U2 and Martin Luther King

"Pride (In the Name of Love)" is the second song on U2's 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire, and was released as the album's first single. Written about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is one of the band's most recognized songs. In this YouTube video, the song is accompanied by an artist sketching MLK in black ink.



The Lyrics are as follows:

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go.
One man come he to justify
One man to overthrow.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed up on an empty beach
One man betrayed with a kiss.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
Early morning, April four
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky.
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.
In the name of love
What more in the name of love.

U2's Bono to be Knighted!

HT: Codex, "Sir Bono?!"

The BBC is reporting an announcement by the British Embasy in Dublin that the Queen will be knighting Bono in Dublin early in the new year.

The act will honor "his services to the music industry" and "his humanitarian work." An official letter to U2 from Tony Blair reads, "You have tirelessly used your voice to speak up for Africa."

Just for fun, here is a fantastic ad for a U2 Eucharist in Auckland, New Zealand:

GRACE

The amazing song "Grace" by U2 is now explicated in a fantastic way by Benjamin Myers on his "Faith and Theology" blog (click here).

Here are some brief excerpts from Ben's commentary:

...Many preachers, perhaps even many theologians, do not understand the grace of God half as well as this song does.

...The song’s personification of grace is superb; but the music is just as important, especially that simple, carefree guitar riff on which the whole song rests. Even before Bono starts to sing, this riff itself already conveys everything the song wants to say about grace. The riff is as smooth as a woman’s hips, as soft and easy as her footsteps on the street.



Here are the lyrics:

Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name

Grace, it's the name for a girl
It's also a thought that changed the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work
You can hear her strings
Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

What is a U2charist?

This excerpt from ABC news NightLine was posted on YouTube earlier this month. It presents a quick summary of what a U2carist is all about. Speaking for myself, I think we should have one here at VTS. Comments?

Off The Record Interview: Bono and the Edge

I finally got to see the recent HBO hour-long interview with Bono and the Edge. Has anyone else viewed it? I'd be very interested in comments and reflections. (It's now available 24/7 on HBO-on-demand.)


One of the most interesting parts for me was having Bono and the Edge describe the genesis of "Bullet the Blue Sky" (see video below). Bono described the trip that he and his young wife took to El Salvador at the time (the Reagan era), which inspired the song. The Edge described the genesis of the eerie, disturbing music that makes the song so haunting.

Seeing the violence, pain, and death in El Salvador, clearly traceable to US involvement, Bono needed a song to critique the very self-serving American politics and religion of the time. Bono recalled the bullets whizzing over the heads of himself and his wife. It was the first time he had actually been shot at. The guide said that the bullets were probably just to let them know they had been noticed. "How will we know that?" Bono asked. "When we get out of this alive," the guide replied.

Why did the US not seem to care about the destruction of so many lives in central America? [In the face of what we were doing, how could our mantra be simply, America is back, America is back? Jeremiah 7:4 quickly comes to mind.] In the interview, Bono admits that Ronald Reagan himself inspired the image of the red-faced man in the song.

Edge describes trying to work out some guitar music with Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., and being annoyed at first that their music was not in sync with where he thought he was going. What Clayton was doing as the bassist wasn't even in tune with the Edge. Then, Bono came out of the control room all excited. "You've got to listen to how this all sounds as it comes together," he shouted.

Here is one live performance of "Bullet the Blue Sky" via UTube:





Here are the Lyrics:

In the howlin' wind / Comes a stingin' rain
See it drivin' nails / Into the souls on the tree of pain.
From the firefly / A red orange glow
See the face of fear / Runnin' scared in the valley below.

Bullet the blue sky / Bullet the blue sky
Bullet the blue / Bullet the blue.

In the locust wind / Comes a rattle and hum.
Jacob wrestled the angel / And the angel was overcome.
You plant a demon seed / You raise a flower of fire.
We see them burnin' crosses
See the flames, higher and higher.

Woh, woh, bullet the blue sky
Bullet the blue sky / Bullet the blue
Bullet the blue.

Suit and tie comes up to me
His face red like a rose on a thorn bush
Like all the colours of a royal flush
And he's peelin' off those dollar bills
(Slappin' 'em down)
One hundred, two hundred.
And I can see those fighter planes
And I can see those fighter planes
Across the tin huts as children sleep
Through the alleys of a quiet city street.
Up the staircase to the first floor
We turn the key and slowly unlock the door
As a man breathes into his saxophone
And through the walls you hear the city groan.
Outside, is America / Outside, is America
America.

See across the field
See the sky ripped open
See the rain comin' through the gapin' wound
Howlin' the women and children
Who run into the arms
Of America.

