Posts Tagged ‘Paul McCartney’

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Podcast Episode #30: “Listen to What the Man Said”

September 18, 2018

In this lengthy podcast episode, the first of two on the subject, I tackle the question of the authority of scripture. We hear many authorities in our culture—even within today’s Church—telling us, in so many words, “The Bible can’t be trusted.” As I argue in this episode, you may as well say, “God can’t be trusted,” because it’s clear from Jesus’ own teaching that the Bible is God’s Word.

I want us instead to “listen to what the man said” and regard scripture the same way Jesus himself did. I want this episode, along with the next one, to serve as an antidote to the skepticism about the Bible that is rampant in our culture and is harming our fellow believers—especially Christian young people.

Podcast Text: 2 Timothy 3:16-17

You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

Hi, this is Brent White. It’s Monday, September 17, 2018, and this is episode number 30 in my ongoing series of podcasts. You’re listening right now to a #1 hit song from 1975 called “Listen to What the Man Said” by Wings—written and sung, of course, by Paul McCartney from the album Venus and Mars.

And the reason I wanted to play this song is that I have discerned a troubling trend among my fellow Christians, not least of which my fellow United Methodist clergy: And that is, they often say that when it comes to the Bible, we need to “listen to what the man said”—the “man” in this case being Jesus—and not necessarily pay close attention to what the rest of the Bible says. Especially the Old Testament! They often speak as if the God revealed in the Old Testament isn’t quite the same as the God revealed in “the man,” Jesus. Therefore we can’t quite trust what the Old Testament has to say.

So one of the purposes of this week’s podcast, and next week’s, is to say, “Yes, by all means, let’s listen to what the man said. But we can’t even know who the man is, or make sense of what he said… apart from the whole counsel of God, which includes the Old Testament.”

If you don’t believe me, consider Luke chapter 24. This is Easter Sunday. Two disciples of Jesus were on their way from Jerusalem to their hometown of Emmaus—about a seven-mile journey. The resurrected Jesus appears to them on the road, but, Luke tells us, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” Jesus asks them what they’ve been talking about. They explain to him the shocking events of Good Friday and how, today, on Sunday, they heard the reports from the women who went to the tomb: that it was empty, and that angels appeared to them and said that Jesus had been raised. These two disciples were confused; they didn’t know what to make of any of this.

Jesus said, in verses 25 and 26, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then in verse 27, Luke writes, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he”—that is, Jesus—“interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Did you hear that? “Beginning with Moses and the Prophets”—which is shorthand for the entire Bible—Jesus interpreted “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” So: they were walking on the road for about two-and-a-half hours. Assuming Jesus was with them for most of the way, then he must have spoken to them for a long time about what the entire Old Testament had to say about him. Right? There must be a great deal of information in the Old Testament about who Jesus is, why he came, what he accomplished, what his gospel means!

In spite of this, I have actually had United Methodist pastors tell me, “I don’t like preaching from the Old Testament.” Why? “Because I like preaching Jesus.” Aye-yai-yai… I like preaching Jesus, too. And I like preaching the gospel. And I do so in every sermon I preach—whether my sermon text is from the New Testament—be it the four gospels, or Acts, or the Epistles, or Revelation—or from the Old Testament. Because, as I’ve said before, I find Jesus—and I find his gospel message—on nearly every page of the Old Testament! In fact, I would venture to say that if you don’t find Jesus and his gospel there, you’re probably not reading it right!

But I know, I know… There are challenging passages in the Old Testament. What do you do with the ones that seem… at odds… with Jesus’ example and teaching? For example, the Passover story in Exodus 12… In that story, God himself passes through Egypt and strikes down the firstborn male in every family whose house wasn’t covered by the blood of the lamb. Hold on… The blood of the lamb as protection against God’s judgment and wrath? That sounds familiar… That sounds like what Jesus did… on the cross… Jesus, the very one of whom John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”[1] Read the rest of this entry »

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Devotional Podcast #12: “Did God Give Me the Flu?”

