U2 and The Wall

Just got home from a road trip of a lifetime. From Colorado Springs, through Montrose, CO, to Las Vegas. With a best friend and an old friend and two new friends in a station wagon, across the astonishing Utah desert to sin city. And there to fulfill a "bucket list" dream, to see U2 in concert.

It was stunning, emotional, moving, happy, beloved, and filled with the presence of God. I can't wait to tell you about it.

But right now, I'm thinking about "the wall" that separates most of us in the American Church from the full-out life that God has called us to live, and from contributing wholeheartedly to the glory of a restored creation. And what I saw in U2 that gives me hope and inspiration about how to get through the wall.

You see, the four guys in U2 seem to have blasted a way through the wall a long time ago. Maybe that's because they come from part of the world where the post-Christian reality set in a long time ago, and Christ-followers in such places have to figure out how to live subversively, sometimes cryptically, posing the right (hard) questions that sow seeds in people about faith and Jesus and truth and what really matters. We find people like U2 in Australia and New Zealand, and all across Europe in little bands, pockets of creativity, and thinking communities. They have so much to teach us, because they got there a long time before us.

But now it's our turn, as our culture makes the big sweeping turn into the postmodern, post-Christian, and post-denominational world, marginalizing the Church, writing us off as irrelevant, and moving steadily into an amoral reality.

So, just what was U2 "selling" in Las Vegas on Friday night? For one thing, Bono makes himself vulnerable to this increasingly secularized world by inviting us to watch him in conversation with God, to even listen in (in songs and in posture and in words spoken out to God in the midst of the concert), and to join him. Even if one doesn't believe. He is believing what he believes and he does what a believer does and he leaves it out there for others to "come and see." But he does it ON THEIR TURF. He makes the quiet invitation respectfully. Bono doesn't bully. He doesn't even try that hard to persuade. He simply bears witness. He throws a big party and invites anyone to come who will, and he points.

And by simply communing with God in a concert, Bono gives people hope that there really is Someone listening. He penetrates defences, I think, and calls out that deep down wonderment and longing that there is Someone who cares.

But hand in hand with that, the band leads with active, hands-on deeds kind of faith. You know, the Biblical kind: the "faith without works is dead" kind. The "I'll show you my faith by how I live" kind. Deeds are about the only way to win a hearing these days. And whether it's God's heart for those in extreme poverty, or for the President of the U.S., or for those unjustly jailed, or those desperately in need of HIV drugs to fight against the disease in Africa, U2 is in the fray and inviting you and me to get on board with it. And believe me, that calls forth a huge amount of trust "capital" in the world we're living in.

If I really want to get through the wall, I think it means actually risking out in the world as part of my therapy, part of the breakthrough. Waiting until I am free won't work. Working on the world's turf is the only way to get free.

That's what I think. I hate fads. i hate celebrity worship. I HATE the herd mentality. But I think U2 is on a pilgrimage that I am late in joining. And I think they have a lot to teach me. That's where I'm going, and I hope you will, too.