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96: The Gospel According To U2 (Part 4)
59 Plays6 months ago
Pastor Chuck Schlie and Ryan Pfendler joined Jill Devine to continue the conversation about the sermon series Messiah is currently in the middle of, The Gospel According To U2.
Chuck and Ryan discussed their initial reaction to the idea of the sermon series and what they learned while preparing for the series.
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Transcript
Jill's Journey Back to Faith
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Christianity has become known for judgy people, strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members-only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way.
Introducing the Podcast
00:00:17
Speaker
I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible.
00:00:24
Speaker
Yet here I am hosting a podcast about faith. The normal goes a long way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect. Welcome to the conversation.
Exploring U2's Influence
00:00:40
Speaker
Thanks for coming back and joining us for our second part of the conversation with Ryan and Pastor Chuck. I'm Jill Devine and this is actually a four part series. So the first two episodes that I talked about the gospel according to you too was with Pastor Jim Mueller. So if you haven't had a chance to listen to those
00:01:02
Speaker
Those are available for you right now at normalgosolongway.com or anywhere where you'd like to get your podcast. And then two weeks ago, we started the conversation with Pastor Chuck and Ryan's perspective. And now we're going to get back into that right now in a part two slash part four episode of Normal Goes a Long Way.
U2 and Personal Memories
00:01:23
Speaker
I'm curious, so speak to this cynical millennial, you know, tell me what this series has done for you as someone who you're a U2 fan, or you just, I mean, you were jamming, we were jamming around the back. We were, totally. I'm sorry, Jess, she's never been to concerts. She was looking at us, this is his wife. How about Greg Warzell and the team? I know. Oh, it's been- Oh, Tom Stewart's coming.
00:01:51
Speaker
It has been so awesome. Yeah. Oh, so excellent. I'm just thinking about young people who might be thinking, well, we already talked about it, right? I didn't grow up with this band. They weren't impactful in my life. Well, the joke I keep hearing is, are you familiar with the Apple incident with U2? Yes, that's what everybody brought up. Every single person brought that up. U2, the band that was downloaded onto my phone without asking me.
00:02:18
Speaker
So that's the funny side story about you two. I did grow up listening to them, but for people who might be thinking, well, what's the series do? Like you tell me, how has this series impacted you?
U2 and Scripture
00:02:30
Speaker
Because, and I too think that this is helpful for me. As I said, I'm in this, I'm still young and learning how to even do a series and what the goals of it should be. So.
00:02:39
Speaker
I have not realized until the last, I would say, six months tops that God is speaking to me and through me regarding music. And it all makes sense now. When you look back at everything and you look back at my history,
00:02:57
Speaker
like on a side crazy note when it comes to radio when I was a music director and so I would get to hear music before anybody else. And one of the things that has been
00:03:10
Speaker
experimented with is that when men and women listen to music usually the men hear the melody all of that first and the women hear the lyrics first and that's what determines things yes that's how and so but I'm opposite I hear the melody I hear
00:03:29
Speaker
just all of it together and that's what shapes whether or not I like a song. It doesn't have to be the lyrics. So I bring that up because now I'm starting to hear lyrics as I just mentioned, but every single song that's out there can evoke a memory for any and everyone.
00:03:50
Speaker
Whether it's sad, whether it's happy, whether it brings you back to college, high school, wherever you are, when you turn on music, something happens.
00:04:02
Speaker
And that's what I love. That's the storytelling. That's where I can say, oh, this, this and that. I think this series has opened my eyes. I don't want anybody to just like like you too now because they know that they're Christian. That's not what this is. This is putting normal language and I would never wrote down the Romans thing like
00:04:26
Speaker
or read that probably and thought, oh, that's what that is. So it helps having somebody not only explain scripture, but then bringing this in, even if it had nothing to do with Sunday, Bloody Sunday, it was in that message. And now anytime I hear that song,
00:04:41
Speaker
this is what I'm gonna think about. What led me to that was a number of quotes in Bono's book called Surrender, which is a great biblical word, surrender, that's intentional, about how he loves Jesus, but he can't keep up with his Christianity.
