The Power of Land, Flowers, Hammers, Change and Songs

The Power of Land, Flowers, Hammers, Change and Songs

Good Morning Friends,

How Shall We Sing the Lord’s Song?
When Pete Seeger, iconic American folksinger heard that some people thought that his song, This Land is Your Land would be a good national anthem, he replied “no,” and something to the effect that he could not imagine Marines marching on foreign soil singing “this land is your land, this land is my land….” Monday Pete Seeger died at 94 and he leaves us a legacy of the songs of protest and peace marches and counterculture and civil rights. And no, I do not know if he watched the Grammy’s, nor what he thought of them, but I am pretty sure he was a communist. He was blacklisted during the McCarty Era during a darker period of our country’s history, but he was not a Russian kind of communist and silently survived to re-emerge in the 1960’s as a prominent singer who wrote hits like Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
If I Had a Hammer and Turn! Turn! Turn! (see the passage from Ecclesiastes below) Others made these songs hits, for he was a better writer than singer. Really he was an idealist who wanted to turn the clock back to an imagined time when people lived in small villages and cared for each other. He wrote about The Power of Land, Flowers, Hammers, Change and Songs.

Scripture: To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (KJV)

So the craftsman encourages the smelter, And he who smooths metal with the hammer encourages him who beats the anvil, Saying of the soldering, “It is good”; And he fastens it with nails, So that it will not totter.

Jeremiah 23:29 (ESV)

The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.

Song of Solomon 2:1-2 (ESV)

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?  If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem, how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!” O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!

Psalm 137 (ESV)

Jesus wept.

John 11:35 (KJV)

Message: Maybe Pete Seeger’s utopia was of a time that really never existed. Still I have to agree with him when he says, “It is a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.” We are so in exile. And I would also have to agree that his music, like today’s scripture helps us to understand what makes us cry…what makes us dream… and what makes us sing. You see, when we contemplate what we have lost and what we hope for and what makes us happy, at least part of the answer is revealed. This helps us to keep singing through the fear, anger, excitement, loneliness and despair of life until we experience satisfaction. And here in Christ we might just discover that satisfaction, for it is not as elusive as the Rolling Stones claimed. Indeed, it is in Christ we shall overcome.

Pray we dream dreams and sing songs of our faith and weep for those things that Jesus would weep for. Pray we not pretend that everything is ok when self-restraint seems to have gone out the window. Pray we sing even when life is hard. Pray we be wary of the cultural subversion of the Biblical faith. Pray God rules even in the hearts of those who really are not sure about God. Pray we are not discouraged but know there is a time and season for everything.

Blessings,