U2, The Wanderer (Theological Reflections)

The Wanderer
I went out walking
through the streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul
I went out walking
under an atomic sky
Where the ground won't turn
And the rain it burns
Like the tears when I said goodbye

Yeah I went with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you
I went wandering

I went drifting
through the capitals of tin
Where men can't walk
Or freely talk
And sons turn their fathers in
I stopped outside a church house
Where the citizens like to sit
They say they want the kingdom
But they don't want God in it

I went out riding
Down that ol' eight lane
I passed by a thousand signs
Looking for my own name

I went with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you

I went out there
In search of experience
To taste and to touch
And to feel as much
As a man can
Before he repents

I went out searching,
lookin' for one good man
A spirit who would not bend or break
Who would sit at his father's right hand
I went out walking
with a bible and a gun
The word of God lay heavy on my heart
I was sure I was the one
Now Jesus, don't you wait up
Jesus, I'll be home soon
Yeah I went out for the papers
Told her I'd be back by noon

Yeah I left with nothing
But the thought you'd be there too
Looking for you...

Yeah I left with nothing
Nothing but the thought of you...
I went wandering

I've enjoyed and learned a great deal from Robert Vagacs' new book, U2 in Theological Perspective (Vagacs). However, I'm not sure he does justice to this particular song, "The Wanderer." I'd like to offer some brief alternative readings of my own and also ask for readers' comments as to the meaning of the Wanderer for them.

Vagacs is surely on solid ground when he argues that the protagonist of the poem is wandering through "Zooropa," the modern world in cultural winter. As he says, the figure is on a "journey into the emptiness of Babylon" (p. 52), the world bereft of God, a "dystopia."

But Vagacs does not mention the similar journey taken by Qohelet, the writer of Ecclesiastes. Qohelet was on a God-project, a meaning-quest, whereas Vagacs argues the Wanderer does not actively search for spiritual meaning but "moves about aimlessly" (p. 52). Thus, Vagacs gives a pessimistic and negative reading of the figure's wandering rather than understanding him as one like Qohelet, involved in a project to lay out the ground-work for a faith-solution to finding meaning in life.

The relationship of the Wanderer with Ecclesiastes is fairly clear. According to Bono, that relationship is what made him think of Johnny Cash to sing the lead on the song: “Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books,” says Bono. “It’s a book about a character who wants to find out why he’s alive, why he was created. He tries knowledge. He tries wealth. He tries experience. He tries everything. You hurry to the end of the book to find out why... There’s something of Johnny Cash in that.” One popular translation of Qohelet is "the preacher," and the Wanderer is about a preacher like Cash. Bono says, "Johnny Cash always left the line about cutting and running out. I always liked that. You know--bottle of milk, newspapers and he's off. He's got God's work to do. He's on tour."

In n. 30 on p. 53, Vagacs explicitly calls Bono's own understanding of the Wanderer overly "optimistic." He disagrees with Bono that "The song is definitely the antidote to the Zooropa manifesto of uncertainty." He does not see how Bono can say that "this track gives one possible solution." Interestingly, the faithful have often voiced just such doubts about the book of Ecclesiastes itself! Speaking of Ecclesiastes, H. Wheeler Robinson wrote, "The book has indeed the smell of the tomb about it." Fortunately, recent scholarship is often much more appreciative of Qohelet's theology.

The Wanderer is not aimless or prodigal, he's conducting wisdom-experiments, he's "looking for you." As Vagacs writes, "you" here is probably imagination---imagining God and the world interconnected, imagining transcendent meaning to life. The Wanderer goes out confident that "you'd be there too." The world, Zooropa, is bereft of God, but the Wanderer certainly is not. Certainly, he is on a "pre-repentance" experiment, but he promises Jesus "I'll be home soon."

Isn't the faithful thing to come home right now? No. Consider Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison. There and then, it was not his time or season to be "home." From the Nazi Tegel prison in 1943 Bonhoeffer wrote, "When the time comes (but not before!) we may go to him with love, trust, and joy." "Sooner or later there will be times when [one] can say in all sincerity, 'I wish I were home.' But everything has its time, and the main thing is that we keep step with God, and do not keep pressing on a few steps ahead--nor keep dawdling a step behind. It's presumptuous to want to have everything at once."

Vagacs complains that the Wanderer is "powerless to break out of Zooropa" (p. 53), yet should this be his goal? Ecclesiastes 2:24 reads, "There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil." In a post a few days ago, we looked at the metaphor of "eat and drink" as an expression of contentment in where God has placed us for the time being.

