Baroni Bloggin’

Riding in from Detroit airport to the hotel yesterday, the driver had the radio tuned to a big talk station. The talk show featured a one minute “interview” with a phone-in (corporate sponsor) guest.

The announcer, in a professional voice “asked” the interviewee questions that he was obviously reading from a script. The lady answered the questions without missing a beat in a pleasant, if unimpassioned, voice. It sounded like she had a script as well. Information was communicated, the minute came to an end, and I have already forgotten what they talked about. Very slick, professional, and virtually meaningless.

What is my point?

I am glad you asked.

It reminded me of a lot that goes on in the church, in our lives, in my life. We adhere to the script in our sincere desire to be good, and though it’s commendable to want to, as some say, “live right”, we, in our unperceived inauthenticity, reduce the gospel to a boring radio commercial instead of the abundant life Jesus gives.

I read a book called “Beyond Liberation- the Gospel in the Civil Rights Movement.” The author wonderfully describes Jesus as a “Jazz Preacher.”  Like a courageous, intuitive jazz musician, He had no sheet music, no script- He spoke and lived from the heart. No pretense, no careful calculations, no opinion polls-of course, neither was He reckless and uncaring.) He spoke from Who He was… and is.

On the contrary, He knew that we were still hiding, like Adam, behind the bush of “should be”. We didn’t know yet that He gives us the power to discover who God really is, and who He frees us to be. At the sound of His scat-singing solo, we emerge, tentatively at first, from the hiding place of “ought to”  into the glorious land of “I am”! 

Because He is “I Am”, we are! (Drink some more coffee and read that again.)    

Guess what? God not only loves you, He likes you! It’s not just His job, it’s an adventure- and the same can be true for us.

A friend of mine recently sent me a quote from Christ Community Church Pastor Scotty Smith: “Many remember the lyrics of the gospel but have forgotten the melody.”

Here’s to the courage to be ourselves, to quit hiding, to live some jazz gospel from the heart!

Shoo-be-doo-be wah wah,

David B

P.S. I needed to write this much more than you needed to read it!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 25th, 2006 at 1:39 pm and is filed under Random Thoughts, Spiritual Musings, Road Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.