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Jesus Freaks
A Reflection for the Catholic Community
at the Masonic Pathways Nursing Facility
May 6, 2007
By Philip D. Ropp
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At the prison, each of our worship groups has
an assigned leader. This is the man that is chosen to be
representative
on the prison’s activities committee, the body that oversees religious
worship,
and he also serves as the lay leader for our prayer services.
John is the
man that serves in this capacity for the Level III security group, and
Will
serves in this role for the guys in Level IV.
Among their duties,
the group leaders choose readers for the Scriptures, and they pick the
songs
that will be sung during the services. Now, John has been doing
this for
quite a while and he knows our songbook front to back. He has a
missalette, and he knows the Scriptures ahead of time, and he does a
universally excellent job of picking the music to match the
liturgy. John
used to do this for the guys in Level IV and was the unanimous choice
to serve
in this role when he transferred to Level III. In fact, Jeff, who
had
been the Level III leader, and did a fine job in his own rite, stepped
aside
and asked John to assume the position when John transferred in from
Level IV.
Back in Level IV, Will
had assumed the leader's position at John's urging when he transferred
to Level
III. He was hesitant to do so because John had always done such
an
outstanding job, but with everyone's encouragement he accepted the
challenge. Both groups, to a man, will tell you that John is
filled with
the Holy Spirit and always picks the best songs possible on any given
night in
any given circumstance. He writes them down on a little slip of
paper and
gives them to us when we go in to the service. The Level III
service is
first, and knowing that Will was nervous about picking the music, I
began
saving the paper with John's selections on it and giving it to Will
before the
start of the Level IV service. This was just the crutch he
needed, and he
began comparing his picks to John's, sometimes using them in place of
his own.
John always writes down
four songs. Three are sung during the service and the fourth is
optional. He will choose between numbers 3 and 4 depending on
which works
the best with the reflection that I have given. Like I said, he's
really
good at this. Often times we'll do a question and answer
session
after the service and never get to the fourth song. This is the
way it
worked on Monday night, so we never did sing number 508, the third on
the list,
and when John called the fourth on the list -- number 414 -- to close
the
service, I thought nothing of it.
Will, as usual, was
the first guy in for the Level IV service. I handed him the slip
with the
song selections on it, and while he got the chairs set up the way he
likes, he
and I engaged in conversation. Most of the other men filed in,
and while
we were waiting for the guys from Block 6, we got into an animated
discussion
on Freemasonry. One of the newer men in the group turned out to
be an
expert on the subject, and it was pretty fascinating stuff. By
the time
everyone was present and ready, we were late getting started and Will
hadn't
picked his songs or even looked at John's selections. But they
were
John's selections, right? What could go wrong? So Will
decided we'd
just use what John had written down.
This worked fine
until we got to the third song at the closing of the service.
Will called
out, "Number 508," and the boys turned to the appropriate page and
began to stumble through a song none of us -- myself included -- had
ever sung
before. John had written down the wrong number and Will hadn't
bothered
to check the songs. With no musical accompaniment, and with much
more
enthusiasm than talent, the result was a horrendous noise. As we
struggled to the end of the first tortured verse, an exasperated
Will
stopped singing and groaned, "Oh, Man! I'll never do that
again!" Somebody said, "I thought we were supposed to make a joyful
noise unto the Lord!" Will suddenly brightened. "All right
then," he said, "Number 495!" With this, a room full of
shoulders straightened and squared, and we ended the service with a
rousing and
joyous rendition of number 495, "They'll Know We are Christians by Our
Love."
As we were singing, my
mind drifted back to the first time I had ever heard this song.
