Today’s author is Prince of Peace member, Paul Sponheim.
The Minnesota resort season may have peaked, but it figures to be busy in Hibbing this Spring; Bob Dylan is auditioning for the role John the Baptist played in the life of Jesus. To prepare the way for Jesus John came roughshod out of the wilderness, calling for repentance in the face of the prophetic call for justice. Dylan deserves recognition as one of the leaders in the social justice movement of the last century. And now there is this new film on Dylan which seems to provide a kind of encore for his baritone.
Dylan is a controversial figure in the protest movement. He made some musical choices that didn’t please everybody, But he wrote a song that galvanized the energy present in the movement. The song asks some troubling questions. The best known question is probably the first one:
How many roads must a man walk down,
Before they will call him a man?
The refrain gives an answer of sorts:
The answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind,
The answer is blowin in the wind.
What does that mean? Is the answer as hard to pin down as a reed shaken by the wind? Or is his point the amazing availability of the answer? I know I am not qualified to evaluate Bob Dylan musically. But the ethical passion expressed in the song is one of the most promising ways to prepare the way of the Lord. Don’t we all have friends or even family members whose lived values we admire but who don’t darken the doors of the institutions dedicated to advancing the way of Jesus?
Jesus does not hold back. It was a turbulent time. The stories about the man from Nazareth were spreading. John the Baptist needs to know if this carpenter’s son Is the promised Messiah or should he wait for another. John’s disciples are to carry the crucial word back to him. What brought you out here in OUR wilderness? That’s where we get the tie-in to Hibbing, Minnesota. “Open your eyes: the blind see, the deaf hear and the poor have good news brought to them”. Was that not enough? We have seen a million people march to Washington. Is that not enough? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The invitation is clear enough.
Bob Dylan has had a good run in the prophetic role of John the Baptist. It is a good role, though we know how it ends for John. Jesus himself played that role to that end . . . and beyond. How was he more than a prophet? Against the wind or with it the answer comes: “ . . . blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
Gracious God, help us hear the call to repentance also when it sounds in novel settings. May we join the justice movement of our own time. In the name of Jesus. Amen.