RTE Radio Special
When U2 began touring their latest album All that You Can’t Leave Behind at the end of 2000, they openly declared that they were after their old job back – the biggest rock band in the world. Eighteen months on and an Elevation Tour that has taken them across America and Europe, dropping in for two unforgettable Saturdays at Slane Castle they are just that. Indeed in the shadow of September 11th it might even be said that they have become the priest and the pastors for a whole generation of music fans who have been in need of some sense and some comfort and some sign post to the transcendent as we wrestle with the big cosmic questions.
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For from the band’s 1987 album Joshua Tree is probably as good a mission statement of the U2 cause as any other song they have released. Growing out of a Charismatic Christian Fellowship in Dublin at the end of the seventies U2 interconnected their Christian beliefs and rock music with a credibility that defied prejudice. By the time of the Joshua Tree however some Christians had become somehow suspicious of their stance. Surely claiming that they hadn’t found what they were looking for was the great proof of their betrayal.
Quite I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For packed many a Christian doctrine into an economy of rock poetry that the traditional hymn writers would have been proud of…
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And all my shame
Right there in the heart of the song lies the heart of the Gospel. The doctrine of the cross, its atonement and substitionary death of Christ in our place was Number 1 in the US Charts for 4 weeks. U2 were claiming to believe it…but they still hadn’t Found What they were looking for…It exposes a dangerous error we can have at the finding of faith – that it is over, sorted, what we are looking for is found…
This is not the case…the finding of God is but the beginning of the journey and not the end….For the Christian that cross is the starting point to the journey…Believing in what Jesus has done for us is the jumping off point to a whole new life and world… In I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For U2 spell out the creed of their bases of faith and subsequent journey…the merciful act of God’s Grace on that very first Good Friday.
That Grace of God becomes a theme again 13 years later at the end of All That You Can’t Leave Behind…
GRACE - U2 (taken from All That You Can’t Leave Behind)
Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace, it's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that could change the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything
Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma, karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work you can hear the strings
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt, what once was friction
What left a mark, no longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace finds goodness in everything
From this dependency on the amazing grace of God revealed in as Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans “While we were still sinners Christ died for us” U2 were singing about running and crawling and scalling city walls in an attempt to find what they ere looking for.
I guess it is like that moment in CS Lewis’s Magician’s Nephew when Digory and Polly have discovered the magic rings that take them into the wonderful Kingdom of Narnia…
Polly and Diggory have found these magic rings that they have discovered transports them into the wondrous new world. Arriving in the new world and finding out that fascination and adventure has a great deal of the unknown and some fearful apprehension that comes with it, Polly suggests that they go back home. Diggory’s response comes with a profound wisdom that can be related to most of what life is all about but must particularly be applicable to the faith journey – “There’s not much point in finding a magic ring that lets you into other worlds if you’re afraid to look at them when you’ve got there!”
