The Gospel Isn't a Country Song
Garth Brooks performs in Notre Dame Stadium
According to Saint Paul, there are two ways of life, and these two ways are divergent ways of seeing and living. There is the way of the world - the way of flesh - and there is the way of God. Paul writes the way of this world will ultimately lead to death while the way of God leads to life. These two ways of living came to a head when Jesus was killed by the state, tortured, and then hung on a tree only to then three days later walk out of the tomb leaving his grave clothes behind.
The way of life found in God was the quintessential teaching of Jesus. In everything he taught and did he pointed towards the life and freedom we have when we are filled with the Spirit. A life possible when we are oriented towards God and away from the power of sin that has corrupted our world, setting the values of this world -the values of the flesh - against the ministry and teaching of Jesus.
Paul is beginning to build his argument for how we, Christ’s body, are to live according to the Spirit - according to Christ’s Spirit. Paul’s point is that a way of living that is focused on life and not condemnation comes from the work of the Holy Spirit, not through anything we do. The work of the Spirit is to conform us into the image of Christ so that we can then live a life according to the Spirit, living in the Kingdom of God that is present now, and not being ruled by a world engulfed in sin.
From what I have been told 1992 was a big year. I was eight years old and living my best life on a black and gold single-speed Huffy bike while technology was booming - IBM released the first ThinkPad and CD sales had surpassed those of prerecorded cassette tapes. The global economy changed with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Pop culture and entertainment were changed forever, improving the quality of life for kids on Saturday mornings when The Cartoon Network debuted. The Winter Olympics were held in Albertville, France and The Mall of America opened in Bloomington, Minnesota.
While 1992 might have been the beginning of the greatest cultural decades, sin was still present.
In 1992, country superstar Garth Brooks was at the top of his game and he was the Academy of Country Music’s Entertainer of the Year. On the same night he received that award at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, he watched, along with people all around the world, as the city of Los Angeles erupted as protests turned into riots after the acquittal of four police officers.[1] These officers had been charged with assault and use of excessive force after a video surfaced of them beating Rodney King.[2] This case took the national stage because it was one of the first times assault and use of excessive force by police had been caught on camera. Movie director John Singleton described the acquittal as the lighting of “the fuse to a bomb.”[3]
After receiving his award Brooks boarded his tour bus, along with bandmates, family, and friends, and left the Amphitheater as flames and smoke began to peek over the city skyline. People on the bus were unnerved and scared. Later that night Brooks picked up the phone and called friend and songwriter Stephanie Davis.
“Are you seeing what’s happening out here,” he asked Stephanie.
She said, “I’m way ahead of you Brooks.”[4]
While watching the riots, being moved by what she saw on her television Stephanie Davis wrote We Shall Be Free.
“When we all walk hand in hand.
When the last child cries for a crust of bread,
When the last man dies for just words that he said,
When there's shelter over the poorest head…
When the last thing we notice is the color of the skin,
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within;
When the skies and the oceans are clean again…
When we're free to love anyone we choose,
When this world's big enough for all different views,
When we all can worship from our own kind of pew.
Then we shall be free.”
The beating of Rodney King and violence in Los Angeles after the acquittal of the officers who beat him may have taken center stage but the grip of sin was still shaping the way of life in the flesh.
2000 people were killed in India after the burning of a Mosque in India.
In 1992 a violence began in Bosnia as Muslims, Serbians, and Croatians found themselves consumed by civil war.
While we can look back, remembering musicians of the time - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, and the Dead - or we can recall movies we loved - Lethal Weapon 3, Wayne’s World, and Sister Act - the truth then and today is that while we may feel free for a moment from sin - the despair of the world - we cannot free ourselves from that which has held and continues to hold a grip on us.
It would be great if we could look back on history and saw the sins of the past as sins that we have not continued to commit today. In the world of the flesh, Sin, whether by commission or omission, leads to condemnation by others and by ourselves.
But Saint Paul writes that for those who are in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation.
For those who are filled with the Spirit of the One who overcame the power of sin and death, there is no condemnation.[5]
As the riots continued in Los Angeles Rodney King famously asked, “can’t we all just get along?” The short answer, no. This is why Garth Brooks and Stephanie Davis, as much as it pains my country music, Garth Brooks blaring self to say, they got it wrong.
It’s not that “then we shall be free.” We are free.
What Brooks and Davis missed is that in the struggle of us versus them, a world full of inequality and injustice and hatred and fear, we are out of our league to think we can course-correct on our own. We’re misguided if we think we can “just get along” on our own.
Paul’s point is that sin - manifested by “peril…famine...sword...” - has been defeated by the cross of Christ. To live according to the Spirit is to live with the free confidence and joy that all that stands against God has already been defeated. By the Grace of God, we are free to set aside the agenda of life in the flesh - life consumed by us verse them, inequality and injustice, hatred and fear - and instead, being filled with the Spirit of Christ live life in a realm ruled by God. A world where Jesus is indeed Lord and the ways of the flesh fall by the wayside.
Life in the Spirit moves us from condemnation and guilt to a life that is not our own. This is the life we put on as we emerge from the waters of our baptism.
A life we cannot earn for ourselves, rather a life of freedom received by Grace.
A life that makes it possible for us to set aside rebellion and to be swept up in the Spirit of Christ.
A life free from what separates us.
A life that frees us to just get along.
A life free from condemnation and guilt.
We are free, in Jesus Christ, to go beyond our limitations and to live fully in this world, working as we are moved by the Spirit of Christ to share that freedom in a world that is better positioned to condemn and convict. In Jesus Christ, in the power of his resurrection, and by the power of the Spirit of God we have been made free, no longer condemned, no longer guilty, and now invited, all of us, to live according to God’s Grace.
[1] Szymanski, Al, director. Garth Brooks: The Road I'm On. Netflix, A&E, 2 June 2020, www.netflix.com.
[2] “After the Riots; A Juror Describes the Ordeal of Deliberations.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 July 2020, www.nytimes.com/1992/05/06/us/after-the-riots-a-juror-describes-the-ordeal-of-deliberations.html.
[3] CNN Documentary Race + Rage: The Beating of Rodney King, aired originally on March 5, 2011; approximately 14 minutes into the hour (not including commercial breaks).
[4] Szymanski, Al, director. Garth Brooks: The Road I'm On. Netflix, A&E, 2 June 2020, www.netflix.com.
[5] Romans 8:1