February 6, 2018

Short answer: yes. But listen to (or read the transcript of) this podcast for the long answer.

Devotional Text: Psalm 38:1-3, 8-11

You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.

Hi, this is Brent White. It’s Tuesday, February 6, and this is Devotional Podcast number 12. I’m still homebound with the flu, which you can probably hear in my voice.

You’re listening to a song from 1979 called “Daytime, Nighttime Suffering,” written and sung by Paul McCartney and performed with his band Wings. This is the B-side of his single “Goodnight Tonight.” By the way, if you asked me to compile a list of favorite McCartney songs, including his work with that other famous group he was in, this would be in my Top Five.

Just by chance—or so it seemed—my devotional reading last Friday—when I was in the throes of influenza—included Psalm 38. Let me read verses 1 to 3 and 8 to 11 now:

O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath!
For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.
There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin…
I am feeble and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.

I love that last verse: “My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague.” That’s the truth! The flu feels a lot like a plague, and my cat, Peanut, was my only companion the first couple of days, as I was quarantined to my room. Could there have been a more appropriate scripture to read for when you have the flu?

Well, that depends, you might say. David was attributing his flu-like symptoms to God: God, he said, was punishing him, or disciplining him, because of some particular, unspecified sin or sins. Do I really believe that God would do that today—to me?

To which I say, “Of course I do!” For one thing, God foreknows everything that’s going to happen in the world, including the fact that I would be exposed to the flu virus when George coughed last Monday without covering his mouth. Now, simply being exposed to the virus doesn’t mean I’ll get the flu. Suppose, on that very morning, I prayed that God would keep me healthy through this severe flu season. Then I can assume, when this invading, viral enemy penetrated by immune system and gave me the flu, that God answered my prayer with a resounding “no.” God chose not to keep me safe.

Why did God do that?

After all, Jesus teaches us that prayer changes the world—that our Father is happy to give us what his children pray for—if he can do so in a way that’s consistent with his will. Which means, if he doesn’t give us what we pray for, he must have good reasons—whether we know what they are or not!

I simply can’t comprehend the resistance, especially among my fellow Methodists, to the idea that “everything happens for a reason.” By all means, it’s a cliché, but it’s still true! Read Psalm 139, a powerful psalm about God’s sovereignty, and tell me that everything doesn’t happen for a God-ordained reason! Verses 4-5:

Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.

How can that great promise of Romans 8:28 be true—“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good”—if “all things” doesn’t also include something like the flu? I hate to be a wimp, but the flu is kind of a big deal! How is God using the flu to help me right now? How is he using it for good? So of course he allowed or arranged for me to get the flu for a reason!

In fact, I completely concur with C.S. Lewis, who wrote the following:

I am beginning to find out that what people call the cruel doctrines are really the kindest ones in the long run. I used to think it was a “cruel” doctrine to say that troubles and sorrows were “punishments.” But I find in practice that when you are in trouble, the moment you regard it as a “punishment,” it becomes easier to bear. If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.[1]

That’s exactly right. The Bible teaches repeatedly that God tests us when we suffer. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2-4. “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” Hebrews 12:6-7. There are many similar verses.

When it became clear, Friday morning, that I had the flu, I responded to the bad news in a way that I never have before. Normally, thoughts such as these would cross my mind: “Well, there goes the weekend! There goes my Sunday sermon! There goes my ability to see my son play basketball, or to go running, or to go to that party Saturday night! This is going to put me way behind!” But I didn’t respond that way.

Instead, I said, “Thank you, Father. I know you’ve got some good reasons for giving me this flu. Let it do its good work.” In fact, even just slowing down and being still has been a great blessing.

Over these past few days, for instance, I’ve had some sweet prayer and Bible-reading time. I’ve been reminded of how utterly dependent I am on God for everything I have and am. I’ve been reminded of people in my life who love and care for me. On Sunday morning, I happened to listen to a Keith Green album that I purchased off eBay recently—and God used it to convict me of sin and as a means of worship.