What is the point of Jesus coming and dying on the cross if we are not going to explore the Kingdom of God once His grace opens it up for us. When Paul wrote to the Church in Philippi he suggested that he too believed that the work and grace of God was what he was now relying on for his salvation but far from that being it over he was now striving on towards what he was looking for – the call of God to become in Christ what he might possibly now become…
PHILIPPIANS 3 v 7 – 14 read by Rhoda Moore (from New International version)
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
You might almost think that Bono had Philippians in his mind when he wrote the words of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
As we look around at our own lives have we found what we are looking for or can we too easily spot the guilt or shame or destructive habits or sense of inferiority and insecurity that causes us to lose the peace that Christ’s cross was intended to bring us. Even though like Paul we might realise that a righteousness has come from God to make us right before God, do we not see the lack of practical holiness that permeates through the moments of our day. Do we not find ourselves often stuck in a moment that we cannot see anyway out of. Though God never promises to rid us of earthly troubles, faith in the one who broke the bonds and loosed the chains and carried the cross and our shame might just help us through the darkness, with chinks of light that help us see that just maybe, we can be changed…
I CALL ON YOU - Johnny Parks and The Derryvolgie Choir (versions are available on Johnny’s albums Nomads Welcome and Close To You)
I call on you Almighty Lord (X4)
I come to you and stand before your throne
I lift my voice in worship here once more
You turned the darkness in me into light
You took my blinded soul and gave me sight
As I sank down to the depths you heard my cry
You lifted me and taught me how to fly
You promised me you’re always here to stay
So as I stand before you Lord I want to say
I worship you Almighty Lord (x4)
The heavenly host are captured by the love
Of the one who laid his life down at the cross
We lift the name of Jesus to the skies
So all might see and know that there is life
And where there’s hatred let me bring your love
And where there’s sorrow let me bring your joy
As I stand before you will you lift your face
And bring resurrection power to this place
I call on you Almighty Lord (x4)
As we look around us at the island that we are from have we found what we are looking for. In these past weeks we have been forced to remember our peculiar little troubles as we have looked back at Sunday Bloody Sunday and the Omagh bombing. As the hurt and the pain and the mourning causes many to rage for justice we pray that we might indeed find the justice that we are looking for and that the justice would be Christlike in its motivation. But we must be seeking much more. We must be looking for a future that we are looking for where we will learn as a country to forgive and to love enemies and to treat one another above ourselves and live at peace with all men as the radical call of the Gospel demands. Imagine a country where God’s Kingdom would come and His will would be done in Ireland as it is in Heaven. That is what we are looking for.
WE DON’T NEED RELIGION - Brian Houston and The Derryvolgie Choir (original version on Brian’s album 35 Summers – www.brianhouston.com)
Well I see the people in the balconies on the streets and in their cars
the party going animals down in the backstreets and the bars saying
we don't need religion
And I've been a timber jack, been a labourer been a
shipyard man and a shirker
I've been with builders building houses and I heard a
million McDonalds workers saying
We don't need religion
we don't need religion well we don't need religion but
we could use the love of God
And I've got false prophets on my TV telling me this union's doomed
while the spirit filled believers take up the floor space in the room saying
we don't need religion
So come all you preachers and you pastors all you priests nuns and scholars
come on and walk down the road without those robes
crucifixes and orange collars
You know we can't bleed religion
Now is it Saturday is it Sunday the fact is I’m never sure
there’s a Sabbath in there some way why can't we try Yom Kippur you know
we don't need religion
And while we're all so busy fighting using up God's precious time
there’s a thousand starving homeless people saying
buddy can you spare a dime
You know we can't eat religion
As we look around us at our world have we found what we are looking for? Children are starving to death as a result of the imbalances of a west being rich beyond obscene while some people have no hope of a meal on the horizon of the week to come. Countries are burdened and hopelessly weighed down by debt repayments that far outweigh the aid that our charities are sending to them. In Africa there is an AIDS epidemic being made much more catastrophic because rich pharmaceutical companies have patented the drugs that are the only hope some people have for healing and are charging astronomical amounts of money that results in almost genocide. Oh for the Kingdom to come there God. Oh help us to see this world as you see it and may we never stop running and crawling and scaling until we have found what we are looking for in this world around us.
WORK A MIRACLE - Brian Houston and The Derryvolgie Choir –(originally available on Brian’s album In The Words Of Dr. Luke - www.brianhouston.com))
We are called to be prophets to this nation
To be the word of God in every situation
Change my heart, change my heart today
Who'll be the salt if the salt should lose its flavour
Who'll be the salt if the salt should lose its flavour
Change my heart, change my heart today
Lord lose the chains of oppression
Lord set the captives free
Lord fill my heart with compassion
Shine your light, shine your light
Shine your light through me
Work a miracle in my heart
Work a miracle in my heart
Work a miracle in my heart
O Lord today
Lord take all my lies and take all of my greed
Let me be a sacrifice for those who are in need
Change my heart, change my heart today
Lord without your power it's all just good intentions
Lord without your grace who could find redemption
Change my heart, change my heart today
THE I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR PRAYER(written by Steve Stockman and read by Lynsey Marks)
Lord You broke the bonds
You loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And our shame
You know we believe it
We trust in Christ's death for us
We believe in Your grace given to us
We rest in Your love lavished upon us
But we are so very aware
That we still haven't found what we are looking for
.