Martin Luther emphasized this as a key theological insight of Qoheleth: "Don't let the present moment, our moment, slip away," wrote Luther. No matter how strongly we might want to jump to the wonderful things God has in store for us in the future, we must not do it. "Do not desert the battlefield but stick it out."

Thank You for the Referral!

Rev. Beth Maynard, one of the two authors of Get Up Off Your Knees, has been kind enough to cite this blog on her own blog, U2 Sermons.
Thanks very much, Beth!

Readers should check out Beth's book, if you don't already know of it. We have used it in my Friday morning advisee sessions here at the seminary:

U2: Beautiful Day (theological reflections)

Discussion of David's branch / sprout over the last few days reminds me of the mention of the power of the sprouting shoot mentioned near the start of U2's hit, Beautiful Day. Here is a video, lyrics, and some theological reflections (interconnected with next Sunday's reading of Jeremiah 33). Comments welcome, of course.



Beautiful Day
The heart is a bloom, shoots up through stony ground
But there's no room, no space to rent in this town
You're out of luck and the reason that you had to care,
The traffic is stuck and you're not moving anywhere.
You thought you’d found a friend
to take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand in return for grace

It's a beautiful day, the sky falls
And you feel like it's a beautiful day
It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away

You’re on the road but you’ve got no destination
You’re in the mud, in the maze of her imagination
You love this town Even if it doesn’t ring true
You’ve been all over and it’s been all over you

It's a beautiful day Don’t let it get away
It's a beautiful day Don’t let it get away

Touch me, take me to that other place
Teach me, I know I’m not a hopeless case

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colours came out

It was a beautiful day A beautiful day
Don’t let it get away

Touch me, take me to that other place
Reach me, I know Iím not a hopeless case
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
What you don’t know you can feel it somehow
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
You don’t need it now, you don’t need it now
Beautiful day

As in Jeremiah 33, which we've been discussing, this song of hope and promise is set amid sorrow and shadow. For a lot of people in this Advent world of bullying and hoarding, there is "no space to rent," "no room," no more "luck."

Yet, it truly is a beautiful day. The world is far from totally dark. From Heaven, you can see green and blue, and canyons in all their beauty. The problems are there, such as tuna fleets clearing the sea out, but the world is full of ambiguity and promise.

Noah's bird bears "a leaf in her mouth" symbolizing hope after the flood. Jeremiah 33 similarly points to this hope after Jerusalem's world came crashing down in 586 BCE.

In the midst of the darkness and ambiguity we face in the here and now, we've got to keep focused and oriented on how "after the flood all the colors came out; It was a beautiful day." A shoot is pushing up through the stony ground. It is Advent, and God's messiah is on the move to usher in "that other place," viz. that righteousness within community spoken of by Jeremiah 33.

In the new Jerusalem (Jer 33:16), bullying and hoarding will vanish. People will realize that King Josiah had it right in Jer 22:15. He got along just fine, had plenty to eat and drink (NLT), and was blessed besides, because he didn't orient his life around an abundance of possessions. What he did not have, he did not need, just as U2 sings.

Bono and the Edge: Off the Record

Update: I did blog on this show (click here).

This HBO special is on a bit too late tonight for me, so I'll wait until Dec 5th to watch it in HD at a more reasonable hour.



Here is the complete HBO viewing schedule:



At SBL I bought Robert Vagacs new book on U2 in Theological Perspective. I'm currently reading the book, and I'm sure I'll be blogging on it in the not-to-distant future.

U2: "Where the Streets Have No Name"

Our Saturday video of the week is by the rock band U2, something of a favorite among seminary professors:



For the lyrics to "Where the Streets Have No Name," click here. I'll make a few reflections, and then welcome any others who wish to do so to contribute in the comments. The place with "streets with no name" is a multi-layered symbol. It is a place most highly desired (the ideal Jerusalem) but also a place where currently "the city's aflood and our love turns to rust." On the one hand, the "flame" there pulls and draws us in. On the other hand, the city is an Ethiopian refugee camp with crisscrossing makeshft roads or it is Belfast, where street upon street is tainted with bloodsheed. (These are two "cities" Bono must clearly have in mind, given his personal experience.) In the Jerusalem of the future, the streets are paved with gold and bear no names because no divisions of wealth, pride, and fear separate and alienate its inhabitants. People there will be willing to "reach out" to each other in vulnerability and mutuality. "When I go there, I go there with you," because friendship and community are what the new Jerusalem are all about. The "flame" there grows stronger and hotter as its inhabitants reach out and embrace and lose themselves in each other's unconditional love (Song of Songs 8:6).