Word of Life Church Podcast

Song nine in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "War in the Mind" by Lauryn Hill.

"The prophet knew that religion could distort what the Lord demanded of man, that priests themselves had committed perjury by bearing false witness, condoning violence, tolerating hatred, calling for ceremonies instead of bursting forth with wrath and indignation at cruelty, deceit, idolatry, and violence." –Abraham Joshua Heschel

"God needs prophets in order to make himself known, and all prophets are necessarily artistic. What a prophet has to say can never be said in prose." –Hans Urs von Balthsar

Song eight in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "Sing All Our Cares Away" by Damien Dempsey.

The power of song must never be underestimated. Don’t ever say, "but it’s just a song." Half the Bible is “just a song!” We’ve diminished the power of song because we’ve succumbed to empiricism. Song is not reason. Song is resistance—resistance to the totalizing of the facts. We sing to push back the “facts” and create room for hope to rise. And when hope rises, we rise with it. That’s when it becomes a Song of Ascent. The Hebrews have known this. The Irish have known this. African Americans have know this. And the church has always known this…unless we have forgotten it. The church is to be the community that sings the Jesus songs of faith, hope, and love.

Song seven in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "The Thief and The Friend" by Jason Upton.

"Many men are brave
And many men are strong
But few men have I ever seen
Who’ll fight for who’s right
And then fight for who’s wrong
Fight for the friend and the thief

But I’ve heard of you
You’ve got so many names
But you call yourself Son of Man
I’ve heard your song on the streets where I live
Heard it over and over again

Light a candle tonight let it shine, let it shine
Let it shine for the goodness and glory of God
Let it shine on the wrong
Let it shine on the right
And shine especially bright for the losers
I have given them hope and a future"

- Jason Upton

The sixth song in Finding God on your iPod 2015 is "Brother" by The Brilliance. The supreme Christian confession—Jesus is Lord—is a political statement. Those who confess Jesus is Lord are to seek to embody the politics of Jesus. What are the politics of Jesus? Not the politics of competition and conquest, but the politics of love. Love for God…love for neighbor…even love for enemy. Because when we look into the face our enemy…we see our brother.

The fifth song in Finding God on Your iPod 2015 is "Us for Them" by Gungor. It’s easy to see we live in a world arranged around ‘Us vs. Them’—it's our organizing principle. But this arrangement produces hostility, hatred, and untold injustice and suffering. We may think that as long as “our side” wins it’s okay…but it’s not okay! It’s the way of death. If the world is to be saved and healed, it must be rescued from ‘Us vs. Them’—because the way of Cain always ends with Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and all manner of mass suffering.

So Jesus comes as the Savior of the world. Not to save us from God, but to save us from…us! Because the deep truth is this: There is no them, there is only us. In Christ the chosen people is the human race and the holy land is the whole earth.