Lord we are aware that trusting in You
Believing in You
Resting in You
Is not the end but the beginning
And we are content tonight in the new birth Your grace brings us
We are confident in Your promise
That there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
But Lord in our contentedness and in our confidence
Do not allow the devil to get a foothold
And cause us to relax so much
That we languish in our sin, our doubts and our failings
And live lives that cause You hurt or pain or sadness.
Lord we ask You to move us on
To cause us to grow
To mould us and shape us
Lord we ask that You would inspire us
To let us see who we can become
People who reveal Your power and love and holiness
In a world of weakness, spite and hedonistic anything goes
People who mature and develop
Into stable, useful members of family, church and community
.
As we pray this prayer
We are even more acutely aware
That we still haven't found what we are looking for
So Lord press us on to take hold of that
For which You have taken hold of us
Help us to make every effort
To strain towards what is ahead
To press on towards the prize
For which God calls us heavenward in Christ Jesus
.
I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR - Brian Houston, Johnny Parks and The Derryvolgie Choir (written by U2 and available on their albums Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum)I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR – U2 (from Joshua Tree)
When U2 began touring their latest album All that You Can’t Leave Behind at the end of 2000, they openly declared that they were after their old job back – the biggest rock band in the world. Eighteen months on and an Elevation Tour that has taken them across America and Europe, dropping in for two unforgettable Saturdays at Slane Castle they are just that. Indeed in the shadow of September 11th it might even be said that they have become the priest and the pastors for a whole generation of music fans who have been in need of some sense and some comfort and some sign post to the transcendent as we wrestle with the big cosmic questions.
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For from the band’s 1987 album Joshua Tree is probably as good a mission statement of the U2 cause as any other song they have released. Growing out of a Charismatic Christian Fellowship in Dublin at the end of the seventies U2 interconnected their Christian beliefs and rock music with a credibility that defied prejudice. By the time of the Joshua Tree however some Christians had become somehow suspicious of their stance. Surely claiming that they hadn’t found what they were looking for was the great proof of their betrayal.
Quite I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For packed many a Christian doctrine into an economy of rock poetry that the traditional hymn writers would have been proud of…
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And all my shame
Right there in the heart of the song lies the heart of the Gospel. The doctrine of the cross, its atonement and substitionary death of Christ in our place was Number 1 in the US Charts for 4 weeks. U2 were claiming to believe it…but they still hadn’t Found What they were looking for…It exposes a dangerous error we can have at the finding of faith – that it is over, sorted, what we are looking for is found…
This is not the case…the finding of God is but the beginning of the journey and not the end….For the Christian that cross is the starting point to the journey…Believing in what Jesus has done for us is the jumping off point to a whole new life and world… In I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For U2 spell out the creed of their bases of faith and subsequent journey…the merciful act of God’s Grace on that very first Good Friday.
That Grace of God becomes a theme again 13 years later at the end of All That You Can’t Leave Behind…
GRACE - U2 (taken from All That You Can’t Leave Behind)
Grace, she takes the blame
She covers the shame
Removes the stain
It could be her name
Grace, it's a name for a girl
It's also a thought that could change the world
And when she walks on the street
You can hear the strings
Grace finds goodness in everything
Grace, she's got the walk
Not on a ramp or on chalk
She's got the time to talk
She travels outside of karma, karma
She travels outside of karma
When she goes to work you can hear the strings
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace, she carries a world on her hips
No champagne flute for her lips
No twirls or skips between her fingertips
She carries a pearl in perfect condition
What once was hurt, what once was friction
What left a mark, no longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace finds goodness in everything
From this dependency on the amazing grace of God revealed in as Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans “While we were still sinners Christ died for us” U2 were singing about running and crawling and scalling city walls in an attempt to find what they ere looking for.