It was
back in the late 1960's, when this was cutting edge folk Gospel music
and one
of the unofficial anthems of the "Jesus Movement." The Jesus
Movement was an ad hoc collection of "hippie types" that had found
the Lord and referred to themselves as "Jesus People." They
were more commonly known by the derisive term "Jesus Freaks," and
many took to calling themselves by this name and wore it as a badge of
honor. As a teenager, I met quite a few people that fell into
this
category, and given the way they were treated by society, I always
thought that
they got a "bad rap," as we used to say back in the day. They were
mostly older teens and young adults that had followed the "peace
movement" and had become disillusioned with both the "establishment"
and the "drug culture" and had, instead, found the answer in
Jesus. They were not only nondenominational, they were downright
anti-church, in the sense of organized religion, and made no bones
about it.
In
the fall of 1968, our Presbyterian Youth Group took a trip to downtown Flint to visit a
Gospel
coffee house. As the Tet Offensive raged in Vietnam,
and racial tensions filled
every major city, we found ourselves in the roughest part of one of the
most
violent cities in the country. A single bare light bulb
illuminated an
alley door in an old boarded up storefront. The lone word
"Jesus" was spray painted onto a plywood "window" in huge
letters. We knocked and the door was opened. We walked into
a room
with the smoke of incense in the air and a breathtaking blacklight
poster of
the crucifixion behind a simple stage. The room was full of people and
the
patrons sat on the floor. Coffee, tea and Kool-Aid were served at
no
charge, with a basket by the door for donations. As a group of
clean-cut
high school kids, we were ushered in and welcomed as honored
guests. One
after another, individuals or small groups of three or four, would make
their
way to the makeshift stage to tell us what Jesus meant to them.
Invariably, he meant everything. This was interspersed with
generous
amounts of Christian folk music, which at the time, was still quite a
novelty.
There were readings from the New Testament. When it was time for
us to
leave, the master of ceremonies, a young man that looked like Jesus
dressed as
a hippie and wearing John Lennon's glasses, asked everyone to stand
with
us. He thanked us for joining them and, after urging us to give
our lives
to Christ, prayed for our safe journey home. He then asked that
we all
join together in song. That song was "They'll Know We are
Christians
by Our Love," and this was the first time I'd heard it.
Shortly after
this time, there was a kid I knew in high school that had always been
wild and
rebellious; angry at the world. His name was Tony. One day
he
dropped out of school and "headed for the coast" (another expression
of the time which meant he went to California).
We all figured that he'd die, or just end up in prison if he was
lucky.
But, lo and behold, a couple of years later he returned sporting
flowing long
hair, a tie-dyed shirt, sandals, and a guitar. The biggest change
was
that he glowed with the Holy Spirit and was one of most amazingly
transformed
individuals I've ever seen. He breezed back into Alma, married
one of the prettiest Christian
girls in town, and hit the road again to spread the Good News as a
traveling
evangelist. Before he left, he invited some of us that were "Church
Christians" over to tell us his story and "lay his witness on
us." At the end of a wonderful evening of testimony, Tony brought
out his guitar and we sang -- you guessed it -- "They'll Know We are
Christians by Our Love."
As those of us
that
were the children of the 1960's and 70's grew up, much of what was
considered
countercultural in our younger days became mainstream and establishment
-- just
as we did. And so it is not unusual nowadays to hear the
Beatles
playing in department stores and elevators, and it is not unusual that
"They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love" has found its way into the
hymnals and music books of the churches.
Now, I must admit
that this song has never been a particular favorite of mine. Truth be known, I actually prefer the more
traditional Christian music as written by the great classical
masters.
Handel, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven to name but a few. After that,
give me
the great hymnsmiths from the past few hundred years that have filled
our books
with hundreds of heartfelt and holy pieces. However, that being
said, I
do find it very interesting that an old countercultural folk song from
the
1960's would become the unofficial anthem of 21st century prisoners who
are
much too young to know or care where it came from or what it means to
anyone
but themselves. Clearly, it is not the music that counts.
It's the
message.
