More Popular Than Jesus?

           

Forty years later, the Vatican newspaper announces it’s ready to forgive John Lennon and the Beatles for their boast about being “more popular than Jesus.” The paper has realized that these were just working class lads coping with unexpected success.

 

Truth is, they probably were more popular than Jesus! After all, “popularity” was never a value Jesus seemed attracted to. If he had, he surely wouldn’t have hung around with poor peasants, or worse, sinners and prostitutes. Nope, the Beatles always had it all over Jesus on the popularity scale.

 

Maybe Christians shouldn’t have become so worked up over this forty years ago. We should have just paid more attention to what Jesus was about – not popularity but mercy, peace, and hungering for righteousness (Matthew 5). Even John Lennon, it seems, wasn’t really dissing Jesus, just his followers – and that goes on all the time. Christians should be used to it, but we don’t take it well.

 

If Jesus doesn’t give two hoots about popularity, he does care about following. “Follow me,” he said, and he says to us. Which amounts to leaving behind what we were, and becoming someone new. End of the old, beginning of the new. Drowning our self-centeredness, coming to new life where God and others matter most. Following Jesus is, Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, is the equivalent of being baptized in St. Paul’s New Testament letters. There’s not too much room for popularity where God’s doing a makeover in people.

 

But Christians get sidetracked too. It’s time to forgive the exaggerations of the Beatles, that’s true, but it’s an even better time for Christian self-examination. Arguments about popularity go nowhere, following Jesus does. That’s a bit of baptismal spirituality – letting go of ourselves to find our true selves. Jesus wants that. That’s where Lennon’s remark should take us too.

Book Signings, Martin Marty, and More

        

There’s been a big gap in my postings: I haven’t been here since early March. This is what happens when a pastor’s life get filled with Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. But here we are again.

 

Since the March book signing at my church for Water for Your Soul, I’ve had three more signings: at The Blue Cup, Barnes & Noble, and the Luther College Book Shop. I just returned from Decorah and Luther College moments ago. What fun these events have been, renewing relationships with many old friends who appreciate my ministry and my writing. The real goal, however, is to get my book into the hands of many people to encourage their spiritual life in new ways. So the book signings are just the beginning.

 

A few days ago I noticed on Amazon.com that Martin Marty is scheduled to come out with a new book on baptism. My first thought? “Oh, darn. Here I a parish pastor write one little book on baptism and struggle to get it out there, and then prolific and ubiquitous Martin Marty comes along and writes a book on the same subject and he’ll have an instant audience.” After I got done grousing I thought, maybe this isn’t so bad after all. Baptismal spirituality needs fresh articulating by more people and who better than a big name like Marty to do it. Then I thought again, maybe people interested in his book will also notice mine, and the benefits will double. Later, trying to be humble, I thought, mine may even have the better title! Well, readers, you’ll have to be the judge of that.

 

If you haven’t purchased my book, always available from the publisher as well as from me, you might be interested to know that one of people who endorsed it warmed my heart when he told me it contained a combination of the best of Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Alvin Rogness (Luther Seminary professor and popular writer who died some years ago). I invite you to read Water for Your Soul yourself and decide if you agree with him.