I guess it is like that moment in CS Lewis’s Magician’s Nephew when Digory and Polly have discovered the magic rings that take them into the wonderful Kingdom of Narnia…
Polly and Diggory have found these magic rings that they have discovered transports them into the wondrous new world. Arriving in the new world and finding out that fascination and adventure has a great deal of the unknown and some fearful apprehension that comes with it, Polly suggests that they go back home. Diggory’s response comes with a profound wisdom that can be related to most of what life is all about but must particularly be applicable to the faith journey – “There’s not much point in finding a magic ring that lets you into other worlds if you’re afraid to look at them when you’ve got there!”
What is the point of Jesus coming and dying on the cross if we are not going to explore the Kingdom of God once His grace opens it up for us. When Paul wrote to the Church in Philippi he suggested that he too believed that the work and grace of God was what he was now relying on for his salvation but far from that being it over he was now striving on towards what he was looking for – the call of God to become in Christ what he might possibly now become…
PHILIPPIANS 3 v 7 – 14 read by Rhoda Moore (from New International version)
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
You might almost think that Bono had Philippians in his mind when he wrote the words of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
As we look around at our own lives have we found what we are looking for or can we too easily spot the guilt or shame or destructive habits or sense of inferiority and insecurity that causes us to lose the peace that Christ’s cross was intended to bring us. Even though like Paul we might realise that a righteousness has come from God to make us right before God, do we not see the lack of practical holiness that permeates through the moments of our day. Do we not find ourselves often stuck in a moment that we cannot see anyway out of. Though God never promises to rid us of earthly troubles, faith in the one who broke the bonds and loosed the chains and carried the cross and our shame might just help us through the darkness, with chinks of light that help us see that just maybe, we can be changed…
I CALL ON YOU - Johnny Parks and The Derryvolgie Choir (versions are available on Johnny’s albums Nomads Welcome and Close To You)
I call on you Almighty Lord (X4)
I come to you and stand before your throne
I lift my voice in worship here once more
You turned the darkness in me into light
You took my blinded soul and gave me sight
As I sank down to the depths you heard my cry
You lifted me and taught me how to fly
You promised me you’re always here to stay
So as I stand before you Lord I want to say
I worship you Almighty Lord (x4)
The heavenly host are captured by the love
Of the one who laid his life down at the cross
We lift the name of Jesus to the skies
So all might see and know that there is life
And where there’s hatred let me bring your love
And where there’s sorrow let me bring your joy
As I stand before you will you lift your face
And bring resurrection power to this place
I call on you Almighty Lord (x4)
As we look around us at the island that we are from have we found what we are looking for. In these past weeks we have been forced to remember our peculiar little troubles as we have looked back at Sunday Bloody Sunday and the Omagh bombing. As the hurt and the pain and the mourning causes many to rage for justice we pray that we might indeed find the justice that we are looking for and that the justice would be Christlike in its motivation. But we must be seeking much more. We must be looking for a future that we are looking for where we will learn as a country to forgive and to love enemies and to treat one another above ourselves and live at peace with all men as the radical call of the Gospel demands. Imagine a country where God’s Kingdom would come and His will would be done in Ireland as it is in Heaven. That is what we are looking for.
WE DON’T NEED RELIGION - Brian Houston and The Derryvolgie Choir (original version on Brian’s album 35 Summers – www.brianhouston.com)
Well I see the people in the balconies on the streets and in their cars
the party going animals down in the backstreets and the bars saying
we don't need religion
And I've been a timber jack, been a labourer been a
shipyard man and a shirker
I've been with builders building houses and I heard a
million McDonalds workers saying
We don't need religion
we don't need religion well we don't need religion but
we could use the love of God
And I've got false prophets on my TV telling me this union's doomed
while the spirit filled believers take up the floor space in the room saying
we don't need religion
So come all you preachers and you pastors all you priests nuns and scholars
come on and walk down the road without those robes
crucifixes and orange collars
You know we can't bleed religion
Now is it Saturday is it Sunday the fact is I’m never sure
there’s a Sabbath in there some way why can't we try Yom Kippur you know
we don't need religion
And while we're all so busy fighting using up God's precious time
there’s a thousand starving homeless people saying
buddy can you spare a dime
You know we can't eat religion
As we look around us at our world have we found what we are looking for? Children are starving to death as a result of the imbalances of a west being rich beyond obscene while some people have no hope of a meal on the horizon of the week to come. Countries are burdened and hopelessly weighed down by debt repayments that far outweigh the aid that our charities are sending to them. In Africa there is an AIDS epidemic being made much more catastrophic because rich pharmaceutical companies have patented the drugs that are the only hope some people have for healing and are charging astronomical amounts of money that results in almost genocide. Oh for the Kingdom to come there God. Oh help us to see this world as you see it and may we never stop running and crawling and scaling until we have found what we are looking for in this world around us.
