Pastoral Ponderings- Weird Spirituality
How might an accordion, a dancing Darth Vader and Storm Troopers, and some perhaps slightly offensive song lyrics give us a glimpse into the Kingdom of God? Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Or it at least sounds like Weird Al Yankovic. I have no idea about Weird Al’s personal spiritual life, and that really doesn’t matter. But when the God who made the universe is often known to work in mysterious ways—wouldn’t it be simple enough for God to work through a weird concert?
Karol and I were blessed to be a part of one of his concert experiences recently, at an outdoor venue (Blossom) where you had to get there early, so we took a picnic to start our time. The first weirdness was when I dropped something on the way to the picnic table, and before I could reach down to get it, a perfect stranger dashed over from a table fifty feet away to help out. That’s strange.
Then I first started to sense something deeper when walking with the crowds from the picnic area—I’ve never seen so many “Hawaiian shirts” in one place before, or such a collection of very interesting people—all basking in and embracing the mutual weirdness of the event. Then, when Al came onstage (not that I’m on a first-name basis with him, but he did say/sing, “You can call me Al”), while singing his opening song, “Because I’m tacky…” and wearing the clothes to prove it, he was winding his way through the crown, “pressing the flesh” as politicians say, to connect with the people.
Several times through the concert he went out of his way like this to connect with the people. And throughout the concert, through the songs and the micro-culture of the event, both he in his performance and we in the crowd, thoroughly enfleshed a celebration and acceptance of all, from the most ordinary to the most eccentric of revelers (it was a Weird Al concert, after all).
It was almost like someone went out to all the highways and hedges to bring in all the people who are too often excluded and pushed off to the margins, almost like one brief shining moment of living in the Kingdom of God as Jesus described it.
Years ago when we were in seminary, our seminary president, Len Sweet, who described himself as a “futurist,” preparing us to serve the Church in decades to come, told us something like “though the Church is struggling to reach our communities, I’m completely convinced that God will still be pouring out His grace and proclaiming the Good News to our communities—even if it might not be through our churches.”
I hadn’t realized it before, but I think God is a fan of Weird Al as well, since I certainly experienced enough clues of His presence at the concert too! It was really weird, but a profoundly grace-filled experience that felt a lot like a glimpse of the broadly embracing arms of the Kingdom of God. –Pastor (“Weird”) Jim