Image via WikipediaWhile we pray for our nation on this Fourth of July holiday, we also recognize that Girdwood is in the midst of our own secular holiday, Forest Fair. I know many of you have walked in the parade. I know many of you have enjoyed Melissa Mitchell and the Photonz. I know many of you have enjoyed the Indian food, and the corn on the cob, and the funnel cakes and the treats made by children. I know many of you have purchased your Christmas presents or your winter hats for next year or new artwork or a duct tape wallet or juice pouch bag. And if you haven’t done any of that, I hope you’ve had a good weekend anyway.
Forest Fair is an interesting time. When folks Outside ask about it, I say “It’s the time when all the hippies come out to play.” It’s a time when the counter culture is celebrated. It’s a time when we get thrown back into the 1960s…in dress, in music, and the vibe. And it is made possible through the work of many hands. It is a community event. It is put on by the community and it celebrates community.
And so, for the last seven or so years, Girdwood Chapel has joined into the celebration, allowing the 1960s to serve as a unifying illustration for us for worship…on just this one Sunday. I lived in the 1960s…but only for the last seven months of them. My mother held me on her knee to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in July of 1969. But, for those who lived through the 60s, you know that, regardless of how you view them, they were a formative time – the civil rights movement, the assassinations of JFK, and Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War, woman’s liberation, the sexual revolution, great advances in technology and the spread of television, Woodstock, unrest at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. Some great stuff happened. Some important stuff happened.
So, we’ve taken this one Sunday to see what it is, religiously, we can learn from this period. Last Summer, we talked of “The Summer of Love” and talked of how we show God’s love to the world. Previously we’ve focused on Woodstock and then the change in television shows. “Archie Bunker” of the Seventies isn’t possible without the realism that came to television in the Sixties. And we’ve talked about the rise of volunteerism, with the start of the Peace Corps, and the rise of activism – both political and social.
Today I want to talk about something that began before our Tie-Dye. It’s before Martin Luther King, Jr. marched on Washington. But it’s just about three months after John F. Kennedy was assassinated in late November of 1963. Shortly after the president has been killed, his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy had described her husband’s presidency (1960-1963) as an American Camelot, a period of hope and optimism in U. S. history. And, for many American’s that hope and optimism has been shattered. People, particularly young people I would think, were hungry to latch on to something.
In 1964 it happened. Beattlemania hit the US. Now a lot of this is horribly oversimplified, but after much success in England with hits like “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me.” With their increased press, more and more persons became enamored with their cheeky attitudes, their ability to play the media game, their adoring female fans, and how they adapted a lot of the early American Rock and Roll of the Fifties into their own sound.
Here’s how Wikipedia describes it:
When The Beatles left the United Kingdom on 7 February 1964, an estimated four thousand fans gathered at Heathrow, waving and screaming as the aircraft took off. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had sold 2.6 million copies in the US over the previous two weeks, but the group were still nervous about how they would be received. At New York's John F. Kennedy Airport they were greeted by another vociferous crowd, estimated at about three thousand people. They gave their first live US television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by approximately 74 million viewers—over 40 percent of the American population.
(It's on the internet. It must be true.)
And here’s what it looked like to those 74 million people who tuned in: (Show Video)
Well, John Lennon would wright some five years later, in the midst of the tumultuous Sixties:
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know.
We all want to change the world.
But really, what started that night on the Ed Sullivan show was the first shot of a revolution we’re still feeling today. Within a couple of months, the Beatles had three albums that had reached #1 or #2 on the Billboard Charts and the burgeoning youth culture had a new style of haircut. Other British bands made their way to the US…The Animals, The Kinks, The Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones, The Moody Blues, Herman’s Hermits. The US answer to The Beatles, by the way, was The Monkees – a made-for TV adaptation of The Beatles’ sound.
I truly am really not a Beatles fan. But I’m amazed at how their music evolved over time and the lasting effect on the music industry. It was the rise of bands. It was the rise of programmatic radio play with “pop music” stations. If anyone remembers when MTV had videos on it, the Beatles really started the music video as a genre. Their music, as popular as it was, was a sign of rebellion…I think making Woodstock possible five years later.
