First of all, the song was a capella, which means vocal music with no instrumental accompaniment, and we are talking about rock and roll.
Second of all, it displaced Guns N Roses’s “Sweet Child o’ Mine” at that number one slot-- a song that one can both simultaneously love and hate. You can love it for lead guitarist’s Slash’s musical genius, as guitar aficionados consider his lead guitar work to be #37 of the top 100 guitar solos of all time. You can also hate it because first of all, this damn song never seems to die. You can hate it due to Axl Rose’s whiny vocals blatting all over a six minute song—one that was so long the band didn’t know how to end it, which is why Rose sings “Where do we go? Where do we go now?” as they look for some kind of musical stopping point. Seriously. And if you are from St. Louis, you can hate it even more because a 1991 riot at the- then newish Riverport Ampitheatre here in St. Louis ignited by Axl Rose almost destroyed the joint and got the band banned from St. Louis until 2017. For real. You can look it up.
But back to Bobby McFerrin. The little song he wrote, as he himself tells us in its opening lines is called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” McFerrin was living in San Francisco, and he saw posters reminiscent of the 60s for a jazz duo named Tuck and Patty (look them up, they are also fabulous) repeating this slogan from the 1960s: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” which had first been popularized by the Indian guru Meher Baba.
The song starts out with happy whistling and scat singing, which is repeated in between each verse. Then the singer, in a humorous accent, begins:
Here's a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry, be happy
In every life we have some trouble
But when you worry, you make it double
Don't worry, be happy…
McFerrin then goes on to list things that one might worry about: not having a bed, your landlord threatening to begin eviction proceedings, being broke, being unfashionable, not having a girlfriend… The answer to all these things is “Don’t worry, be happy!” and happy whistling like you don’t have a care in the world. The video, since this was the age of MTV, was also charming, and included our favorite Hollywood Episcopalian, Robin Williams.
It was infectious. And it was amazing—especially when we learned that every single sound on the song was produced by McFerrin using his voice and his body. And by the way, how many of you now have this tune echoing around in your head? You’re welcome.
Now, there are always going to be naysayers who sneer at the idea of a song making much of a difference, and there are also those people who will fight you tooth and nail if you try to encourage them NOT to be miserable.
But.
The world NEEDED this song in 1988. It was an intense year, and not just because that’s the year I got married. The US was embroiled in the Iran-contra affair, which alleged that government officials had illegally provided the Iranians weapons in their war with Iraq in exchange for secret payments that could be laundered to fund extremist rebels against the extremist government in Nicaragua a half a world away.
Iraq, meanwhile, was poisoning the Kurdish people who lived within its borders with poison gas. We finally concluded yet another treaty trying to control the spread of Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons, because yes, we were still afraid that some madman would launch a nuclear war that would extinguish the human race and indeed the planet. In southwest Asia, Myanmar erupted in pro-democracy protests led by students against its military dictatorship, as Poland experiences the rise of protests against its Communist government by the working class movement called “Solidarity.”
The Soviet Army finally withdrew from its invasion of Afghanistan after 8 bloody years, and the Space Shuttle program flew its first mission nearly three years after the tragic Challenger disaster. An earthquake in Armenia killed 60,000 people.
We were tense, afraid, worried about the future for a variety of reasons. So thank God for Bobby McFerrin trying to reassure us with five minutes of light-hearted piece of perspective altering. The success of this song actually disproved the claim that telling someone to calm down never actually calms anyone down. As light-hearted as this song was, it was much-needed medicine. It was wrapped around the truth that worrying never solves ANYTHING, and that keeping our perspectives firmly fixed in what we have right now can help us avoid needlessly torturing ourselves about what might, or might not, be.
We all NEED these reminders. We are hard-wired to notice and hyperfixate on things we perceive as threats, and when we let that take up all our capacity, we then fail to notice and appreciate things that are gifts, blessings or causes for joy. Our adrenal system takes over when we worry, and we become blind to anything good. Ironically, one of the things that can most soothe moods is music. And so, yes, I am convinced Bobby McFerrin did us all a great service that year, and it paid off for him too. He received the Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 1989.
The opening words in our gospel passage today depict Jesus trying his best to encourage his followers not to worry as they too face some of the darkest days of their lives—so dark, they still don’t understand how dark it is about to get. And so he starts with “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” He then promises that even when his physical presence is no longer with his beloved friends and disciples, they can never be separated from him or from God.
