Good Friday: Singing an American Tune

Holy Week is a journey to the cross and beyond ... and every day is a different step. This week, I'll be offering a reflection for each step of the journey for us as a Cathedral community.

Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken

And many times confused

Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken

And certainly misused

Oh, but I’m all right, I’m all right

I’m just weary to my bones

Still, you don’t expect to be

Bright and bon vivant

So far away from home, so far away from home

I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered

I don’t have a friend who feels at ease

I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered

Or driven to it’s knees

Oh, but it’s all right, it’s all right

For we lived so well so long

Still, when I think of the road

We’re traveling on

I wonder what went wrong

I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong.

In the late 19th century, Rudyard Kipling composed a poem, Recessional, on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

The poem is a prayer of stark and raw honesty – calling out the jingoism and triumphal nature of British imperialism. Kipling named the deepest sins of his people, put them in the context of the original sin of placing ourselves in the place of God, and asked for God to have mercy on the nation.

He reaches a crescendo with this final verse:

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard –

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding calls not Thee to guard.

For frantic boast and foolish word,

Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

Kipling could have been describing America today. We put our trust not in the saving power of the love of the cross but in the 21st century far more terrifying and lethal versions of reeking tube and iron shard. We have 24-hour cable news channels and most political campaigns devoted to frantic boast and foolish word. We are in deep need of humility. We are in deep need of Christ’s mercy on each of us, on the nation, on us all.

75 years later, another great poet, Paul Simon, looked out on his United States of America and saw deep brokenness that, like Kipling, moved his heart to cry out. And he wrote American Tune, a song that for me has always been the soundtrack of Good Friday.

Simon took an extraordinarily beautiful piece of music – Hans Leo Hassler’s “O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded” (the same piece that Bach used for a chorale in his St. Matthew’s Passion) – and crafted a lament for our nation that moves me to tears every time I sing along.

Good Friday is the day to recite Recessional, and it is the day to sing American Tune. Good Friday is the day to fall on our faces and admit that we don’t have it all together. That as individuals and as a nation we have erred and strayed from Christ’s ways like lost sheep. That we need, deeply and desperately need, the love and mercy of Jesus.

Good Friday is the day for us to sing our lament.

To fall at the foot of the cross and admit that we are so very often mistaken and confused, forsaken and misused.

That we are weary to our bones and feel so far away from home. That all our souls have been battered, and none of us feel at ease. That there’s not a dream that’s not been shattered and driven to its knees.

That we look around us—at all the deep divisions, the poverty and the violence and the pain and the rage – that we look around this road we’re traveling on…

…and we can’t help but wonder what went wrong.

God, how I wonder what's gone wrong.

Jesus the Christ hangs on the cross today. Today is the death of dreams. The death of hope. Today is when we are all stripped naked and we can no longer hide behind frantic boast and foolish word. Today is when we are laid bare and the only song on our lips is lament and the blues.

Today is Good Friday. It is the day we look at ourselves – as individuals, as a church, as a city, as a nation, as a world – we look at ourselves and see the huge chasm between what we dreamed to be, what we hoped to be, and what we are.

Today is Good Friday. It is the day we hear the Statue of Liberty saying with dear welcome “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and we look around and see the oppression and rejection those among us who fit those categories are experiencing.

And I dreamed I was dying

And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly

And looking back down at me

Smiled reassuringly

And I dreamed I was flying

And high up above my eyes could clearly see

The Statue of Liberty

Sailing away to sea.

And I dreamed I was flying

As Rudyard Kipling was in his day, as Paul Simon was 20 years ago, as Jesus was 2,000 years ago, we too are in the age’s most uncertain hour. And today we take time to cry. To lament of dreams lost and of sins committed. To cry out “Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord.” To fall at the foot of the cross in weariness and collapse into Jesus outstretched arms.

And in those arms to get some rest.

Oh, we come on the ship they call the Mayflower

We come on the ship that sailed the moon

We come in the age’s most uncertain hour

And sing an American tune

Oh, and it’s all right

It’s all right, it’s all right

You can’t be forever blessed

Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day

And I’m trying to get some rest.

That’s all I’m trying to get some rest.