Bono's Christian Struggles
00:04:59
Speaker
Like he would not say he's a great Christ follower, like he is the
00:05:05
Speaker
Ultimate example of what it looks like to follow Jesus do it like I do and I'm like, oh he wrestles with Trying to live up to it, too So do I and so does everybody else who takes, you know that seriously just like the Apostle Paul Oh ding ding ding light bulb. Let's talk about that. I'll say what I really liked about my song is So, you know in the name of love
00:05:31
Speaker
Would you call it a love song? It's a song about love, but the right kind of love. It's about self-sacrificial love. And it's about Jesus giving up himself. So he starts off by comparing Jesus and Barabbas. So he says, one man comes in the name of love, one man comes and goes. That's Barabbas.
00:05:53
Speaker
One man comes to justify that's Jesus, one man came to overthrow that's Barabbas, so you got that biblical connection there. The stuff about falling on a barbed wire fence, he says something about falling on barbed wire fence, that's like a soldier giving his life. He talks about one man betrayed with a kiss, back to Jesus again. What he's doing there, I think, I'll use this word, he's discipling people and what love looks like.
'In the Name of Love' and Sacrificial Themes
00:06:20
Speaker
It's about sacrifice and the ultimate sacrifice is found in Jesus. It's a song about dedicated to MLK as kind of this example of someone who gave of themselves for a cause, right, for the sake of love. But really it's also a song about Jesus. And it's really just a song that love is not about
00:06:47
Speaker
your feelings. It's not about the girl you pick up in your truck with the six case of beer that most country songs these days are about. Love is about what you do and give up for someone else. And I'm like, that will preach. That is what I want people to know what love is about.
00:07:07
Speaker
You know, but you don't think of it that way when you're hearing this. No, that's what I'm saying. I have to wonder how many people left that message and went, Oh, I had no clue. Love is about what I'm doing to serve someone else rather than how I'm being served. That's the kind of love I want people to know about. I had said with Pastor Jim, I never knew what the word secular was until I started working in ministry and I just don't like it. And it's just, it's just weird. It's like, Oh, if you,
00:07:37
Speaker
went to us, read a secular book. I went, no, I read a book. Like, you know, it's just so weird. I don't like that word at all. But anyway, it's that kind of, if you have secular music.
00:07:50
Speaker
So why wouldn't we want to do that? Or what do you say to those people that I would love to know? People think that bringing the common everyday type of music into church makes church less
Secular Music in Worship
00:08:02
Speaker
holy. I'm like, no, the force of Jesus is he takes the common every day. It's the reverse, I guess is what I'm saying. Everyday things don't bring Jesus down. Jesus brings everyday things up to him.
00:08:12
Speaker
At the end of the day, we're just talking about rhythms and instruments, too. It's rhythms and instruments. Jesus can make a rhythm and an instrument, serve him and his church, okay? My position is that, that you have this great example, Chuck, in church once, of like an apple that touched a piece of bread. Now that apple's dirty.
00:08:37
Speaker
So in our minds we think the dirty can only make the clean unclean. The opposite can't happen, right? But actually that is exactly what Jesus does. He makes the unclean, the common, the everyday, the secular and turns it holy. So I think that's why we can worship the way we worship here.
00:08:59
Speaker
It's just hard because for someone like me who just, I just want everyone to get connected somehow and just to see that, and it's like practice for me too, that I know that I am not doing, doing it all the right way, but that's okay. Nobody, I'm still not getting given up in. That's really big and don't change. Cause this is, this is why we do fight about
00:09:28
Speaker
churchy things or we all want to be right. Like that is, I think we have made that like the ultimate to be right. Now we don't want to purposely be wrong and be careless. But when we put being right as the ultimate, we're blowing it. Just try to follow Jesus, will you? Let's go to a U2 quote.
Bono's Simplified Scripture
00:09:59
Speaker
See what he did there My understanding of the scriptures I should do it like in an Irish voice. Can you? My understanding of the scriptures had been made simple by the person of Christ Christ teaches that God is love What does that mean?
00:10:30
Speaker
What it means for me, a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all. And then he goes on, I don't let my religion get too complicated. God is love and allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that's my religion.
00:10:56
Speaker
where things get complicated for me is where I, when I try to live this love. So that's where it gets complicated when we're trying to live it out. But understanding the love, that God is love and quick and so complicated, just deal with that. The great love of God and Jesus Christ.
