “You’ve Got A Friend,” and love that makes you sing “Shut Up and Dance with Me” are all good love, and they all have power.
- Unconditional love and kind-of-conditional love are both good love, and they both have power.
- Love in 1 Corinthians and love in the Song of Solomon are both good love, and they both have power.
Love’s power isn’t found by trying to figure out if this love is better than that one.
While some things that masquerade as love are destructive, let’s also recognize that love which draws us together, lifts us up, and makes us whole has many forms, just as life has many forms.
Let’s not judge love, because frankly, none of us does “love” particularly well. We do horrible things to people and convince ourselves that it was OK because we acted “out of love.” We use the fact that sometimes loving means not being kind, and we convince ourselves that whenever we act cruelly, we’re just using “tough love.” We jealously isolate our lovers or spouses, convinced that our psychological mistreatment is only because we love them.
Doing horrible things and calling it “love” is terrible, but the power of love doesn’t rely on how well we do it. The power of love (even the power of our love) doesn’t depend on us at all. The power of love depends on God, the author of love.
Yeah. The power of love is a curious thing.
Make-a One Man Weep
Love doesn’t act in the way we’ve been carefully taught to believe power acts. For one thing, it doesn’t always bring happiness, or even a good feeling. In fact, love can bring sadness or joy. Love is sometimes found not in victory, but in defeat and loss. Love transforms us, but doesn’t always make us “more successful” as the world sees it.
As Huey Lewis says, love “make a one man weep, make another man sing” and can change a hawk to a little white dove.
It can make a bad one good, make a wrong one right.
It’s more than a feeling. That's the power of love.
Love is a power that’s present in wins and losses. Love is a power that doesn’t try to paint over life’s agonies and frustrations with little smiley faces.
James Cocker was right: “love lifts us up where we belong,” but it pulls us out of a well; it doesn’t place us on a pedestal.
The Maginot Line
Ah, but maybe you doubt me . Maybe you believe that this (sarcastic, with air quotes) “love” thing is for chumps, losers who can’t find success any other way.
I mean, love isn’t the only way to bind people together. People can be bound together with policies and rules and punishments and hierarchies and oligarchies and monarchies. And there can be comfort in laws that seem unchangeable, powers that seem absolute, people who seem permanently heroic, or permanently demonic. So, when, like in the Huey Lewis song, they say that all in love is fair, well, maybe you don't care.
But, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8, these rulers, these powers, these heights, these things present, these things to come, none of them can separate us from the love of God, and that love is more powerful than any of them. Paul calls us “more than conquerors,” not because we are above conquerors, stronger and fiercer and more conqueror-like than honest-to-God conquerors, but because being in love is better than conquering.
Being able to yell “you’re fired” is nice, I guess. Having someone tell you that you saved their life is better, I think. Laughing in triumph over your enemies is OK, and maybe you should do that if you can’t find a way to laugh until your cheeks hurt with people you love.
This is not about warm, squishy feelings. This is about changing the world.
You can more effectively change the world with the power of love than with the power of the fist. Really.
Let me tell you a story. A true story.
A hundred years ago, after the First World War, the French decided that they would never ever let Germany invade their country again.
(pause) I know, you’re way ahead of me.
Anyway, after World War I, the French (led by War Minister Andre Maginot) built an enormous, expensive wall of sorts along their border with Germany. It was called the Maginot Line. There were miles and miles of barbed wire, tank traps, landmines, and gun placements. It could withstand aerial attacks and tank fire. It even had air conditioning for the troops. The French threw a ton of money into building and maintaining the Maginot Line, and, from all I heard, it was quite impressive. Nobody was going to get through the Maginot Line. Nobody.
In fact, no one ever did get through the Maginot Line.
During World War II, the Nazi Germans under Adolph Hitler didn’t go through the Maginot Line. They went around it, through Belgium. Paris fell in about six weeks.
The kind of power we’ve been programmed to believe in, the power of the bomb and the billionaire, won’t change and save the world. The world is armored against that power with a Maginot Line of corruption and pride and egotism and idolatry and more.
The kind of power that will change and save the world is the power of God’s love, and how we reflect that love to each other. Love doesn’t bust through the Maginot Line. It ignores it. As the (air quotes) “powerful” in this world wait in fear to be conquered by the next (air quotes) “power”, love walks around and changes the world behind them.
