+ In the Love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
About a year ago now I downloaded to my iPod Touch all of Bob Dylan’s songs. Many of them I had known for years, including Blowin’ in the Wind and Like a Rolling Stone and The Times They Are a-Changing. But some of them were new to me.
Well, let’s forget Bob Dylan for the moment, and turn to the reading from Romans (6:12-20):
“Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.”
Paul makes two contrasts here. The first is a contrast between the body as a whole, and the body’s individual members or parts, like the eyes, or the mouth, or the hands.
The second contrast is between sin and the instruments of wickedness, and God and the instruments of righteousness.
Now the word translated “instruments” is a military word and should be translated literally as “weapons,” like this: “No longer present your members to sin as weapons of wickedness.” In other words, don’t report to sin as your commanding officer and let him use your eyes, or your mouth, or your hands as weapons of wickedness. Instead, says Paul, report to God as your commanding officer and let God use your eyes, and mouth, and hands, as weapons of righteousness. Isn’t that a great turn of phrase?― weapons of righteousness? Unfortunately, our translators either missed or didn’t appreciate Paul’s brilliant phrasing. But Paul is about to unfold another, even more striking image:
“But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin . . . have become slaves of righteousness” for “you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God. . . .”
Here’s how John A. T. Robinson, the late New Testament scholar and Anglican Bishop, puts it in his book Wrestling with Romans (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1979), p. 74:
“You cannot serve sin any longer; it shall not be your boss. For, look, conversion means nothing less than change of ownership. No one can be a slave to two masters (Matthew 6:24). You can be an employee of two masters, you can do part-time work for each. But slavery as Paul’s readers knew well enough . . . is total ownership. Every moment of your time is completely at the disposal of your master, there are not even work hours” (p. 74).
That’s how Bishop Robinson puts it. And here’s how Bob Dylan puts it in one of his songs which were new to me, titled Gotta Serve Somebody (Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music, http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/gotta-serve-somebody):
You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
. . .
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side
You may be workin’ in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair
You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
There are five other stanzas, but you get the point― “it may be the devil or it may be the Lord/But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”
Now taking for granted that all of us here this morning are serving the Lord, take a look at the astonishing thing that Jesus says about us in this morning’s Gospel (Mt. 10:40-42):
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me”― that is, whoever welcomes you, or me, welcomes Jesus, and whoever welcomes Jesus welcomes the Father! Isn’t that extraordinary?
And Jesus continues: “Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”
In this case the translation is so literal that it’s nealry incomprehensible! What it means is this: “Whoever welcomes a prophet because he or she is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”
Now most people think a prophet is someone who foretells the future, but in fact most prophets do not foretell, they forth tell― they tell forth messages from God. In Matthew’s day, Christian prophets traveled all over the Roman Empire, and they needed places to stay while they were on the road. So Jesus is saying that every stay-at-home Christian who welcomes a traveling prophet will get the same “reward”― eternal life― as the prophet!
Which brings us back to Bob Dylan. Listen to this account from Wikipedia:
“In the late 1970s, Dylan became a born-again Christian. . . . [His album] Slow Train Coming . . . won Dylan a Grammy Award as “Best Male Vocalist” for the song “Gotta Serve Somebody.”
. . .
When touring from the fall of 1979 through the spring of 1980, Dylan would not play any of his older, secular works, and he delivered declarations of his faith from the stage, such as:
Years ago they ... said I was a prophet. I used to say, “No I’m not a prophet” they say “Yes you are, you’re a prophet.” I said, “No it’s not me.” They used to say “You sure are a prophet.” They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say Jesus Christ is the answer. They say, “Bob Dylan’s no prophet.” They just can’t handle it.
Dylan’s embrace of Christianity was unpopular with some of his fans and fellow musicians. . . . John Lennon recorded “Serve Yourself” in response to Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody.”
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord― or it may be yourself―, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody!
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