Many musical artist today will note how they’ve been influenced by “The White Album” or “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” or even the folk-influenced “Rubber Soul.” I talked with someone at the Forest Fair who was sharing that he’s getting to take his whole family to see Sir Paul McCartney perform in San Francisco in a couple of weeks. In our world today we even have a Beatles Rock Band kit so children can play along with, not only their parents, but their grandparents.
This Beatlemania was truly infectious. It hit an opportunistic part of American Culture. It was catchy. It had a message that appealed to youth. And it spread. People couldn’t help being drawn to it.
If the British tried to force their will on the United States back in the 1770’s leading to the American Revolution, this British Revolution of the 1960’s was warmly and enthusiastically embraced and accepted…whether or not you can sing along with any Beatles song. Their influences are still being felt to this day.
That, believe it or not, takes us to today’s Scripture passages. You see, in our Scriptures we hear that we have a message to bring to the persons of the world. We are to be evangelists.
In Luke 19 we hear that Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree to see what he could see. And Jesus comes to him and then goes to eat at his house. The point of this exchange is to show us that Jesus came to save the lost – pretty much the same message, more or less, that we heard from the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son we heard about a couple weeks ago.
In John 20:19-21, this is what we hear, using Peterson’s Translation:
Later on that day, the disciples had gathered together, but, fearful of the Jews, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, "Peace to you." Then he showed them his hands and side.
The disciples, seeing the Master with their own eyes, were exuberant. Jesus repeated his greeting: "Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you."
Get that…we are sent to the world as well.
But, we’ve had some trouble with both of these concepts…going to the lost, and actually being sent out at all. If you look at most of our churches, we are often filled with persons just like us—same color, same class, same interests—and that’s the way we like it. And it’s not at all how Jesus described the work we need to be about. And, if you look at our churches, many of us have lost the sense of being “sent” in the name of Jesus. We build our churches, put pretty signs on them, make the seats as comfortable as possible, and tone down the message—maybe even preaching about Rock Music from the 1960s—hoping to attract and maintain crowds of persons so that they might come to what we might call “a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.”
And if that doesn’t work, we try to force ourselves on them, or scare them into believing. We can be a little pushy at times. We really can.
But perhaps, we can learn something from Beatlemania, about evangelism. It was contagious. It couldn’t help spreading among persons. Bill Hybels and Mark Mittleberg of Willow Creek Church in the Chicago area wrote, Becoming A Contagious Christian in the late Nineties. It was a novel approach at the time, essentially arguing that, while we have one message of Jesus, we need to be about the business of sharing that message in succinct, and compelling, and authentic. It’s rooted in and empowered by the Holy Spirit and we affirm the truth of Scripture, but our faith needs to be shared in the contexts in which we find ourselves. And that’s probably not best done through tracts or knocking on doors but through our real relationships. We strive to live our lives of faith in such a way that others are swept up in our faith as well…that we are contagious.
We want to cause a revolution and to have persons rise up in faith with us.
Shane Claiborne, who will be here this evening, gets at this in his writing. In an ARTICLE IN ESQUIRE he writes; “The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination.”
In his book, The Irresistible Revolution, which several folk have been reading, he talks of a revolution that dances and laughs—one that has a heart for the poor and an understanding of the heart of God and hands that serve with joyfulness because we have a God who loves us and redeems us. And if we go to this world of ours, sent by our God, as Jesus claims in John, to the least the last and the lost, as Jesus claims in Luke, with this truly saving message of Christ we can start a revolution that is truly irresistible. That is how evangelism takes place.
While writing this sermon I listened to pretty much all of my Beatles’ collection on my computer—which is not as big as one might think. I searched websites for quotes by the Beatles, I searched YouTube to find the original Ed Sullivan clip, hearing from a handful of folks who still remember being among the 74 million people who watched it live, I took a look at all the bands who say they’ve been influenced by the Beatles, and it’s amazing, the ripple effect of their music.
I don’t expect teenage girls to swoon over us or record labels to call or to play shows at stadiums filled to capacity, but what would it take for us to share the love of Christ in such a way that persons were drawn into that message in an irresistible, contagious way so that we would change the world as well.
That’s right. I’m talkin’ ‘bout a revolution.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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