That’s all good! Thank you, Jesus!

So did God give me this flu? Of course he did! Thank God!

1. C.S. Lewis, “Money Trouble” in The C.S. Lewis Bible, NRSV (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 1123.

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Sermon 02-14-16: “Living Water”

February 17, 2016

John Sermon Series Graphic

Biblically speaking, men meet their future wives at wells. It happened for Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. Jesus, of course, was never married, but he’s well aware of the symbolism of his speaking to this Samaritan woman at a well. He knows that throughout the Bible, God is often depicted as husband or bridegroom to his people, Israel, his wife or bride. In the New Testament, Paul and the Book of Revelation also pick up this theme. So on Valentine’s Day 2016, we’re studying a scripture that points to the greatest, most romantic love story ever told: that Jesus, God the Son, left his Father and his home in heaven in order to cleave to his bride—the church, those of us who believe in Christ—and “become one flesh” with us.

Sermon Text: John 4:1-18

[To listen on the go, right-click here to download an MP3.]

I am directionally impaired. In other words, I’m terrible with directions. I always have been. I confess that my sense of direction gotten even worse in this age of GPS. I use Google Maps almost all the time now! But I use it, not just to know how to get from Point A to Point B, but also how to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. Google Maps does a nice job of directing me around traffic.

Even this past week, I was taking my son Ian to his elementary school, which is just a few miles form our house. You just make one left turn out of our neighborhood. This past week, however, there was an accident blocking the entire road 50 yards from my intersection. I had to make that one left turn, but that one left turn was blocked. So how do I get around it, so that I can get to my son’s elementary school?

Beats me, because, remember, I’m directionally impaired. But not to worry! Because I have Google Maps, which tells me how I can get there by making a right-hand turn instead of a left-hand turn. Only problem, of course, is that by making that right-hand turn, and going around the accident, it took an extra ten minutes to get to the school. But… I got there O.K., so that’s all that matters. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sermon 08-02-15: “Love Never Fails”

August 10, 2015

1 Corinthians sermon series graphic

1 Corinthians 13 is among the most beautiful poems about love ever written. It’s also countercultural today, since we often think of love in sentimental terms. Paul, by contrast, emphasizes that love is mostly action, not feeling. This is true not only when it comes to loving our neighbor, but also God. When you compare your own love to this poem, how do you measure up?

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

[To listen on the go, click here to download an MP3.]

The following is my original sermon manuscript. The sermon as delivered may differ slightly.

Do you know what a “mondegreen” is? It’s a word that’s used to refer to song lyrics that are often misheard. So, for example, you know that love song by the Beatles, “Michelle”? Paul sings some of the words in French: “Michelle, my belle”—which means, “my beauty.” Then he says, “sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble, très bien ensemble.” Which means, literally, “Michelle, ’my beauty,’ these are words that are well suited for one another.” Or, as he says in order to make it rhyme: “these are words that go together well.”

The problem is that “Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble” was often misheard as as “Some day monkey play piano song, play piano song.” Maybe that’s an extreme example, but we have a far more recent mondegreen: The song is “Blank Space,” on Taylor Swift’s most recent album. And the line is, “All the lonely Starbucks lovers/ They tell me I’m insane.” Or at least that’s what I and many others, including Taylor Swift’s own mother, thought she said. What she really said, however, was, “Got a long list of ex-lovers/ They tell me I’m insane.”

taylor_swiftThere are many other examples, which you can look up online. The point is, we do often mishear song lyrics.