Love is powerful. As Huey Lewis said, love is tougher than diamonds. Love is rich like cream. Love is stronger and harder than your wildest dream.
Love’s power draws us together, joins us in communion, brings us home. When we try to stand above others, when we try to shove them away so that we can be strong and in command and powerful, well, the power of love ... keeps us home at night.
One Thousand One
As Huey Lewis says,
It don't take money and it don't take fame
Don't need no credit card to ride this train
Tougher than diamonds and stronger than steel
You won't feel nothin' till you feel … the power of love
A couple of weeks ago, I represented the presbytery at the conference for something called 1001 New Worshipping Communities. It was truly wonderful. I wish I could have brought all of you with me.
I know, you probably don’t know what 1001 New Worshipping Communities is. Or maybe you only have a bit of a vague idea of what that is. It’s OK. I really didn’t know what it was until I’d been at the conference a while.
It’s not a program or a set of steps or whatever.
It’s a movement or initiative with people who are creative and innovative and faithful and courageous and, well, loving.
And they are tired and vulnerable and open. They’ve been beaten and broken and belittled.
And they are loved, and they know it, and they act like it.
Everyone there put the people they were ministering to, and the people they were ministering with, above everything else. No one talked about committee structures or hierarchies of authority or anything like that. You usually couldn’t tell the church leaders from the church workers. Even when we talked about stewardship and fundraising, we talked about building relationships. For everyone, and I mean everyone, what was important was the people they were serving, and the people they were serving with. Everything else was designed to get out of the way, to be nearly invisible.
In other words, the first priority was love: love of God and love for each other, love for the immigrant and stranger, love for the outcast, love for the pimp and the prostitute, love for the drug addict, love for the people that don’t fit, love for the black women and love for the middle-aged white guys.
It’s not about wealth or fame or strength. You don’t need any of that.
K + 10
A decade ago next Saturday, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. It was all that the power of the fist could be. It killed more than 1,800 people in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and Kentucky. It forced the evacuation of 8000 people on the island of Cuba. It caused $108 billion (with a “b”) in property damage. It wiped out the Twin Spans across Lake Pontchartrain, as well as homes and businesses and schools and, … Well, you remember. Left in its wake was a disaster area almost as big as the United Kingdom. It was huge, it was strong, and it was destructive. If you tried to mess with Katrina, you paid a big price. It was powerful.
Yet, when I remember Katrina, I remember much more than the power of its winds and rains and storm surge.
I remember people from all over the country coming to help us, often using their vacation time. I remember people sending so much clothes and school supplies and stuff to the area that people started looking for other places to send it. I remember friends desperately trying to find out if we were OK, a feat that was much harder pre-facebook.
I remember the heartbreak and the generosity. I remember the question everyone said and heard for years after: “How’d you make out?”
I remember love, and gratitude, and God’s love, and God’s power.
And the thing is, while Katrina’s power fizzled out, God’s power just got stronger.
Right and Left
But, as I said at the top of this sermon, don’t judge James and John. When they ask to sit at Jesus’s right and left when he comes into his glory, they don’t understand that power isn’t riding triumphant into Jerusalem or Rome or New York City as King of the World. Power isn’t pounding your enemies into dust or silencing voices who disagree with or disrespect you. James and John don’t understand that power is in service, in emptying yourself and finding yourself full. They don’t understand that power, real power, is in love.
They don’t see the good news that God’s love and the love we reflect is for everyone, including the weak, the lost, the lonely, the poor, even the criminals. The power in God’s love is most clear in weakness. The power in God’s love is most clear in death, because the power in God’s love lifts up the weak, strengthens the downhearted, feeds the poor, heals the sick, raises the mourning and homeless and devastated into God’s presence. God’s love lifts the lowest.
James and John wouldn’t be on Christ’s right and left when he came into his glory. In fact, when the moment of Christ’s greatest glory came, the moment when his greatest power was made evident, they were nowhere to be found.
Mark 15:25-27
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, “The King of the Jews.” And with him they crucified two bandits,
one on his right
and one on his left.
Do not be fooled by the “power” of the crucifier. Instead, embrace the power of the crucified.
Love each other, for the love of God.
Amen.
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