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Jesus Freaks A Reflection for the Catholic Community at the Masonic Pathways Nursing Facility May 6, 2007 By Philip D. Ropp |
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Back in Level IV, Will had assumed the leader's position at John's urging when he transferred to Level III. He was hesitant to do so because John had always done such an outstanding job, but with everyone's encouragement he accepted the challenge. Both groups, to a man, will tell you that John is filled with the Holy Spirit and always picks the best songs possible on any given night in any given circumstance. He writes them down on a little slip of paper and gives them to us when we go in to the service. The Level III service is first, and knowing that Will was nervous about picking the music, I began saving the paper with John's selections on it and giving it to Will before the start of the Level IV service. This was just the crutch he needed, and he began comparing his picks to John's, sometimes using them in place of his own. John always writes down four songs. Three are sung during the service and the fourth is optional. He will choose between numbers 3 and 4 depending on which works the best with the reflection that I have given. Like I said, he's really good at this. Often times we'll do a question and answer session after the service and never get to the fourth song. This is the way it worked on Monday night, so we never did sing number 508, the third on the list, and when John called the fourth on the list -- number 414 -- to close the service, I thought nothing of it. Will, as usual, was the first guy in for the Level IV service. I handed him the slip with the song selections on it, and while he got the chairs set up the way he likes, he and I engaged in conversation. Most of the other men filed in, and while we were waiting for the guys from Block 6, we got into an animated discussion on Freemasonry. One of the newer men in the group turned out to be an expert on the subject, and it was pretty fascinating stuff. By the time everyone was present and ready, we were late getting started and Will hadn't picked his songs or even looked at John's selections. But they were John's selections, right? What could go wrong? So Will decided we'd just use what John had written down. This worked fine until we got to the third song at the closing of the service. Will called out, "Number 508," and the boys turned to the appropriate page and began to stumble through a song none of us -- myself included -- had ever sung before. John had written down the wrong number and Will hadn't bothered to check the songs. With no musical accompaniment, and with much more enthusiasm than talent, the result was a horrendous noise. As we struggled to the end of the first tortured verse, an exasperated Will stopped singing and groaned, "Oh, Man! I'll never do that again!" Somebody said, "I thought we were supposed to make a joyful noise unto the Lord!" Will suddenly brightened. "All right then," he said, "Number 495!" With this, a room full of shoulders straightened and squared, and we ended the service with a rousing and joyous rendition of number 495, "They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love." As we were singing, my mind drifted back to the first time I had ever heard this song. It was back in the late 1960's, when this was cutting edge folk Gospel music and one of the unofficial anthems of the "Jesus Movement." The Jesus Movement was an ad hoc collection of "hippie types" that had found the Lord and referred to themselves as "Jesus People." They were more commonly known by the derisive term "Jesus Freaks," and many took to calling themselves by this name and wore it as a badge of honor. As a teenager, I met quite a few people that fell into this category, and given the way they were treated by society, I always thought that they got a "bad rap," as we used to say back in the day. They were mostly older teens and young adults that had followed the "peace movement" and had become disillusioned with both the "establishment" and the "drug culture" and had, instead, found the answer in Jesus. They were not only nondenominational, they were downright anti-church, in the sense of organized religion, and made no bones about it. In the fall of 1968, our Presbyterian Youth Group took a trip to downtown Shortly after this time, there was a kid I knew in high school that had always been wild and rebellious; angry at the world. His name was Tony. One day he dropped out of school and "headed for the coast" (another expression of the time which meant he went to As those of us that were the children of the 1960's and 70's grew up, much of what was considered countercultural in our younger days became mainstream and establishment -- just as we did. And so it is not unusual nowadays to hear the Beatles playing in department stores and elevators, and it is not unusual that "They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love" has found its way into the hymnals and music books of the churches. Now, I must admit that this song has never been a particular favorite of mine. Truth be known, I actually prefer the more traditional Christian music as written by the great classical masters. Handel, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven to name but a few. After that, give me the great hymnsmiths from the past few hundred years that have filled our books with hundreds of heartfelt and holy pieces. However, that being said, I do find it very interesting that an old countercultural folk song from the 1960's would become the unofficial anthem of 21st century prisoners who are much too young to know or care where it came from or what it means to anyone but themselves. Clearly, it is not the music that counts. It's the message. The original appeal of this song to the Jesus People was found in the very fact that they did not look like traditional Christians, which at that time meant short haired, clean-cut, well scrubbed, suit wearing men, and well dressed, well groomed women in high heels. To people that looked like the hippies of the 60's and early 70's, "How will they know we are Christians?" was a very fair question. When Peter Scholtes answered this question in music with "They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love" in 1966, it was bound to strike a chord in the culture or, more accurately, counterculture of that time. In the prison environment, where everyone dresses the same and looks the same, this same question holds true. In fact, in a captive world such as this, where all men are convicts and only a few are truly repentant, this question of "How will they know we are Christians?" takes on a whole new meaning and urgency. It would be unseemly and, perhaps, grossly misunderstood for men in this context to express their Christian love directly to one another. Instead, they stand shoulder to shoulder and sing of their love for one another in this indirect way, and at the same time they are able to identify themselves as a Christian counterculture within the prison subculture. This extends into their daily contacts within the general population to become a way and means of evangelization, and so we have new men that appear at our meetings and beg for baptism because they realize that these Catholic men have found the love of God, as expressed through a wholesome, Christian love for each other. And they want this too, as do we all. Like the prison, the Masonic Home is also a subculture due to the nature of its separation from the rest of society. And, in likewise, our Catholic family here also forms a Christian counterculture for the same reason: a lack of ready access to the sacraments of the church. Because of this, our little community here has recently undergone a test that, I will argue, was given to us by the Holy Spirit as a means of understanding the true nature of our faith. What we have learned is that the nature of this faith is love. And so the question for us became, as it always does for any Christian community, "How will they know we are Christians?" And when it became obvious that this question could not be answered through the ready administration of the sacraments by the generally accepted pastoral practice of the parish church, then love prevailed and the correct answer to this question emerged in the words of an old hippie folk song, "They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love." If that makes us Jesus Freaks, well, so be it. When love prevails in this way, then we know that we have truly found our way to Jesus, for this is what he has taught us and what he expects from us. When we are able to look past our doctrines and our dogmas and see Christ in another human being, then we have responded in the way of true, mature Christian love. When our sacraments (or lack thereof) become a crutch to us, then it is our faith that reminds us that it is Jesus Christ that heals the lame and the halt, and when we reach out and take the hand of another in Christian love, we throw away this crutch and “put (our) hand in the hand of the man that stilled the waters.” And that’s another old Christian folk song and a story for another day. |
May 6, 2007
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Reading 1 |