Now… 1 Corinthians 13 isn’t a song, it is very lyrical, very poetic—surely the most famous poem about love in ancient literature, and one of the two or three most well-known passages of scripture alongside Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Prayer. And like a mondegreen, we have a problem hearing it correctly. We often treat 1 Corinthians 13 as if there aren’t twelve chapters preceding it and three chapters following it. My point is, Paul did not say, “Wouldn’t it be great to write a sweet poem about love right here in the middle of this letter. No, he’s writing these beautiful, powerful words about love to address the main problem that the Corinthian church was having: they were failing to love one another! Read the rest of this entry »

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Sermon 05-12-13: “The Word Is Love, Part 5”

May 17, 2013
The Beatles got up and danced to "a song that was a hit before your mother was born" in this memorable scene from Magical Mystery Tour.

The Beatles danced to “a song that was a hit before your mother was born” in this memorable scene from Magical Mystery Tour.

A church that focuses more on “helping” people than on saving people is a church that has lost its focus. I hate to pit these two tasks—service and evangelism—against one another, but isn’t it easy to see how the United Methodist Church is really good at one and not so good at the other?

Want to help people rebuild after a hurricane? Call the Methodists. Want to get rid of malaria? Call the Methodists. Want to fight for justice in the world? Call the Methodists. Want to tell someone how they can be saved? Hmm… Doesn’t Billy Graham still do that? Or the Baptists? Or maybe the community megachurch down the street? Are the Methodist just supposed to outsource that part of the job?

Like Jesus in today’s scripture, this sermon challenges us to stay focused on what’s most important.

 Sermon Text: Mark 7:24-30

The following is my original sermon manuscript.

When I read today’s scripture, my first thought is, “I have a defective dog.” After all, my dog, Neko, refuses to do the very thing that even Jesus—God in the flesh—says that dogs are supposed to do: which is to eat crumbs and scraps that fall from the table—or the couch or the recliner—onto the floor. Jesus knows that’s what dogs are supposed to do; you know it; I know it. It’s like their only job around the house! Cats are responsible for catching mice and bugs and creepy-crawly things that get in the house; dogs are responsible for eating food that falls on the floor. Neko doesn’t eat human food! She never has.

I love my dog, but she is not normal when it comes to eating table scraps!

I love my dog, but she is not normal when it comes to eating table scraps!

We had a normal dog named Presley—an English springer spaniel—when my kids were babies. Presley would park himself underneath the high chair in the morning, waiting for every little Cheerio that would fall to the floor—which would be a couple of handfuls before all was said and done. Spill a bag of Goldfish on the floor? No problem! Presley was on it! But not Neko! Crazy! Read the rest of this entry »

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Is “daytime, nighttime suffering” really all she gets?

May 10, 2013
wings-daytime-nightime-suffering-columbia

The great B-side to the Wings’ hit “Goodnight Tonight.” If you were Paul, wouldn’t you save a song this good for an album?

I’ve done a nice job (if I say so myself) splitting the difference between John’s songs and Paul’s songs in this Beatles-themed sermon series—with the understanding, of course, that the two often collaborated. (Post-breakup, the two argued over “In My Life”: While John said that he wrote both words and music, Paul claimed he wrote the music. At least one musicologist I read detects the styles of both in the vocal melody.)

Even when they didn’t collaborate, however, near-sibling rivalry and pride motivated them to do their best work. Iron sharpens iron. Therefore, in my mind—I have no idea if this is how it happened—John writes his childhood reminiscence, “Strawberry Fields Forever”; Paul hears it and thinks, “I can do better than that!” Then he writes his childhood reminiscence, “Penny Lane.”

This Sunday, however—Mother’s Day—the two featured Beatles songs both represent the work of Paul: “Lady Madonna” and “Your Mother Should Know.” Sorry. John wasn’t much for domesticity back then. His bittersweet “Julia” was written to his deceased mother, but the lyrics are vague. He could be singing about any lost love. John saved his best motherhood song for the devastatingly sad “Mother,” from the Plastic Ono Band album.

But Paul also wrote and recorded his best motherhood song after the Beatles split: “Daytime Nighttime Suffering,” the B-side to his 1979 hit “Goodnight Tonight.” I promise I would have the Vinebranch Band perform this song if it were in keeping with the series theme!