WORK A MIRACLE - Brian Houston and The Derryvolgie Choir –(originally available on Brian’s album In The Words Of Dr. Luke - www.brianhouston.com)
We are called to be prophets to this nation
To be the word of God in every situation
Change my heart, change my heart today
Who'll be the salt if the salt should lose its flavour
Who'll be the salt if the salt should lose its flavour
Change my heart, change my heart today
Lord lose the chains of oppression
Lord set the captives free
Lord fill my heart with compassion
Shine your light, shine your light
Shine your light through me
Work a miracle in my heart
Work a miracle in my heart
Work a miracle in my heart
O Lord today
Lord take all my lies and take all of my greed
Let me be a sacrifice for those who are in need
Change my heart, change my heart today
Lord without your power it's all just good intentions
Lord without your grace who could find redemption
Change my heart, change my heart today
THE I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR PRAYER(written by Steve Stockman and read by Lynsey Marks)
Lord You broke the bonds
You loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And our shame
You know we believe it
We trust in Christ's death for us
We believe in Your grace given to us
We rest in Your love lavished upon us
But we are so very aware
That we still haven't found what we are looking for
.
Lord we are aware that trusting in You
Believing in You
Resting in You
Is not the end but the beginning
And we are content tonight in the new birth Your grace brings us
We are confident in Your promise
That there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
But Lord in our contentedness and in our confidence
Do not allow the devil to get a foothold
And cause us to relax so much
That we languish in our sin, our doubts and our failings
And live lives that cause You hurt or pain or sadness.
Lord we ask You to move us on
To cause us to grow
To mould us and shape us
Lord we ask that You would inspire us
To let us see who we can become
People who reveal Your power and love and holiness
In a world of weakness, spite and hedonistic anything goes
People who mature and develop
Into stable, useful members of family, church and community
.
As we pray this prayer
We are even more acutely aware
That we still haven't found what we are looking for
So Lord press us on to take hold of that
For which You have taken hold of us
Help us to make every effort
To strain towards what is ahead
To press on towards the prize
For which God calls us heavenward in Christ Jesus
.
I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR - Brian Houston, Johnny Parks and The Derryvolgie Choir (written by U2 and available on their albums Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum)
I have climbed the highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes, I'm still running
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And all my shame
All my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
BENEDICTION (written and read by Steve Stockman and available on Stevenson Samuel’s album Gracenotes – www.goldrecords.co.uk)
Give us faith to believe the truth
And the right to ask why
Give us joy in life’s fulfilment
And the right to ask why
Give us strength to carry others
And the right to wilt
Give us grace towards holiness
And the right to confess our guilt
God show us a bigger picture
Lord play us a longer song
Christ put us on a road that is straighter
Than the one we’re on
AMEN.
I have climbed the highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you
I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire
I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well, yes, I'm still running
You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
And all my shame
All my shame
You know I believe it
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
BENEDICTION (written and read by Steve Stockman and available on Stevenson Samuel’s album Gracenotes – www.goldrecords.co.uk)
Give us faith to believe the truth
And the right to ask why
Give us joy in life’s fulfilment
And the right to ask why
Give us strength to carry others
And the right to wilt
Give us grace towards holiness
And the right to confess our guilt
God show us a bigger picture
Lord play us a longer song
Christ put us on a road that is straighter
Than the one we’re on
AMEN.
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