Mockingbird

I recently downloaded Derek Webb’s new album Mockingbird to play a song for our youth group, and I have played it through three times already. It’s a really fantastic album. Folksy, jangly music with thoughtful, challenging (dare I say it: prophetic?) lyrics. A sampling of some of my favorite lyrics:

I can’t afford to pay for most of what I say
So it’s a lucky thing that the truth’s public domain…

An appropriately humble stance, considering the challenging nature of this record. When you have a prophetic message (mantle?) it’s easy to become critical, cynical, even arrogant: "my eyes are open, I see the truth, and those dullards in the church don’t get it." So I like this being the first song, as a way of saying, "I need to hear this as much as you do, and I’m not saying anything others have not said before me," and then proceeding to deliver the message, as much as it might cut (and this message will cut, but it’s a wound from a friend). The next song has this lyric:

Don’t teach me about politics and government
Just tell me who to vote for
Don’t teach me about truth and beauty
Just label my music
Don’t teach me how to live like a free man
Just give me a new law

Don’t wanna know if the answers aren’t easy
So just bring it down from the mountain to me
I want a new law…

This is a scathing indictment to a Christian culture that has co-opted its responsibility to think, because it’s easier to have someone tell us what to do. "Is this music Christian?" is a question I hear a lot. My usual response: "Are you asking if all the band members and songwriters follow Jesus Christ? I don’t know them, so I’m not sure." Music cannot be "christian," only people can be. Choosing music is a lot more complex than just figuring out if it’s "Christian" or "secular." The very next song has this lyric:

Who’s your brother? Who’s your sister?
She just walked past, I think you missed her
As we’re all migrating to a place where our Father lives
Because we married into a family of immigrants

So my first allegiance is not to a flag, country, or a man
My first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
It’s to a King and a kingdom

There are two great lies that I’ve heard
The day you eat the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die
And that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class Republican
And if you want to be saved you have to learn to be like him

Many people equate Christian discipleship with being a good (Republican) citizen of America, but this song points to the truth we miss, that our allegiance is not to an economic or military empire but to Jesus Christ, who is the Lord of the world, not Caesar, not the President of the United States, not even democracy or capitalism.

I’ll post some more on other lyrics a bit later. This post is long enough! He takes on poverty and the uneven distribution of wealth, war, and pretty much every other "hot" issue you can think of. It’s good stuff.