“Daytime Nighttime Suffering” is “Lady Madonna” without a sense of whimsy. Like the Beatles song, McCartney says that motherhood is incredibly difficult—except there is no “music playing in your head” to ease the pain of regret, failure, and distress.

What does it pay to play the leading lady
When, like the damsel in distress,
Daytime, nighttime suffering is all she gets?

Nice reference to “damsels in distress”: McCartney goes on to say that motherhood is “no fairytale anymore.” It’s a strangely pessimistic song, not only for Paul the family-man, but for the exuberant melody and vocal arrangement—surely one of his sunniest and best. Maybe he’s communicating through the music that motherhood isn’t as bad as it seems? There is hope.

What these mothers need, McCartney says, is for people—well, including fathers like himself—to give them all the love and compassion they deserve. The singer asks the “mighty river” of love to flow through him. The river in this case is likely a metaphor for God: pour out your love on these women who suffer for their children. Pour out your love through me—a fitting prayer for any occasion.

This is easily one of my favorite McCartney songs. Wikipedia even tells me it’s one of Paul’s as well. For mothers everywhere, here it is. Enjoy!

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Hendrix never heard of him, but he’s still great

May 8, 2013
Do you think Paul McCartney would have gone in a Christian bookstore to buy Phil's music? Yes, this is Paul McCartney with his vocal twin, Phil Keaggy. I wish I could hear what they were playing!

Yes, this is Paul McCartney with his vocal doppelgänger, Phil Keaggy. I wish I could hear what they were playing!

Christianity Today tells me that singer-songwriter/guitarist extraordinaire Phil Keaggy received the prestigious Golden Note Award from ASCAP. I’ve never heard of it, either. While it’s obviously not a Grammy or anything, it’s nice to see Keaggy getting some recognition. His was the first concert I went to, in the spring of 1984, beating out the Kinks by a few months. He was with a full band, and he rocked hard.

He also served as my introduction to that strange, fascinating early-’80s world of Christian rock, which was being transformed even then into an “industry” called Contemporary Christian Music.

One reason you’ve probably never heard of Keaggy is that the only place you could get his records back then was in Christian bookstores. These were very intimidating places for people outside the tiny sliver of evangelical Christendom to whom these stores marketed themselves. I remember walking by a Christian bookstore in a strip shopping center with my friend Jason, to whom I had raved about the Keaggy concert. “Let’s go in here and see if they have any Keaggy albums.”

Jason took a few steps inside the store—and you would think he was a vampire exposed to the sunlight. He ran outside. “That was too creepy,” he said. I’m sure he was right. These stores often had a strange, unwelcoming, almost cult-like vibe.

Unlike some of my Christian friends from youth group, I never tried to abandon “secular” music. (Ask me now if I even believe in the category!) But I did become a regular customer of these bookstores. And I purchased many great albums by bands and artists like the 77’s, Daniel Amos, Keaggy, Randy Stonehill, and early Resurrection Band. If I could go back in time, I would buy many more—before they went out of print forever.

That’s the problem: the great stuff is often out of print. I did a check on Amazon and iTunes: you can no longer buy or download some essential albums by Keaggy from the ’70s, such as What a Day or Love Broke Thru. (I scored both in a bargain-basement sale at a used record store many years ago.) I guess that’s what eBay is for. And YouTube…

Another essential Keaggy album is Sunday’s Child, 1988’s homage to Rubber Soul-era Beatles and glorious mid-’60s rock, which is still in print, at least for download.

There is an interesting urban legend about Jimi Hendrix’s calling Phil Keaggy “the greatest guitarist ever,” which Snopes covers at length here.

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Sermon 04-28-13: “The Word Is Love, Part 3”

May 2, 2013
paul_and_linda

Paul and Linda McCartney, circa 1970. Paul’s decision to include Linda—not previously a musician—in his new band Wings was deeply unpopular with both fans and music press. On the other hand, the two never spent a night apart (except for the nine days he spent in a Japanese prison in 1980).

