Skip to main content

Spitting in the Loving Cup



I generally go to the Methodist Conference every year with the same joy that I go to the dentist... It is an important discipline, but can either seem to be time wasted, or extremely painful.


I certainly don't go expecting to have the President of Conference, recommend a song which includes a naughty word in it!!! But this year The Rev. Martyn Atkins, President of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, and hence President of the Irish Conference (more on that arcane arrangement another time) was speaking under "Pastoral Efficiency" (don't ask) at the Ministerial Session of Conference last Friday, and he referred to a line in a song by his favourite singer Joni Mitchell (I wonder how many Irish Methodist Presidents have had Joni on their ipods? I wonder how many Irish Methodist Presidents have ipods?).


It was a throwaway line referring to some of those who claim to proclaim the good news of Christ "spitting in the loving cup." Colourful image.


Yet that is what many do. We preach one thing, with one side of our mouth, and out of the other spew forth words of hatred and violence. Even where we don't openly proclaim contradictory messages, so often our lips and lives don't match (to use a phrase beloved of another former British Methodist President, the late Dr. Donald English).


It can be on many grounds - the militarism and materialism that Joni Mitchell attacks in her song... or the sectarianism and racism that has often been underpinned by inappropriate use of scripture... or as in recent days, with our new "first lady", MLA and "Bible-believing Christian" Iris Robinson, intemperate language about homosexuality, that, regardless of your understanding of scripture on this issue, against the background of a brutal assault on a gay man, comes across as callous and uncaring. The easily trotted out phrase about "hating the sin but loving the sinner," is not only unbiblical in origin, it is also unhelpful pastorally, as "the sinners" in question are immediately alienated, not hearing any real sense of love for them in that statement. Real love does not condemn through a megaphone then try to demonstrate that love in private. When we condemn people publicly for their sins, we completely shut off any chance of meaningful communion with them. We haven't just spat in the loving cup... we have vomited bile into it!

(Jools Hamilton, William Crawley (here, here AND here), Glenn Jordan and Cheryl Meban have also commented on Iris's "defense of Biblical Christianity" to one extent or other in their respective blogs)





Anyway... here are the lyrics of the song "Tax Free" by Joni Mitchell (from the album "Dog Eat Dog.")


Front rooms... Back rooms...
Slide into tables... Crowd into bathrooms...
Joke around...Cheap talk...
Deep talk... Talk, talk
Talk around the clock...
Crawl home... Lie down...
Teeth chatter... Heart pounds...
I don't feel so good... I don't feel so good...
Push a button to escape...
Preacher on the tube crying "Lord!"
There's evil in this land...
"Rock and roll music!"
Cast down these dope-fiends and their noisy bands!
"Damn their souls!"
Preacher preaching love like vengeance
Preaching love like hate...
Calling for large donations...
Promising estates...
Rolling lawns and angel bands...
Behind the pearly gates...
You know, he will have his in this life...
But yours will have to wait...
He's immaculately tax free...
"Mulitiple hundreds of thousands of ..."
Tax free...
"Hundreds and millions of dollars"
Tax free...
"A hundred billion dollars!And who is paying the price?"
Who, who?
"Your children are"


Pissed off... Jacked up...
Scream into the mike...
Spit into the loving cup...
Strut like a rooster...
March like a man...
God's hired hands and the devil bands
Packing the same grandstands...
Different clothes
"Pot in their pockets!"
Different hair
"Sexually active"
Raise a screaming guitar or a bible in the air
Theatre of anguish... Theatre of glory...
God's hired hands and the devil bands...
Oh come let us adore---ME!


Lord, there's danger in this land...
You get witch-hunts and wars
When church and state hold hands!
Fuck it!
Tonight I'm going dancing
With the drag queens and the punks.
Big beat deliver me
From this sanctimonious skunk!
We're no flaming angels
And he's not heaven sent.
How can he speak for the Prince of Peace
When he's hawk-right militant?


And he's immaculately tax free
"Our nation has lost its guts!"
Save me...
"Our nation has lost its strength"
Tax free...
"Our nation has whimpered and cried"
Save me...
"And petted the Castros"
Tax free...
"The Khomeinis' and the Kaddafis"
Save me...
"For so long"
Tax free...
"That we don't know how to act like a man"
Save me...
"I think that we should turn the United States Marines loose on that little island south of Florida and stop that problem!"
"I am preachin' love, I am!"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Living under the Empire... (2) Where is Babylon?

We were driving back from school last week, talking about books that we had been reading and my younger son, Ciaran, asked me "Where is Babylon?" I have to confess that my history is better than my geography, and I said that it no longer exists as an inhabited city, but its ruins were to the north west of the current capital of Iraq, Baghdad. When I checked however, I discovered that it is actually about 50 miles south of Baghdad and the modern town is the administrative centre of the province of Babil... But just as the modern city is but a shadow of the historic capital of 2 ancient empires, first under Hammurabi in the 18th century BCE and then the "Neo-Babylonian" empire (under Nebuchadnezzar etc) in the 6th century BCE, so the earthly Babylonian empire/s was/were fleeting in comparison to the enduring metaphorical idea of Babylon. The original Empire under Hammurabi was probably the ultimate origin of some of the early Biblical stories, including the ...

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that ...

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65