The original appeal
of this song to the Jesus People was found in the very fact that they
did not
look like traditional Christians, which at that time meant short
haired,
clean-cut, well scrubbed, suit wearing men, and well dressed, well
groomed
women in high heels. To people that looked like the hippies of
the 60's
and early 70's, "How will they know we are Christians?" was a very
fair question. When Peter Scholtes answered this question
in music
with "They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love" in 1966, it was
bound to strike a chord in the culture or, more accurately,
counterculture of
that time.
In the prison environment, where everyone
dresses the same and looks the same,
this same question holds true. In fact, in a captive world such
as this,
where all men are convicts and only a few are truly repentant, this
question of
"How will they know we are Christians?" takes on a whole new meaning
and urgency. It would be unseemly and, perhaps, grossly
misunderstood for
men in this context to express their Christian love directly to one
another. Instead, they stand shoulder to shoulder and sing of
their love
for one another in this indirect way, and at the same time they are
able to
identify themselves as a Christian counterculture within the prison
subculture. This extends into their daily contacts within the
general
population to become a way and means of evangelization, and so we have
new men
that appear at our meetings and beg for baptism because they realize
that these
Catholic men have found the love of God, as expressed through a
wholesome,
Christian love for each other. And they want this too, as do we
all.
Like the prison, the Masonic Home is also a
subculture
due to the nature of its separation from the rest of society.
And, in
likewise, our Catholic family here also forms a Christian
counterculture for
the same reason: a lack of ready access to the sacraments of the
church.
Because of this, our little community here has recently undergone a
test that,
I will argue, was given to us by the Holy Spirit as a means of
understanding
the true nature of our faith. What we have learned is that the
nature of
this faith is love. And so the question for us became, as it
always does
for any Christian community, "How will they know we are
Christians?" And when it became obvious that this question could
not
be answered through the ready administration of the sacraments by the
generally
accepted pastoral practice of the parish church, then love prevailed
and the
correct answer to this question emerged in the words of an old hippie
folk
song, "They'll Know We are Christians by Our Love."
If that makes us Jesus Freaks, well, so be
it.
When love prevails
in this way, then we know that we have truly found our way to Jesus,
for this
is what he has taught us and what he expects from us. When we are
able to
look past our doctrines and our dogmas and see Christ in another human
being,
then we have responded in the way of true, mature Christian love.
When
our sacraments (or lack thereof) become a crutch to us, then it is our
faith
that reminds us that it is Jesus Christ that heals the lame and the
halt, and
when we reach out and take the hand of another in Christian love, we
throw away
this crutch and “put (our) hand in the hand of the man that stilled the
waters.” And that’s another old Christian folk song and a story for
another
day.
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Acts
14:21-27
After Paul and Barnabas had proclaimed the good news
to that city
and made a considerable number of disciples,
they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch.
They strengthened the spirits of the disciples
and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying,
“It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships
to enter the kingdom of God.”
They appointed elders for them in each church and,
with prayer and fasting, commended them to the Lord
in whom they had put their faith.
Then they traveled through Pisidia and reached Pamphylia.
After proclaiming the word at Perga they went down to Attalia.
From there they sailed to Antioch,
where they had been commended to the grace of God
for the work they had now accomplished.
And when they arrived, they called the church together
and reported what God had done with them
and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
Ps
145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13
R. (cf. 1) I will praise your name for ever, my
king and my
God.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and of great kindness.
The LORD is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and
my God.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might.
R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and
my God.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Let them make known your might to the children of
Adam,
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is a kingdom for all ages,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
R. I will praise your name for ever, my king and
my God.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Rev
21:1-5a
Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.
The former heaven and the former earth had passed away,
and the sea was no more.
I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.
He will dwell with them and they will be his people
and God himself will always be with them as their God.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes,
and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain,
for the old order has passed away.”
The One who sat on the throne said,
“Behold, I make all things new.”
Jn
13:31-33a, 34-35
When Judas had left them, Jesus said,
“Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
and God will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
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