We understand that Christ-like love is self-giving and self-sacrificial when it applies to loving our neighbor “out there”—in the mission field. But when we marry, we now have a neighbor who lives under our roof and sleeps beside us. We have a neighbor who manages the household with us, raises kids with us, and makes a life with us.

So now that we’re married to our neighbor, it suddenly matters a great deal how we feel? It matters what we’re getting out of the relationship? Isn’t this a double-standard?

As I discuss in this sermon on love and marriage, happiness in marriage is important, but there is no path to happiness in any part of life that doesn’t lead us up a mountain called Calvary.

Sermon Text: Ephesians 5:21-33

The following is my original sermon manuscript with footnotes.

I’m a fan of the public radio show This American Life with Ira Glass. Each week the show features a theme, and they have a series of real-life stories related to the theme. Last Valentine’s Day their theme was “people going to extremes to find and pursue their one true love.” One of the stories featured a 30-year-old man named Kurt.

Kurt had been with his girlfriend for 13 years—they started dating as high school sweethearts. And they had lived together for their entire adult lives so far. But they never tied the knot. And Kurt started to wonder why. “Maybe the reason I haven’t married this person that I’ve been with for 13 years is that she isn’t ‘the one.’ And since we’ve never dated anyone else, maybe we should take some time off—a month or two—and just play the field. See what else is out there first, and then decide whether or not to get married.” So that’s what this couple did. They took a break from each other. And after several months, they decided to break up once and for all. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sermon 04-14-13: “The Word Is Love, Part 1”

April 17, 2013

rubber_soul

This sermon focuses on a Beatles song called “The Word,” which loudly proclaims that “the word” is love. As I say in the sermon, the Beatles got it mostly right: according to another, more famous John, Jesus Christ is the Word. The Word is God. And God is love. So the word is love—so long as we understand what and, more importantly, who the Word is.

The apostle Paul places the same priority on love in 1 Corinthians 13 that the Beatles do in the song. Without love, Paul says, we’re nothing. As Paul makes clear, however, this kind of love is difficult and costly. Fortunately, we have a Savior who paid that cost on our behalf. 

Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13


[Please note that there is a short glitch in the video at the 18:00-minute mark.]

The following is my original sermon manuscript with footnotes.

When I was 15, I was at a Wednesday night youth Bible study. We had just returned from a youth retreat the previous weekend. Chuck, my very best friend in youth group, had a powerful conversion experience on the retreat. He publicly recommitted his life to following Jesus. Like me, Chuck loved the Beatles, but unlike me he also loved heavy metal and hair metal. In the wake of his retreat experience, he wanted to offer a testimony at the Wednesday night meeting about what the Lord had done for him. So he did: He described how his life had gotten off course, in part, he said, because of his obsessive interest in rock and roll. So he resolved to change. And he was ready to prove it. He pulled out his stack of records. One by one, he smashed them over his knee and threw them in the trash. Now, this didn’t bother me much when he was pulling out records by Motley Crüe, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, and Ozzy Osbourne. But when he pulled out a pristine vinyl copy of the Beatles’ Abbey Road—one of the greatest albums ever—I was like, “No! Give it to me!” But he broke it and threw it in the trash.

abbey_road

Even as a young, impressionable Christian teenager, who read the Bible and prayed nearly every day and was very involved in church, I just couldn’t go along with Chuck on this. I knew, by their own admission, that the Beatles weren’t Christians; I knew they used drugs; I knew John Lennon once got into trouble saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. But four years earlier, when I bought a prerecorded cassette of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the wake of John Lennon’s murder, I fell in love with the band. They helped instill within me a lifelong passion for music. I knew that their music was good—and good music, like all good things, is a gift from God. Besides, I also knew that their songs often spoke to deep, spiritual longings. In fact, I would argue—as I will argue in this sermon series—that at times their songs pointed in the direction of the God revealed by Jesus Christ—even if they didn’t intend them to.