00:11:16
Speaker
Well, as we wrap up, are there any other quotes or research that you would like to share? Well, I've got a couple of things. Yes. Things that did not make it into the messages. One is a big shout out to teachers. So I read this 564 page biography. So at the very end of this whole book, you get to the part about where you thank people. There's like, it's small text too, and it's almost like single space. It's like,
00:11:46
Speaker
He goes on and on and on and on and on and on. And I shared this with our teachers in devotion last month ago. And he goes, he's, he's thanks this person, that person, you know, different producers, different, you know, and then he, then he wants to thank his children, Jordan, Eve, Eli, and John.
00:12:10
Speaker
Oh, wow. Yeah, whatever. But that's interesting. And he wants to thank his four children who gave me permission to write about their lives.
00:12:21
Speaker
And then he goes, I believe there's a good chance that Allie will at some point, that's his wife. And he writes about her
Impact of Educators on Bono
00:12:28
Speaker
quite a bit. And they have this beautiful love story. They were married like when they were like 22 years old. And they're still like, I don't know if they've been married 40-ish years, but still going strong. That's awesome. In that world,
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I'm impressed. I mean, just as a, as a husband, I'm like, awesome. Awesome. It's so nice to see that. Then he goes on to thank the other members of the band, Edge, Adam, Larry, to give me a story to write. Then he thanks the U2 fans to give me a reason to keep writing. Um, and then the very last, thank you. Like the punctuation, this is it.
00:13:09
Speaker
He thanks his teachers. He grew up in this little non-denominational Christian school, and his teachers were the ones that encouraged these guys, hey, we've got a spare room. Why don't you guys practice in here? Why don't you do this? And they kind of pushed them into this artsy kind of and gave them the opportunity. And he says, no one teacher taught me how to love language.
00:13:33
Speaker
But there were two who taught me more, like communication with myself and with my maker. So Christian school. Thank you, Donald Moxham and Jack Haislip, teachers at Mount Temple Conference of School. I remain your student.
00:13:49
Speaker
Now, cool, shout out for teachers who make a difference in junior high and high school course lives because everyone, they're looking for something too. And so, awesome. That is cool. Yep. And I also like the story, but this goes back to the pride.
Bono's Social Justice Efforts
00:14:08
Speaker
And this is something we did not get too much of, but Bono specifically knew that people listened to him and he has influence because he's a rock star. He says it's not fair, it's not right, but it is what it is.
00:14:25
Speaker
Because it is what it is, I have a voice and people will listen to me. Therefore, I am going to be a voice for the poor. And I remember the big red thing for AIDS awareness. That was him. And he did this whole thing about trying to cancel debts in Africa, countries' debts.
00:14:46
Speaker
And a lot of that, you know, we really didn't talk too much about it, but quite a bit of the book is about social justice, that kind of stuff, and making a difference in those kind of ways. And so he'd meet with prime ministers and presidents, and he'd go before Congress.
00:15:06
Speaker
and talk about how the United States should cancel the debt of this African country because there's no way they can dig out of this hole. And it's really pittance to us, but it's everything to them. He's trying to talk these countries in Germany and
00:15:22
Speaker
other industrial countries to cancel the debt. And the citizens of those countries, you know how people get when it comes to money, they were not fans of that concept. And they came up with the MLK, with the pride.
00:15:37
Speaker
and he was getting death threats like left and right. And this was in Arizona and the death threats were really strong and not just like threats, but more like really specific. And one of them was, if you play that song, you will not finish this concert.
00:15:55
Speaker
And so they tripled security and all that kind of stuff. And now it's time to go out there and do the concert. But I was like, you know, you know, nervous. And he's wondering, you know, when I get to this song, because he's going to sing it. And he just kind of closed his eyes and he's kind of praying as he's singing. And he's like, I know when I get to the shots rang out in the Memphis guy kind of lying there.
00:16:23
Speaker
And that's when, remember we talked about Adam Clayton, the non-believer. He comes over and he steps in front of Bono as he's singing it. Cool move, dude. He will take a bullet. Isn't that cool? Way to step up Adam Clayton. There was not an incident, but- Thank goodness. Yeah, but- It could have been.
