Daily Worship

Let ‘em in

Alec Shuttleworth November 05, 2016 0 0

Exodus 3: 7-10

7 The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey – the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.’

Whenever I hear this track I am transported back to a student room in Holland House Pollock Halls of Residence in Edinburgh in 1977. Sunny day and me listening to the cassette I made every week of the top 40 which was broadcast on a Sunday night. You had to sit with your finger hovering over the pause button to make sure you got the tracks you wanted and cut out the DJ talking.

Let ‘em in was a big hit for Paul McCartney and Wings, a cheerful piece of nonsense, but Billy Paul made it edgy and political and of course cut into it were some of those most famous speeches by Martin Luther King. King had been shot and killed nearly 10 years before, and yet there he was cut into a pop tune and still preaching civil rights. “we will be able to achieve this  day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"”

My memory when I hear it is of happy carefree days. It was a good pop tune. But it was and is so much more.

Music channels hope, optimism, faith.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWYyejcHqIg

 

 

Loving Father God

Throughout History concerned for the justice

Which is the hall mark of  living the kingdom of heaven.

Gracious Christ Jesus

Agent of justice and herald of love

Sly Spirit of God

Bringing us a message when we least expect it,

are least looking for it,

and are therefore most open to it.

 

We thank you for your song

Your eternal dance

We bless you for

The rhythm of your purpose

The beat of your intent

The remorselessness of your care

Your insistence on freedom.

 

Amen.