COLDPLAY'S FIX YOU AS A PASTORAL SONG

There are things that if done in church take on different perspectives. I think of how I watched the Doubleband documentary 14 Days about the darkest days of our Northern Irish Troubles and Fr Alec Reid’s interruption for peace with hope and blood on his face. I watched it on BBC and thought, that would be a great sermon in church. It was.

The last song of Fitzroy’s The Gospel According To… Coldplay was another such moment. As Alison McNeill sat at the piano and sang perhaps Coldplay’s biggest song it became powerfully pastoral.

Chris Martin wrote the song for his then wife Gwyneth Paltrow after her father passed away:

Tears stream down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace

Tears stream down your face and I…

Tears stream down your face

I promise you, I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down your face and I…

 

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

It is pastoral. Being a husband in your loved one’s grief. There’s a little confession in there too.

As I surmised after Alison’s poignant performance I was drawn back to the morning sermon. We were speaking of the importance of community in the apprenticeship following Jesus. The book we are using is John Mark Comer’s The Way and in it he says:

“Vital that we participate in the “now and not yet” irritation of Jesus family the Church which is both beautiful and deeply flawed.”

What a weighty sentence. We have an honest description of the church. Irritation. Beautiful and deeply flawed. Indeed. 

Yet also a community that we are called to participate in, to be honed by our good and bad interactions with one another. It made me think that instead of criticising one another we understand that we are all deeply flawed. From there we realise and make conscious decision to not judge one another but to fix one another. Be pastorally engaged as Coldplay are…

… to fix you.