This has been an unusual Advent season. Advent is my favorite season in the liturgical calendar; it has been a decade-long tradition that I give the sermon on one of the four Advent Sundays at the Episcopal church I am involved with. For various reasons, though, I am on an open-ended sabbatical/hiatus from church—which has given me the opportunity, when I have chosen to take it, to think and feel carefully about a number of things that I have often simply taken for granted. Sometimes such opportunities come from unexpected places.
The December edition of The Atlantic includes an article by David Brooks titled “Bono’s Great Adventure,” with the lead “His life has been an attempt to reconcile the competing demands of radical faith and rock and roll.” I’m not a huge David Brooks fan—his work is too conservative, smug, and preachy on occasion for my taste. I am also not a big fan of U2, Bono’s long-standing and highly influential band. They burst on the scene a little late for my classic rock and roll tastes.
David Brooks Atlantic Bono article
But I have always been impressed with Bono’s philanthropic commitments and his advocacy for important social and economic issues. I knew that he professes a Christian faith—
Brooks’ article provides some context that got me to thinking about my own Christian faith. In his late teens, just as Bono first formed U2 with three other musicians during his high school years in Ireland (he met his wife Ali at the same school), they all met someone else who would become central to their lives—Jesus Christ. Bono’s father was Catholic, his mother was Protestant, and he wanted nothing to do with the Church, with what Brooks describes as “the vicious tribalism that was hurtling Ireland toward civil war.”
Then the five friends stumbled across a radical, fringe Christian collective called Shalom, that was very different than the religious groups they were familiar with.
Its members were suspicious of materialism. They put the poor at the heart of their faith. Their Jesus was this badass Jew who took on the establishment. “They lived like first-century Christians,” Bono recalls. “And we thought: That’s pretty punk. And they seemed to accept who we were We thought, Wow, this is great.”
What began to emerge was the idea that there are a lot of unexpected parallels between faith commitment and rock and roll. Both require complete abandon and commitment, a willingness to expose yourself without reservation.
As Brooks notes, this insight completely messes up our usual categories. If the culture-wars of the past half-century have taught us anything, it is that rock and roll is on one side, along with sex, drugs, and liberation. Religion is on the other side, along with judgmentalism, sexual repression, and deference to authority. But for Bono, punk rock and the radical Christ are on the same team.
[They] embraced a faith that simply bypassed the encrustations of 2000 years of religious civilization and returned straight to Jesus: the helpless baby who was born on a bed of straw and shit; the wandering troubadour who put the poor, the marginalized, and the ailing at the center of his gaze; the rebel outsider who confronted the power structures of his society and took them all on at once. This alternative form of Christianity is something that, say, American evangelicals could have adopted. But mostly they did not.
No kidding. And let’s not just pick on American evangelical Christians (although they are an easy target and it’s fun to do). Virtually every version of organized Christianity slathers several layers of encrusted doctrine and dogma on top of the bare bones and immensely charismatic man that we find in the Gospels.
Stepping back from the trappings of liturgy and church, as much as I appreciate and often love them, has opened me anew to the possibility of seeing things as if for the first time. I never had this opportunity as a young person, as I was literally born into a very specific interpretation of the Christian story. I was born into the “encrustations of 2000 years” that Brooks writes about. What would the Christmas story look like without everything else that we have piled on top over the centuries?
Pete Enns, an excellent progressive Christian author and co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, “The Bible for Normal People,” sent a Christmas email to listeners that more or less captured my current mood about the religious aspects of the season.
I want to forget
the Jesus who behaves,who looks like he would fit right in at church,who acts as expected,colors between the lines, andnever wanders off the beach blanket,
and remember instead
the rebel Jesusthe countercultural, sometimes snarky, sometimes funny,uncompromisingly in-your-face-against-hypocritical-gatekeepers,uber-compassionate toward outsiders,challenger of the status quo,total mensch Jesus.
A baby born on a bed of straw and shit to parents who are just as clueless about what to do next as any first-time parents would be. Who will this baby grow up to be? When did it become clear that something unusual was going on with this kid? As I often quote from Kierkegaard, it’s easy to understand looking backwards (or at least we think it is), but we often forget that life has to be lived forwards. Let’s experience the Nativity forwards this year, starting from the beginning instead of looking back already claiming to know the answers. As I seek over the coming weeks to track this experience with new essays, I hope you’ll come along and share your own experiences.
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