Graceful Dead
A Sermon on Romans 8
Earlier, this month thousands gathered in Oracle Park in San Francisco to say good-bye.
It was an odd affair to be frank. Many of those gathered had already said goodbye on this occasion two decades ago, for a few this was even the third time saying “fare thee well.” Many of the more seasoned members gathered remember the first good bye. By then, they knew it was time to return to the real world, start families, find jobs. They needed to turn their tye dye for comfortable slacks. No longer could they keep on truckin’ on. When the third goodbye had occurred, Vivid jubilant memories of the past sixty years now had a touch of grey.
If you haven’t picked up on clever references by now do not panic. I am sure you’re not alone.
Two weeks ago was a last run of a lengthy farewell tour for the Grateful Dead who have been touring since 2015 as “Dead & Company” as a way to acknowledge the loss of famed guitar player and lyricist and singer Jerry Garcia in 1995 while introducing an eclectic cast of new voices along the tour.
But why on Earth you may by thinking would people want to hear the crooning of aging rock stars?
Well, lucky for you, I’m not just a plucky seminarian with great facial hair. I am your Deadhead in residence.
In a world of digital precision and perfection, the Dead reject it. While they have fantastic collection of studio albums, ask anyone who understands the Grateful Dead and you will hear it every time: the live albums are were the magic happens. No concert is the same and no performance of a single song will sound the same between performances. The creative soul in their live music moves between blues, rock, country and even gospel influences! Long improvised bridges can turn a simple song into a twelve minute ballad. They’re not afraid of where a bodacious drum solo or a rambling keyboard improvisation will take them. They play, they live by how they are formed, knowing the song will carry them.
Any dissonance can be brought into harmony.
I share this aside because
I love the Grateful Dead
I think the dead know grace in a way that we need today: a little improv.
Let’s take a step back and evaluate the situation at hand:
In our own lives, it is often easier to see our faith as a rule or a script. Tightly hold on to what we know and steam on ahead and we will run a course toward sainthood. Yet as when we begin to hold on tightly, when we try to look for rules, we end up with more questions, more forks in the road.
Well, what are we to do? This is usually the part in the story where we have the “crisis of faith.” Where no answer, no rule, no mantra will give us the clear path forward.
It’s time we are reminded of the truth of Pauls letter today, we were formed for this and will keep being formed even if nothing we do sounds perfect.
First off all, we would be keen to remember God does not just hear us but hears the Holy Spirt in us. Our daily life is filled with small moments of joy, or sorrow, or longing, even frustration. In all those moments, moments sometimes our busy minds forget to remember when we “finally have finished everything on our todo list and now we can pray” those are moments God already knows. Those are moments not held against us but held up in the prayers of the Spirit.
Secondly, God has made a way for us and for all Creation in His Love!
Let’s return to Pauls claim: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Gods grand design for the whole redemption of the cosmic order involves silly ole you and me. We have been brought into this redemption story, full of our awkward attempts at being better and brighter, because God has chosen not just a turning point for us but He has said your whole life will be a story of a new creation, a new beauty, a new justice, a new love. Perhaps this what early Saint Irenaeus meant when he wrote “the glory of God is man fully alive.” All our attempts to find concrete answers or rules to govern us make meaning of the world and all its misgivings fall short at the truth: God is using our whole lives to make the world right.
This is doesn’t mean however, we must get it right. You should not run home and resort your recycling because God is using you to restore created order.
This leads me to my third point: we will still encounter mess after mess. We will still be loved. Paul gives us not one but seventeen different ways in which our lives will in fact be interrupted. As a refresher, Paul lists out hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life, angels, rulers, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, and anything else in all creation as roadblocks. Yes, that includes severe thunderstorms knocking out your power for more than twelve hours. Yet all of these will not have the final say. As Karl Barth puts it so well in his commentary on this chapter the radical message is this God is with us. In all of these things God has desired to be with you, is with you, and has tied the whole cosmos together in the promise to still be with you.
Allow me to tie together this message together: improv
The key to all good improvisation, whether acting or music is to always say “Yes” always keep the story or the music flowing.
I believe however God’s grace in our daily lives is a challenge for little improv. The ethicist and priest Sam Wells has argued the skills of improvisation, the relaxed awareness, are necessary if the church wants to flourish into the family that radically shares God’s grace. The grace that keeps and forms all of us in the closeness of God’s love means our improvisation will be more than to just blindly and passively accept anything that comes our way. We get to overaccept. We do not just take our share of the seventeen disruptions Paul lays out before us and carry on with life grumbling. We see these disruptions as spaces to try and step out into the fullness of ourselves as God has called us to be. We bring our mess and our disruptions into the harmony that is God’s redemption of all creation. We don’t need to find a quick answer or a more devout mantra. What a we need is a little more grace, the grace of God’s Love that calls out into a new family, a Love that looks at our messy lives and says “Yes!”
Not every Grateful Dead concert is wonderful, sometimes the improv is messy and off key. But to step out and let that freedom to be, that grace, form them is what has made the music pull listeners in for the past sixty years.
Let that freedom, that grace, that love remind you: you will not get things completely right, you will not get things completely wrong, but you will be completely loved.