The Gospel and John Lennon

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church on December 11, 2005.

On February 9, 1964, the largest television audience in history tuned into the Ed Sullivan Show. The guests – an emerging British quartet, were seen but not heard. The screams from the audience completely drown them out. Two months later, the Beatles songs held the top five slots on the Billboard 100. The British invasion had begun. A nation traumatized by assassination threw itself into Beatlemania and tried to forget.

Parents, of course, were bemused at best. At worst they were convinced that everything about the Beatles, starting with the haircuts, spelled the end of civilization as they knew it. Civilization didn’t end, but it certainly noticed the Fab Four.

All things considered, I think that the Beatles held up pretty well under the intense exposure and popularity. That much adulation would have to make a body a bit wild. They handled their fame better than Elvis did. They became cultural icons. Queen Elizabeth conferred on all of them the Member of the British Empire in 1964 for their contribution to the British economy. Their fame even spread to those around them – their record producer was made a Knight in 1996. Sir Paul McCartney received that honor the following year –not for having been a Beatle but for his many contributions in his post Beatle years.

At the height of the hype, when the Beatles were truly the most popular figures in western pop-culture, John Lennon had the temerity to be quoted acknowledging just that. The quote was, I believe, misinterpreted. He was being interviewed about “How does a Beatle live?” He was talking about what life was like for them, the gargantuan notoriety and popularity. I don’t know exactly what the question was that led into the infamous remark. Here’s what he said. “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Critics promptly lined up to chastise his blasphemy. Mark David Chapman cited that statement as the reason he shot John Lennon to death, 25 years ago this week. From other interviews he gave later it was clear that John Lennon was not claiming to be greater than Jesus, he was commenting on the insanity that surrounded the band. As I wrote this sermon, I got wondering about what Beatlemania type attention would have done to Jesus. His notoriety, without the boost of an electronic media, proved to be difficult enough to handle.

Five years later, John Lennon would write, arguably his most important song, Imagine. Depending on who you are, Imagine was the anthem of a generation or just more blasphemy. We chose Imagine for today’s reading not only because the anniversary of his death has brought John Lennon’s music back into our minds and hearts but because of its important Advent themes. When I first heard it, I was taken aback by the challenge to imagine no heaven or possessions or countries. I like the idea of heaven. But, focusing on heaven has at times diminished the desire to address the lack of peace and justice on this earth. The “don’t worry about the here and now, your suffering in this life is not permanent because a better day is coming” kind of thinking has had many proponents. But I don’t think that Jesus was one of them. He taught us to pray for what we needed each day and that God’s dream of peace and justice would happen on this earth, here and now. That’s what John Lennon meant by “Imagine there’s no heaven…Imagine all the people living for today.” Imagine…it’s a very Advent thing to do.

The next verse really made people crazy – but it makes a shocking kind of sense. Imagine if we quit putting our effort into the kind of things that we fight over – nationalism, patriotism and religion. Dominic Crossan is a renown Jesus scholar. He wrote that Jesus came to proclaim a “brokerless kingdom.” That is, the non-hierarchical kingdom of God in which no one needed an intermediary or go-between to relate to God. Along with Bruce Chilton, who wrote Rabbi Jesus which we read last Lent, both felt that in the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus was saying, you don’t need the sacrifice of animal flesh to get right with God. You need community. He held up bread and said “This is my body” - actually in the original Greek, he said “This is my flesh.” He’s playing off of the animal flesh sacrificed in the Temple and substituting bread. He says, “Bread, eaten with thanksgiving, shared around the table with family and friends, is more pleasing to God than any ritual sacrifice.” Jesus’ kind of sacred table fellowship needs no religion – just people living life in peace. “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.” It was dangerous enough to sound like Jesus when you were Jesus – we certainly weren’t going to stand for it when John Lennon sounded like Jesus. But that’s exactly Dominic Crossan’s point – you don’t need to be Jesus to be a holy one of God. Come together, give peace a chance, all you need is love.

In his book A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren adds his voice to this same thought. He says, “I am more and more convinced that Jesus didn’t come merely to start another religion to compete in the marketplace of other religions. …I believe he came to open up something beyond religion – a new possibility, a realm, a domain, a territory of the spirit that welcomes everyone but requires everyone to think again and become like little children. It is not, like too many religions, a place of fear and exclusion but a place beyond fear and exclusion. It is a place where everyone can find a home in the embrace of God.” John Lennon invited us to imagine just that.

Imagine no possessions – I can certainly imagine a world without the $1.25 million Bugatti that Volkswagon spent six years developing. I can imagine a world in which no father shells out $10 million for his 13 year old daughter’s bat mitzvah. I can imagine a world in which no one is hungry and children sleep safely in warm beds. I can imagine that but it’s not easy. We’re a long way from that. Advent is the time to get serious about imagining such things because soon we will celebrate a birth that says how much God believes in us and also to celebrate what God might be imagining.

John Lennon may have been cynical about Christianity but only because it has so often missed the mark. He didn’t claim to be a theologian, only a very popular singer/songwriter. But John Lennon’s words are as spirit filled as any you can find in holy books. He sang and many listened. We’re still not to the place that he imagined, or the place that Jesus imagined. The Kingdom of God is a work in progress but we can help to make a place ready for it. “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope some day you will join us, and the world will live as one.”