Sometime in the fifth century BC, not too many years after Jewish exiles returned to Judah from Babylon and several hundred years before Jesus was born, a preacher delivered a message preserved for us in the fifty-eighth chapter of the biblical book of Isaiah.
The preacher told the people that when it came to worship, they were missing the point. As with all preachers in that day, this one believed so strongly that he was speaking for God, he could actually quote the Lord’s words. So he presents the following words as if God is speaking them about the people:
Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God (v. 2).
These words display some holy sarcasm. God says that the people act as if they want to know and do what God wants them to be and do, but they really don’t. They “worship,” God tells them, only for what they think they can get out of it. Their focus isn’t on God, but rather on themselves.
God particularly addresses their practice of fasting, which is the giving up of something (food, for example) for a period of time in order to become more aware of your dependence on God. Speaking through the prophet, God tells the people that their fasting is meaningless (as are their other worship practices, no doubt) because they keep on mistreating and oppressing people.
Then God says,
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin (vv. 6-7)?
The fast God wants, God says, is for God’s people to help the helpless, to lift up the downtrodden, and to liberate the oppressed. If the people would do that, God tells them, “Then your light shall break forth like the dawn…” (v. 8a).
Real worship focuses on God, not on ourselves. We truly worship when we worship in order to show our love for God, not in order to gain something for ourselves. And we truly worship when our love for God leads us to love other people, especially those whom life has beaten up and beaten down.
Put simply, if you go to the church, to the synagogue, or to the mosque, and then go out into the world to hate, oppress, misuse, abuse, manipulate, or take advantage of people, you aren’t worshiping.
The fifth-century preacher told the people that if they’d care for those whom the world disrespects and disregards, then their light would shine in the world’s darkness.
You may have one of those candles in a jar. As long as you leave the lid off the jar, the candle burns just fine. But put the lid back on the jar while the candle is burning, and the flame is immediately extinguished. That’s because oxygen fuels the fire, so without oxygen, the fire goes out and the light gives way to the darkness.
Love fuels our fire and keeps our light shining. If we give in to selfishness, hate, and cruelty, then we give way to the darkness. But if we keep loving in ways that lead us to serve, give, and share, then our light will keep burning brightly.
We overcome darkness with light. We overcome hate with love.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Thursday, February 6, 2020
MacArthur Park, Reconsidered
A few days ago, my wife Debra and I had the privilege of joining our beloved friends, college roommates, and fellow travelers Randy and Jennie Berry at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur to hear Jimmy Webb talk about and play and sing some of the wonderful songs he’s written during the course of his career.
And boy howdy, has Webb written some great songs.
He wrote three of Glen Campbell’s biggest hits: “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and my favorite Campbell recording, “Galveston.” He also wrote the Fifth Dimension’s hit “Up, Up, and Away,” Brooklyn Bridge’s “The Worst that Could Happen,” and Art Garfunkel’s “All I Know.” That list barely scratches the surface of the pile of songs Webb has written.
Another of Webb’s well-known songs is “MacArthur Park.” The original recording by actor Richard Harris went to #2 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968. Waylon Jennings’s version won a Grammy award in 1969. Donna Summers’s disco version was a hit in 1978. Who’d have ever thought you could dance to “MacArthur Park”? Well, I couldn’t, because I can’t dance—but lots of people did.
Webb has caught a lot of grief over the years for “MacArthur Park.” Some people have said that the lyrics are over-the-top. Read the second verse and the refrain, and see what you think:
I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees
MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
As for me, I think the lyrics are beautifully written and their symbolism is majestic and fascinating.
Still, I confess to having poked a little fun at the song myself, although to be fair, I mainly joked about Richard Harris’s overly dramatic (in my estimation) rendition.
After seeing Webb perform, I found a 2014 Newsday article where he said that “MacArthur Park” is
just a song about a girlfriend of mine, Susie Horton, and this place on Wilshire Boulevard where we used to have lunch, which is called MacArthur Park. And the truth is that everything in the song was visible. There’s nothing in it that’s fabricated. The old men playing checkers by the trees, the cake that was left out in the rain, all of the things that are talked about in the song are things I actually saw. And so it’s a kind of musical collage of this whole love affair that kind of went down in MacArthur Park.
Webb also said that he wrote “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” at about the same time, as the love affair was coming to an end.
But I didn’t know that background when I heard Webb sing “MacArthur Park,” so that’s not what caused me to conclude that the song really belongs to him.
It was the way he played and sang it. His rendition was every bit as dramatic as Richard Harris’s version, but it was more powerful, I think because it was so real. Maybe it’s because he sang it liked he had lived it, which he in fact had. Webb’s presentation of “MacArthur Park” was, in a word, authentic.
There are at least three lessons in this for all of us.
First, we should speak authentic words that come out of authentic lives.
Second, we should listen to those who do.
And third, we shouldn’t listen to those who don’t.
And boy howdy, has Webb written some great songs.
He wrote three of Glen Campbell’s biggest hits: “Wichita Lineman,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and my favorite Campbell recording, “Galveston.” He also wrote the Fifth Dimension’s hit “Up, Up, and Away,” Brooklyn Bridge’s “The Worst that Could Happen,” and Art Garfunkel’s “All I Know.” That list barely scratches the surface of the pile of songs Webb has written.
Another of Webb’s well-known songs is “MacArthur Park.” The original recording by actor Richard Harris went to #2 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1968. Waylon Jennings’s version won a Grammy award in 1969. Donna Summers’s disco version was a hit in 1978. Who’d have ever thought you could dance to “MacArthur Park”? Well, I couldn’t, because I can’t dance—but lots of people did.
Webb has caught a lot of grief over the years for “MacArthur Park.” Some people have said that the lyrics are over-the-top. Read the second verse and the refrain, and see what you think:
I recall the yellow cotton dress
Foaming like a wave
On the ground around your knees
The birds, like tender babies in your hands
And the old men playing checkers by the trees
MacArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!
As for me, I think the lyrics are beautifully written and their symbolism is majestic and fascinating.
Still, I confess to having poked a little fun at the song myself, although to be fair, I mainly joked about Richard Harris’s overly dramatic (in my estimation) rendition.
After seeing Webb perform, I found a 2014 Newsday article where he said that “MacArthur Park” is
just a song about a girlfriend of mine, Susie Horton, and this place on Wilshire Boulevard where we used to have lunch, which is called MacArthur Park. And the truth is that everything in the song was visible. There’s nothing in it that’s fabricated. The old men playing checkers by the trees, the cake that was left out in the rain, all of the things that are talked about in the song are things I actually saw. And so it’s a kind of musical collage of this whole love affair that kind of went down in MacArthur Park.
Webb also said that he wrote “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” at about the same time, as the love affair was coming to an end.
But I didn’t know that background when I heard Webb sing “MacArthur Park,” so that’s not what caused me to conclude that the song really belongs to him.
It was the way he played and sang it. His rendition was every bit as dramatic as Richard Harris’s version, but it was more powerful, I think because it was so real. Maybe it’s because he sang it liked he had lived it, which he in fact had. Webb’s presentation of “MacArthur Park” was, in a word, authentic.
There are at least three lessons in this for all of us.
First, we should speak authentic words that come out of authentic lives.
Second, we should listen to those who do.
And third, we shouldn’t listen to those who don’t.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)