“Music makes pictures and often tells stories. All of it magic and all of it true. And all of the pictures and all of the stories, all of the magic, the music is you.” A few of you may recall this lyric from John Denver. Music, both the sounds and lyrics, paints pictures for us.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s, folk music easily painted pictures for me. It was mostly John Denver & Gordon Lightfoot, with some Simon & Garfunkel and Peter, Paul, & Mary.
While I don’t think any of the twelve disciples played the guitar, some of the lyrics below could easily have been their traveling songs. Sing along and imagine you are one of the disciples on this musical journey following Jesus.
Gordon Lightfoot, Don Quixote, “Through the woodland, through the valley comes a horseman wild and free.” It was a vision of being strong yet meek, wise yet gentle. Standing like a prophet, a shining knight facing the judge, jailer, and wicked ones. “Reaching for his saddlebag, he takes a tarnished cross into his hand.” That was the life early disciples envisioned when they were chosen to follow Jesus.
Following Jesus from town to town, they probably were humming Neil Diamond’s America: “Far … we’ve been traveling far, without a home. But not without a star.” They believed in both the message and the Messiah.
“I listen to the wind, To the wind of my soul. Where I’ll end up, well, I think only God really knows.” Cat Stevens, The Wind. Followers often didn’t understand the message at first. Jesus often responded to their questions with questions. Probably not much different than John Denver’s Take Me to Tomorrow.
“Hey everybody, tell me, how do you feel? Are you satisfied with your life? Do you think it’s real? Tell me how is your head, what are your dreams? Do you have any plans, do you have any schemes? Do you care about, about anybody? I’d like to know, is the answer “no”? Take me to tomorrow. Take me there today.” Do we really care about the somebodies hurting today?
Jesus faced a world silent to what was really happening around them. “And in the naked light, I saw, 10,000 people, maybe more. People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening. People writing songs that voices never share. No one dared disturb the sound of silence. ‘Fools,’ said I, ‘You do not know. Silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you.
Take my arms that I might reach you.’ But my words like silent raindrops fell and echoed in the wells of silence.” Sounds of Silence Simon & Garfunkel.
A montage of John Denver song verses can easily describe Jesus’ response to that silence and also to the silence in each of us. “I wish I could share all the love that’s in my heart. Remove every doubt that keeps us apart, and I wish you could know what it means to be me, then you’d see and agree. Everyone should be free.” “You see, I’d like to share my life with you and show you things I’ve seen places that I’m going to, and places where I have been.” “Follow me where I go, what I do, and who I know, make it part of you to be a part of me.” That call of “follow me” to the disciples is also open for each of us.
It so happens that we, like the early disciples, have been looking for a song, or a bell, or maybe even a hammer to overcome the silence. It so happens that the answer is: “Well, I’ve got a hammer, And I’ve got a bell. And I’ve got a song to sing all over this land.
It’s the hammer of justice. It’s the bell of freedom. It’s a song about love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land. It’s a hammer of justice. It’s a bell of freedom. It’s a song about love between my brothers and my sisters. All over this land. Pete Seeger & Peter, Paul, & Mary.
At communion, when we are asked to share Jesus’ body and blood, we are being asked to partake what is in Jesus’ heart. That we hear the words, that we feel the emotion, and that we live the life designed for us and our neighbors to live. All of our neighbors – both near and far.
Jesus asked his disciples to “Follow me.” Different from John Denver’s, “. . . make it a part of you to be a part of me.” Jesus asks for all of me and you to be a part of him. To accept his body and his blood. And to “. . . take me there – today.”
I hope you were able to sing along with this nostalgic journey to the 60s and 70s and maybe even imagined walking with Jesus along the way.
By Thomas Stoffregen American Lutheran Church