We need that reassurance, because several of the readings for this week sound like the plagues of 1988. In Acts, Stephen, deacon and first martyr of the infant Church, is stoned to death by religious authorities who accuse him of blasphemy as he testifies to his experience with Jesus. Yet even with this horrific fate, he rejoices because he sees Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, and breathes forgiveness of his enemies even as he meets his fate—just as Jesus did upon the cross. Our psalm also has violence and betrayal as a subtext, yet the psalmist declares their faith in God for deliverance from those who are setting nets to entrap the psalmist. Our epistle scorns those who rejected Jesus, and calls him instead the chief cornerstone. And then here our disciples are huddled with Jesus, their heads swirling with his enigmatic statements as he tells them he will be leaving them, and that one of them will betray him.
We need that reassurance, because we also live in a time when it is hard to see and know Jesus within the world around us. Yet our Easter proclamation and faith is that he IS here, alive, and active in the world around us. He asks us to trust in that bedrock principle of faith.
Jesus tries to remind us that perception is key, just as McFerrin’s little song does in a whimsical way. Jesus also reminds us that there are many ways to see and to know someone. As anyone who has ever been separated from loved ones, either by distance or by death can attest, you can still see and experience the presence of someone even when they are not right here with you. Perhaps that’s one reason why this gospel passage is also used at funerals—so much so that many of you may be thinking about funerals as your first thought when you hear this passage.
Others of you may be thinking of the way this passage may have been misused in your own life to exclude people rather than comfort and include them. Because it certainly has been used to claim that ONLY professed Christians are the true children of God. And that is not the intention of this passage, especially when we look at the reality of Jesus’s ministry and actions during his human lifetime. Far from it. Just think of the stories we have heard in the previous weeks: last week, Jesus reminding his followers that he had other sheep than just this one flock, for example in John 10. Jesus treating the Samaritan woman at the well with courtesy, acceptance, and seriousness rather than condemnation and rejection.
I don’t know about you, but I do find comfort that those who have been Jesus’s closest friends and followers still have a hard time really seeing and knowing him, beyond mere physical presence and sight. I find that comforting, because it helps us have perspective about our own doubts and misunderstandings of Jesus. Let’s remember, the Gospel of John begins with equating Jesus, as the Word of God, with God Godself. This passage refers back to that assertion in the Prologue when Jesus asks Philip “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me?” in v. 9.
Now here is a place that perhaps can shed some light upon us in our time. Even in this secular world, one would have to be willfully ignorant to claim that they have heard nothing of Christianity. We still have a very vocal portion of the American population claiming to be acting in the name of their Christian faith in all kinds of ways within our government, our schools, and our society. Often they do this because they have misunderstood that the Word of God we worship is Jesus. The Bible is the record of the Word of God, and should be studied and interpreted again and again as the Spirit and Jesus continue to reveal God to us in the world today. We worship Jesus—not individual verses or words in documents, as holy as they are. The books are the lens, but Jesus is the light.
What has the world heard about Jesus? As the season of Easter reminds us, Jesus has been with us all this time, yet what does the world know about him? As our gospel points out, there are two ways to know Jesus: by his words, and by his actions. Not just actions in the past, but action right now, acting through the testimony and the actions of each every one of us who claim the name of “Christian.”
We were tense, afraid, worried about the future for a variety of reasons. So thank God for Bobby McFerrin trying to reassure us with five minutes of light-hearted piece of perspective altering. The success of this song actually disproved the claim that telling someone to calm down never actually calms anyone down. As light-hearted as this song was, it was much-needed medicine. It was wrapped around the truth that worrying never solves ANYTHING, and that keeping our perspectives firmly fixed in what we have right now can help us avoid needlessly torturing ourselves about what might, or might not, be.
We all NEED these reminders. We are hard-wired to notice and hyperfixate on things we perceive as threats, and when we let that take up all our capacity, we then fail to notice and appreciate things that are gifts, blessings or causes for joy. Our adrenal system takes over when we worry, and we become blind to anything good. Ironically, one of the things that can most soothe moods is music. And so, yes, I am convinced Bobby McFerrin did us all a great service that year, and it paid off for him too. He received the Grammy for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance in 1989.
The opening words in our gospel passage today depict Jesus trying his best to encourage his followers not to worry as they too face some of the darkest days of their lives—so dark, they still don’t understand how dark it is about to get. And so he starts with “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” He then promises that even when his physical presence is no longer with his beloved friends and disciples, they can never be separated from him or from God.