This prerecorded cassette had a profound impact on my young life.

This prerecorded cassette had a profound impact on my young life.

Theologically, I now know that isn’t an accident—I know that the Holy Spirit is very resourceful; and he can even work through things like Beatles music to reveal Jesus Christ to the world.

Earlier, the Vinebranch Band did a Beatles song called “The Word,” which comes from their 1965 album Rubber Soul. It was the first Beatles love song that wasn’t about a boy-meets-girl or boy-loses-girl kind of love. It wasn’t about romantic love at all. It was about a love that was deeper, more profound, more universal. Paul co-wrote the song with John. Paul gave an interview around that time in which he said: “[‘The Word’] could be a Salvation Army song. The word is ‘love,’ but it could be ‘Jesus.’ It isn’t, mind you, but it could be.”[1] The word could be Jesus. Of the four Beatles, Paul, a nominal Catholic, had the least amount of exposure to church and the Bible. But I wonder if he could appreciate just how close he was to the truth.

After all, the song echoes the writing of another, even more famous, John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”[2] This same John identifies the Word as Jesus, who is God. Elsewhere he even says that “God is love.”[3] So, according to the Bible, Jesus Christ is the Word. The Word is God. And God is love. So John and Paul got it right: the word is love—so long as we understand what and, more importantly, who the Word is. Read the rest of this entry »

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“The Word Is Love”: New Beatles-related sermon series

April 3, 2013

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I’ve been preparing to preach this sermon series—unconsciously at least—since I was 10 years old. I grew up in the ’70s with two older sisters who listened constantly to Top 40 radio. And the airwaves were inundated with one ex-Beatle in particular, Paul McCartney, and his underrated ’70s band, Wings. In fact, the first 45 RPM record I bought for myself was “Coming Up,” a number one song in the summer of 1980. (The B-side, the Wings’ live version from Glasgow, was actually the hit in America.)

Months later, around Thanksgiving of that same year, I was listening to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 on Atlanta’s late great Z-93. He introduced a Top Ten song called “(Just Like) Starting Over” by John Lennon. I remember thinking at the time, “Wasn’t Lennon in the band that McCartney was in before Wings?”

This prerecorded cassette had a profound impact on my young life.

This prerecorded cassette had a profound impact on my young life.

Don’t laugh: I was only 10. As hard as it is to imagine now, McCartney had worked for ten years to get out from under the shadow of his former band—with great success. There were Wings fans who weren’t also Beatles fans.

Anyway, Kasem played “(Just Like) Starting Over,” and I thought it might be the greatest song I’d ever heard. Only a couple of weeks later, of course, Lennon was murdered. Perhaps it was morbid curiosity, but I pored over pages worth of articles about Lennon and the Beatles in that evening’s Atlanta Journal. I saved the front section of that paper for a couple of years, referring to it often. I watched hours of news coverage and TV specials in the aftermath of his death. Finally, I purchased a prerecorded cassette of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band in January 1981, and I was hooked. Their music has been an important part of my life and imagination ever since.

As much as I love the Beatles, however, I’m hardly a theologically undiscerning listener—of them or any other band or artist. After all, neither John, Paul, George, nor Ringo were professing Christians; few of their songs touch on explicitly religious themes; and some ideas in their songs run counter to the Christian faith. There’s no danger, then, that I’ll preach the Beatles. I’ll preach the Bible, as always, and connect themes and ideas that emerge in their songs to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I do believe, however, that their songs often affirm the gospel truth, unconsciously or not. And in this series, I’ll gladly point to some ways in which they do.

Each week, the Vinebranch Band will perform a couple of songs by the Beatles that relate to that day’s sermon. For example, on April 14, the first week of the series, the band will perform “The Word” (from Rubber Soul) and “I Will” (from the White Album). My sermon text will be 1 Corinthians 13.

As the song says, “A splendid time is guaranteed for all.”

What Beatles songs do you think would be worthy of theological reflection? Feel free to let me know.

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