00:16:44
Speaker
Well, with the social justice too, what you were saying is, I'm sure, I don't know if he mentioned this, but was he approached by managers, promoters, all that like, hey, you can have your say, but it will affect your band and all of you and you may not get to do the things that you want to do.
00:17:07
Speaker
I could probably understand that he doesn't really care about the money, so to speak, but more of like his voice, but he is risking it for everyone associated with that band. I remember him wrestling with, are we still a band or am I a social justice guy now? And he's trying to be like, and he's very aware that he's just a rock star.
00:17:29
Speaker
He's like, I'm showing up at these president's offices in rock star clothing and it feels he's, he's aware that he's kind of in this role that he didn't think he'd be in, which I thought was cool. Yeah. There's a great, a great quote in here. And it's a, it's like, yeah, I watched myself on TV and I think what an a-hole, you know, he knows who he is, but he is trying to use that voice because he could make a difference.
00:17:56
Speaker
Yeah. And then towards the end, where he's like, you know, when I was in my, my twenties, I was very idealistic thirties, forties, and then now he's starting in his fifties and getting in the sixties and going, can I learn just to be still and shut up?
00:18:15
Speaker
And I can let God be God. And I don't, it's not on me. It's not about me. And he said it took him years and years and years to get to the spot where it's not about me. And I, I can't save the world. And God doesn't need my help. You know, as if he's handcuffed, unless I, you know, do my thing, which is very, that's more of a mature Christian thing to say.
00:18:41
Speaker
I just like him because he's a great example of kind of fake it till you make it. He's like, I'm going to do what's right, even if internally I know that I have all these thoughts and feelings that are completely counter to the message I'm trying to spread. Loving your neighbors, loving the least of these. You talked about like in your sermon, I'm like, he was, what was that quote about? I'm not the Christian that I'm
00:19:06
Speaker
say I am, which is probably what we would always say. I don't turn the other cheek. That's why I'm drawn to scripture because I want to be, I want to be. And he says, I can't live up to the badge that I pinned on my lapel, my Christian badge. I'm like, Oh man, I hear you.
Bono's Faith Journey
00:19:27
Speaker
I hear you. Yeah. Yeah. You've been like, right. I'm not going to say that.
00:19:30
Speaker
I'm not going to say that. I won't say it. I'm just going to listen and then you say it. Dang it. Why did I say it? Well, thank you both. This has been really good. So good to hear some of the stuff that we didn't get to hear, to hear some of the stuff again in a different perspective.
00:19:50
Speaker
I hope we keep doing stuff like this. I hope, um, I hope we pointed to Jesus. That's the idea. I just hope energy is I, I, I have come to really appreciate, um, Bono and see him as a small spiritual hero. Um, but I put him up with some of the other ones that I look up to now and I didn't go into it, but now I coming out of it, I'm like, Oh, that guy's heroic.
Future Podcast Artists
00:20:19
Speaker
on the spot, if you had another artist or band that you would like to do, who would it be? I don't know. I really don't. Do you, Ryan? That's a good question. I'm thinking we might get something. This is going to be a geezer thing to say. Sorry. But I'm like, I think we could find something with Bruce Springsteen. I think we could. We'd have to dig deeper than we certainly did with Johnny Cash and you two.
00:20:48
Speaker
but I really don't know. I was gonna ask that question myself. Maybe Mozart would be a really culturally relevant guy. You will not be invited on this podcast again. No, like I said Chance the Rapper earlier, but he's a great example of
00:21:08
Speaker
someone who is very popular with younger people today. I mean, I've, I've, I met his pastor at a conference because his pastor spoke at a preaching conference I went to. And so I think that guy's pretty legit, but I also think that it's okay to like, we're talking earlier preferences, people let's figure out, even though we may not love the idea,
00:21:36
Speaker
Of that, I mean, I think it'd be cool. I'm very interested in all that stuff, but if it can reach one person.
00:21:44
Speaker
I don't know, I feel like we- I hope would be that there'd be like at least three books about Chance the Rapper that we could get so much of reference because I don't know. Chuck's like, wait, I need some books. I need something. I need some reference, yeah. Well, this is something we can all think about. Maybe somebody listening has an idea. Send it to us. Everything is at normalgoestalongway.com. Thank you both. I really appreciate it.
00:22:39
Speaker
My pleasure. Thank you. Yeah. And you too. And you too.