Finding God In The Music

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)

Way back in the summer of 2009 I did a sermon series called “Finding God On Your iPod.” The idea was to take some contemporary rock songs and use them as a springboard to explore various spiritual and cultural themes—either that or it was just something fun to do in August. So for the five Sundays of that August I used five songs that were contemporary at that time.

1. “Laughing With” – Regina Spektor

2. “Viva La Vida” – Coldplay

3. “Dive In” – Dave Matthews Band

4. “You Found Me” – The Fray

5. “Moment of Surrender” – U2

For whatever reason, it turned out to be wildly popular. So I did it again the next summer. And the next. And the next. And now it’s become a Word of Life summer tradition. To be honest, I could retire the series and be fine with that, but I meet people all the time who tell me they look forward to it every year. Thus the series lives on. It’s been around so long that it’s outlived the iPod. A few years ago I gave it the less catchy and rather generic title of Finding God In The Music.

This Sunday the series enters its seventeenth season. Over the years I’ve used 94 songs. The Finding God In Music Anthology playlist on Spotify is over seven hours long and has 775 saves. Most years I work with recent songs—usually from within the past twelve months. But I’ve also done series on eras: 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. I don’t take suggestions for songs. I mean, you can suggest a song if you like, but don’t get your hopes up—I probably won’t use it.

And I don’t approach this in an egalitarian way—I use the songs I like. Period. If I don’t like the song, it’s not going to inspire a sermon. So, even though I “should” explore this genre or use that artist . . . I don’t. Some artists appear regularly because A. I like them; and B. they have a lot to work with lyrically. There are artists I love, but they don’t seem to have anything I can work with. For example, Queens of the Stone Age and Led Zeppelin. (No, I’m not going to use “Stairway,” so don’t even suggest it!)

The artists with the most appearances:

1. U2 8x (Which is almost cheating, because basically every U2 song is already a sermon.)

2. Bob Dylan 6x (To the surprise of exactly no one. But, hey, they gave the man a Nobel Prize for Literature!)

3. Dave Matthews Band 5x (DMB is more than a jam band. Dave Matthews is clearly a spiritual seeker.)

I rarely use overtly Christian artists because they’re usually a little too on the nose, so there’s really no point in me trying to say anything more about it. A notable exception is Jason Upton, whose songs leave room for ambiguity—a characteristic typical of good art. Some of the more interesting or surprising artists I’ve used:

Kendrick Lamar (“How Much A Dollar Cost”)

Radiohead (“Burn the Witch”)

Metallica (“Lux Æterna”)

In 2019 I used ZZ Top’s “Jesus Just Left Chicago” and then saw them that night at Starlight Theatre. That was fun.

And that’s really the point of this sermon series: It’s fun. I don’t overthink it. This is not the Council of Nicaea—it’s some summertime fun on a Sunday morning. It’s kind of gimmicky, kind of silly, but it’s also very much me. I love rock music—it’s part of who I am. So if I find a way to use rock music as a vehicle for the gospel—and the gospel always shows up!—well, why not?

If there is a more serious component to this, it might be that I’m trying to model a way of approaching life in this world—not as dour and world-denying but looking for the potential goodness to be found in artistic endeavors. In his Hymn to Zeus the pagan poet Epimenides wrote,

They fashioned a tomb for you
High and Holy One
But you are not dead
You live and abide forever
For in you we live and move and have our being

The apostle Paul famously borrowed that last line for his sermon in Athens. Paul could have called it, Finding God In Pagan Poetry. So if Paul can work with Epimenides, I can work with Nirvana. (I used “Come As You Are” last year.)

Anyway, Finding God In The Music season 17 begins this Sunday.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world.

BZ