Last weekend I flew to Denver to spend some time with my good friend Dan Geslin and to give a concert. In addition to peforming on Saturday night, I played four songs in a “sermon in song” portion of the service that Dan invented in order to include me and to allow another form of preaching the Gospel. I played “He Reached Down” by Iris DeMent, and three other songs I’ve written: “Plowshares into Swords,” “You Will Find Freedom,” and “Some Say.”

“Plowshares into Swords” is a song I wrote before the Iraq war broke out. Instead of the prophetic call to bend our swords into plowshares, I feared our country planned to bend plowshares into swords. This is exactly what we’ve done. “Plowshares into Swords” is filled with angst and frustration and feels even truer now than it was then.

“He Reached Down,” by Iris Dement is a recent favorite of mine. It takes several stories of the Bible and in a refreshing way shows how Jesus really is, over and above most things, concerned with reaching down to heal and lift up the downtrodden and condemned. One line of the song I love: “If there’s a one of you without sin, you can cast the first stone in.” It’s a radical song, but only because it captures the heart of the Gospel that folks often ignore when they get wrapped up in more puritan or legalistic forms of Christianity.

“You Will Find Freedom” is a song I wrote after taking a class from David Hilfiker called, “The Radical Inclusivity of the Gospel,” which discussed works by Renee Girard and Gil Bailie. Outstanding anthropological consideration of the Christian message, useful and enlightening even for folks who don’t consider themselves Chrsitian.

Finally, “Some Say,” is a song about how we all create Jesus in our own image. This song is filled with lines like, “Some say he came to wage war, others say he’d rather die. Some say he’d vote republican, others say this is a lie…” So much of what the church does today is create traditions and interpretations of Jesus’ message that match with their own cultural bias. We all do it, but the trick is having the humility to know we do it and not get all wrapped up in how we think our own personal version of Jesus trumps everyone else’s. Fact is, no one knows exactly what Jesus was like, or what his personality was, or what he would’ve done today. We can guess, but no one knows for sure. We have his words and the words of his disciples to go by, but that’s it.

Sixth Avenue United Church was the perfect place to play these songs. They are an open an affirming congregation in search of a Jesus not bottled and distributed by folks who use the Gospel to control others rather than set them free.

Thanks to Dale and Brian for letting me stay with them. Thanks to Travis for letting me use his amazing car. Thanks to Sixth Avenue United Church for welcoming me and allowing me to worship with them. And, finally, thanks to Dan for being a good friend and gentle mentor!

This last week, on a Thursday night, I made the trip from Albert Lea to St. Peter, Minnesota, to play at Gustavus Adolphus College. My good friend, Callista Isabelle, who is an intern with campus ministry there, invited me to sing and play songs related to the theme for the evening: Faith & Poverty: a Concert & Conversation.

Teaming up with Professor Gerstbauer from Gustavus’ political science department, (she did the talking and I did the playing — though I did say an occasional word or two between songs), we attempted to start a discussion about how faith informs our concerns about poverty and “the least of these.”

I started with a few songs then Professor Gerstbauer presented some thoughts from scripture, and then she passed questioned around to the group. We sat at tables in a coffee house atmosphere in the student union.

Many of the students gathered there noted that they’d like to see their churches doing more. Some raised questions about how much the church can really do to alleviate poverty. While most of the students appeared to be speaking from their own experience within the Christian tradition, there was at least one woman who spoke up who was not a Christian. She said, in some measure, that many who live in poverty simply see the church as a community center provides for certain needs. And she argued that the specifics of faith and religion are often looked upon as obstacles to overcome on the way to a hot meal.

On the whole, our conversations that evening served as yet another opportunity to consider what it is the Gospel message tells we ought to do about about brothers and sisters who live in poverty. We didn’t come away with many answers, but sometimes if you simply keep asking questions, answers will surface on their own.

Many thanks to Callista and Geoff for a warm meal and great conversation before the concert. Thanks to Prof. Gerstbauer for sparking a great discussion. And thanks to the student group at Gustavus who hosted the evening!