Thursday night, I heard the best preacher I've heard in a long time: Stevie Wonder.
I've loved Stevie Wonder for most of my cognizant life. I discovered him anew when I was in high school, when he was just making the switch from "Little Stevie Wonder" with the harmonica to "Stevie Wonder" with the braids and the African rhythms. I still believe that Songs in the Key of Life is perhaps the most perfect album ever made; Oprah agrees with me and says that his song "As" (the chorus of which is "I'll be loving you always") is the most perfect song ever written.
When I was in seminary, I took a fabulous course called "The Theology of Culture" taught by George Heyer. We examined the theological impact of writers and musicians, all the way from Graham Greene to Prince. Our final project was to select an artist of our own choosing and develop what we saw as the theology inherent in their work. You guessed it, I chose Stevie and his theology as expressed in Songs in the Key of Life. Yes, it was brilliant. (the music and the paper!)
You may know that Stevie rarely tours, if ever. I'm honestly not aware of the last time I'd heard of him touring. So when I heard that he was going to be at the Nokia in Grand Prairie this past Wednesday, I just flipped. Until I remembered I had a conflict at church. Oh, that. So I chose duty over delight, but I was very blue about it. Then last Friday, I heard on the radio while driving that a second show had been added the next night. I almost had a wreck. I talked my friend Adele into going with me, and we got the best seats we could get.
Stevie sang for two and a half hours solid with no intermission. The entire audience stood with him for at least the last hour of it if not more. (the rest of the time, those that stood were either African-Americans - and others - who totally resonated with his life's work, or white couples who swayed to what must have been "their song" in high school.)
He started the concert by saying that it was for God's pleasure and theirs that he and the other musicians were there to perform. The opening song was from Key of Life - "Love's In Need of Love Today;" the closing song "As" ( which many folks know by its chorus, "I'll be loving you always") was too. He didn't have a set "set" - there were different songs in each evening's show. He improvised, he talked, he laughed, he cried when he started a duet with his daughter Aisha (who, for those of you keeping score, made her debut on Key of Life as the crying baby at the beginning of "Isn't She Lovely!") He came close to losing his pants when he was dancing around the set with one of his backup singers, but God was good and nothing beyond the music was revealed.
But the music was just as good as ever. The songs he sang sounded just as fresh as they did thirty years ago. His voice was still rich and agile. And his ability to improvise and have fun with the talent God gave him was immeasurable. In other words, after all these years, he is still a faithful, fallible and flawed human being who just happens to also be this incredibly gifted musician.
It was a powerful event. No one checked their watches. We were putty in his hands as he assigned us "parts" to the music - we were the brass section in "If You Really Loved Me," country-western vocalists on his mock makeover of "Signed, Sealed and Delivered," and percussionists on almost every song.
But it was more than just memories Stevie was conjuring up for us old geezers (the AVERAGE age of the event had to be more than 40). He was conjuring up hope in the name of God. He reminded us that peace was attainable, one person at a time, and that one person had to begin with ourselves. And as for going to a concert during the liturgical season of Advent, he couldn't have been more on target.
Which leaves me with my question for you today: what are you doing to conjure up hope? What are you doing to bring about peace, one person at a time? Are you living an hospitable life? It certainly gives me pause to ask these questions of myself. But as we all begin to ask these questions more and more frequently, I believe that God will honor our efforts. Each one of us has an impact on the world; each one of us can make a difference; but all together? Just imagine it.