We need that reassurance, because several of the readings for this week sound like the plagues of 1988. In Acts, Stephen, deacon and first martyr of the infant Church, is stoned to death by religious authorities who accuse him of blasphemy as he testifies to his experience with Jesus. Yet even with this horrific fate, he rejoices because he sees Jesus sitting at the right hand of God, and breathes forgiveness of his enemies even as he meets his fate—just as Jesus did upon the cross. Our psalm also has violence and betrayal as a subtext, yet the psalmist declares their faith in God for deliverance from those who are setting nets to entrap the psalmist. Our epistle scorns those who rejected Jesus, and calls him instead the chief cornerstone. And then here our disciples are huddled with Jesus, their heads swirling with his enigmatic statements as he tells them he will be leaving them, and that one of them will betray him.
We need that reassurance, because we also live in a time when it is hard to see and know Jesus within the world around us. Yet our Easter proclamation and faith is that he IS here, alive, and active in the world around us. He asks us to trust in that bedrock principle of faith.
Jesus tries to remind us that perception is key, just as McFerrin’s little song does in a whimsical way. Jesus also reminds us that there are many ways to see and to know someone. As anyone who has ever been separated from loved ones, either by distance or by death can attest, you can still see and experience the presence of someone even when they are not right here with you. Perhaps that’s one reason why this gospel passage is also used at funerals—so much so that many of you may be thinking about funerals as your first thought when you hear this passage.
Others of you may be thinking of the way this passage may have been misused in your own life to exclude people rather than comfort and include them. Because it certainly has been used to claim that ONLY professed Christians are the true children of God. And that is not the intention of this passage, especially when we look at the reality of Jesus’s ministry and actions during his human lifetime. Far from it. Just think of the stories we have heard in the previous weeks: last week, Jesus reminding his followers that he had other sheep than just this one flock, for example in John 10. Jesus treating the Samaritan woman at the well with courtesy, acceptance, and seriousness rather than condemnation and rejection.
I don’t know about you, but I do find comfort that those who have been Jesus’s closest friends and followers still have a hard time really seeing and knowing him, beyond mere physical presence and sight. I find that comforting, because it helps us have perspective about our own doubts and misunderstandings of Jesus. Let’s remember, the Gospel of John begins with equating Jesus, as the Word of God, with God Godself. This passage refers back to that assertion in the Prologue when Jesus asks Philip “Have I been with you all this time, and you still do not know me?” in v. 9.
Now here is a place that perhaps can shed some light upon us in our time. Even in this secular world, one would have to be willfully ignorant to claim that they have heard nothing of Christianity. We still have a very vocal portion of the American population claiming to be acting in the name of their Christian faith in all kinds of ways within our government, our schools, and our society. Often they do this because they have misunderstood that the Word of God we worship is Jesus. The Bible is the record of the Word of God, and should be studied and interpreted again and again as the Spirit and Jesus continue to reveal God to us in the world today. We worship Jesus—not individual verses or words in documents, as holy as they are. The books are the lens, but Jesus is the light.
What has the world heard about Jesus? As the season of Easter reminds us, Jesus has been with us all this time, yet what does the world know about him? As our gospel points out, there are two ways to know Jesus: by his words, and by his actions. Not just actions in the past, but action right now, acting through the testimony and the actions of each every one of us who claim the name of “Christian.”
In the end, Jesus urges us not to worry, not to fear, but instead to believe. To try and sometimes fail but to keep trying in our journey of discipleship. And this kind of belief operates not at the intellectual level but above it at the level of trust. Part of our charge to trust is to not try to use Jesus as a way of dividing people and stoking fear.
One way to avoid fear and worry, I have found, is by activity. If the world around us does not know Jesus, we are called to respond by seizing the opportunity rather than apathy or despair. To turn away from gossip, slander, and trying to make ourselves feel better by tearing those around us down and instead embrace Jesus’s call to integrity, responsibility, and duty to each other. Jesus will not get any better known by our silence—or worse my our misdeeds in public. Jesus is best known and seen in the world right now through us and how we behave.
To the dirge of the world around us, Jesus calls us to sing a song of peace, of relationships healed and enemies reconciled, of embracing justice and compassion as our lodestars against the ignorance, betrayal, and corruption that swirls around us in this world that needs Jesus now more than ever. To remember that Jesus is our shepherd, and everyone’s. That there are many dwelling places in God’s eternal home, and to stop thinking we get to decide who gets in and who is left out. But most of all, for us to take up our own share in the kingdom of God right now, and live so that our words and actions reveal Jesus to those around us every day.
Amen.
Readings:
Preached at the 10:30 Holy Eucharist at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, 63011.
Citations:
Bobby McFerrin, "Don't Worry, Be Happy," from the album Simple Pleasures (1988).
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