Skip to main content

A Voice that Tells the Truth

A couple of years ago Rolling Stone magazine published their list of the 100 greatest singers of all time. There is much to quibble about with their list, not the least of which is the exclusion of Linda Ronstadt, who clearly should be in the top 10—if not the top 3—but my opinion on that has nothing to do with preaching…clearly.

Their top 10 (remember, this is Rolling Stone) includes some amazing voices:

#10 James Brown
#9 Stevie Wonder
#8 Otis Redding
#7 (I’ll get to that one in a minute)
#6 Marvin Gaye
#5 John Lennon
#4 Sam Cooke
#3 Elvis Presley
#2 Ray Charles
#1 Aretha Franklin

Those are all great singers; they have fine voices and it is a pleasure to listen to them.

So what about #7? It’s Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan, according to Rolling Stone, is the seventh greatest singer of all time. The problem with that, of course, is that Bob Dylan can’t sing and he never could, by which I mean that he does not have a technically sound or physically powerful voice.

I was struck, though, by what Bono (singer for the band U2) said about Dylan’s singing:

When Sam Cooke played Dylan for the young Bobby Womack, Womack said he didn't understand it. Cooke explained that from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth.

A preacher’s voice might or might not be pretty.

A preacher’s voice might or might not be powerful.

But people have to believe that the preacher’s voice is telling the truth because the preacher is trying with all she is and has to tell the truth.

So preach like Dylan….

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jesus Was a Refugee

(A sermon based on Matthew 2:13-23 for the First Sunday after Christmas) I have never been a refugee and you probably haven’t either. There have been times for many of us when we “had” to leave home but we did so because we chose to get an education or to take a job or because our parents told us it was time. Oh, there is a sense in which many of us feel a restlessness and rootlessness and feel like we are on a constant quest for home. But the facts remain that we have never been driven from our home or from our hometown or from our homeland because of warfare or famine. We have never been driven away because of our ethnicity or our politics or our religion; we have never been forced out or forced underground because we are a threat to those in power. Millions of people are refugees, though. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, there were at the end of 2012 15.4 million refugees—people who have fled their country for another because of war or persecution—in the world....
Post a Comment
Read more

When You Pass Through the Waters

(A sermon based on Isaiah 43:1-7 & Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 for the Baptism of the Lord) The images are ones we still use. “I feel like I’m going under.” “I really got burned.” Water and fire have long been images of trial, testing, and suffering. We experience events and situations that either are life-threatening, such as a serious illness or accident, or feel like they are life-threatening, like a divorce or job loss or serious problems with a family member. We feel like we’re going under. We feel like we’re getting burned. Sometimes, we don’t just find ourselves in such a situation; we rather put ourselves there. So the prophet speaking in Isaiah 43 spoke his words to guilty people, to people who had sinned and who either knew they had sinned or needed to admit their sins. Their nation had been devastated by the Babylonians and they had been transported into exile hundreds of miles away and it was all because, the true prophets had told them, they had sinned against ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Get Ready: Watch!

(A sermon based on Matthew 24:36-44 for the First Sunday in Advent) We have arrived at the first Sunday of our new year—the first Sunday of Advent! Advent is about the arrival or coming of Jesus and, as such, it has at least three components. First, we anticipate the celebration of the coming of Jesus our world two millennia ago. Second, we anticipate his coming in power in the fullness of time. Third, we anticipate his coming to us right here and now in whatever new and unexpected ways he chooses to come. Let’s get a few important things said right up front. First, Advent is not about prediction; it is about preparation. People who predict when Jesus will return are false prophets and people who listen to them are fools. Date-setters are looking for a following and followers of date-setters are looking for a way out of this world; both are, at best, misguided. Second, Advent is not about paranoia; it is about anticipation. We are not to look for reasons to feel perse...
Post a Comment
Read more