Martyn Joseph’s song Kiss The World Beautiful is a beautifully crafted song about loving the world. As Bono later shouted “the future needs a big kiss.” It is about hope and change and good and right and a shalom-like balance to the way everything that is turns out. Though an overall success, some of the lines seem to find Joseph groping for the poetry, the direction to meet the huge ambition of the idea. There is for me one couplet that is a dog-at-my-heels line that touches the depths of my psyche and shapes my every day. After he has addressed the world and went for a chat with God, Joseph brings it all back down to loving the one he’s with. As he turns to that loved one and longs to kiss her lips he finds a truth that is explosive particularly in the religious world that Joseph and I have been weaned, damaged and healed in: -
“Sometimes it’s just more important to love
Than to always have it right...”
There can be little question that this is a cannonball aimed at the fundamentalism and arrogant Christianity that in a recent interview Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong said that all good Christians would be critical of. It is a line that Jesus might have used against the Pharisees. In the conservative Christian world that Martyn Joseph and I grew up in, there is an over emphasis on being right and an unloving damning dismissal and demonizing of those who don’t think exactly and correctly, as we do; the Pharisees were as much about conformity as legalism! It portrays an image of God that is far from a loving. Indeed I remember at college coming back from hearing one of the popular preachers of the day and someone saying with a condemning sneer, “I suppose it was all about love, love, love?!” I was young and a little naive and thus very confused!
Jesus seemed to be all about “love, love, love” from what I read in my Bible. When Jesus healed on the Sabbath they told him it wasn’t right; he thought it was more important to love the man with the withered hand. When they wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery and Jesus got them to drop the stones, they had the law on their side; but Jesus thought it more important to reach out in grace and forgive the woman. When he touched the leper it was not the right thing to do; but Jesus thought it important to show tangible love to the outcast. Loving God and your neighbour as yourself, never mind your enemies seemed more crucial to the soul of Christian spirituality than knowing all the theology of legal manoeuvres.
To bring it down to something personal, I am currently hearing very critical and nasty accusations on how I have acted towards someone. I understand the circumstances by which they come and that the person throwing out the malice has a condition that confuses their perspective and it is therefore not their fault. At the same time my soul’s sensitivity is bruised by hurtful lies. I want to defend myself and deny the rumours even though all those who know the truth, know the truth. Then this line of Kiss The World Beautiful, that I happen to wear on a t-shirt, stops me short. I don’t need to clear my name and prove that I am right. It is more important in this particular case where my accuser cannot help their actions to love and not always be right. In the choice of loving this person as Jesus does or vindicating my own character, by what I didn’t do and actually cataloguing all the care I gave, I need to forget my need to be proven right and simply go on loving. Lord help me to kiss this world beautiful!
Hey there, Stocki ...
Your present situation is tough stuff. And, indeed, ‘sometimes it’s just more important to love than to always have it right.’ A fortified, resolute and loving soul is what this situation demands and it is something you more than adequately possess. As you have noted it is the weak and weakness that wound. To Love is ‘the’ choice.
Martyn’s ‘People Crazy As Me’ is what I send back your way.
Take care, Ross
Posted by: Ross Eagles | 07/07/2009 at 08:34 AM
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. to quote Bill Clinton, " I feel your pain. " Been there myself and if I continue in Ministry, will be there again. All I can do is encourage you, " The right thing may not be easy but it is always the right thing". Seems that you have done the right thing. He who loves us and saves us from ourselves will also keep you. Wish I was going to be a GB this year but not to be. Planning for next year already. Keep up the good work. I was raised in the same camp in which you were raised and it was like therapy to be freed of it. I am glad you found your deliverance also. Blessing my friend.Peace.
Posted by: Jesse Moore | 13/07/2009 at 02:56 PM
If You ...
People are often unreasonable, illogical,
and self-centered; forgive them anyway.
If you are kind,
People may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful,
you will win some
false friends and some
true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could
destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity
and happiness,
there may be jealousy;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,
people will often
forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the
best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the
best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Mother Teresa
Posted by: Phoenix | 17/07/2009 at 04:43 PM