Meeting Metal Matt

I was already a little on edge just walking into the show. A lingering knee sprain from a Gogol Bordello concert meant no mosh pit but even so, I was worried about how I would get along with the crowd who had come to see Behemoth.  Beside that I was on my own which created a certain amount of anxiety all by itself.  Yet there I was, finding a seat in the balcony.  Once I settled in and ordered a beer, my next job was finding a friend or at least a conversation partner.

I looked around for options.  To my right was a couple in their late 20’s with the usual leather, tats and piercings.  Several seats down on my left was big guy sporting a shaved head, lots of ink, a shirt that read “Blackcraft” and a laminated VIP badge.

I opted for door #1.

They were friendly enough.  We chatted about beer and the bands for a while but there was no real connection.  Once that conversation petered out I glanced back to my left.  I’m not a small man (6 ft and 225) but this guy made me feel puny.  He looked like he made his living as a bouncer at some very nasty bars.  Not the most inviting conversation partner to say the least.

So I had to decide… which fear was going to get the better of me?  Was it worse to go through the concert alone?  Or to broach a conversation with a guy who looked like he could kill you just by being a bad mood?

This time I went for door #2.  After the customary “How you doin?” I asked if he was with the band?  Turns out that he was just a fan who had come up extra early for a VIP meet and greet with Behemoth.  In fact he had left early that morning to drive all the way from south of Richmond, VA.  As he shared the experience of meeting Nergal and company and what nice guys they all were, I moved a seat closer.

I welcomed him to Philly and we introduced ourselves. I asked Matt what he was drinking.

“Jack and coke.”

I ordered our next round.  He insisted on getting the next one. While we waited I told him about the opening act, Myrkur, then we discussed other bands we liked.  Like me, Matt has wide-ranging tastes.  He rattled off a long list of genres that on his phone.  My ears perked up when I thought I heard him say “Praise Music” but I let it go.

After some time the conversation drifted from music to our families.  He’s got three kids, all younger than mine.  From there it was an easy segue into the trials and tribulations of parenting.  In addition to working hard as a telecom lineman, Matt also worked hard to instill decency, respect and morality into his kids.

At this point I couldn’t help but circle back.  “Hey Matt, earlier when we were talking about music, did you say you liked praise music?”

“That’s right.”

“So are you a churchgoer?”

“Indeed I am.”

“That’s cool.  I’m an Episcopal priest”

At that point Myrkur took the stage.

Between the sets we talked about Jesus.  We talked about the perceived contradictions of being a Christian and liking metal.  I asked him about the Blackcraft shirt. He said it was pretty much the same thing as liking Behemoth.  He liked the designs and didn’t worry about how others might interpret them.  He knew what he believed and the rest was of little importance.

I respected that.  I’m not sure that, even if I liked it,  I would ever feel comfortable wearing something covered in the symbols of Satanism or black magic, but I admired his sense of himself and his confidence.

So there we were, surrounded by pentagrams, goats heads, 666’s and every other imaginable symbol hostile to Christianity, and we were talking about Jesus and the challenge of trying to raise decent children in the 21^st century.

Once the show ended I told him that since he was facing a seven hour drive he was welcome to crash at my place.  He insisted he was fine. Even so, I couldn’t let him leave without partaking of one of Philly great late-night institutions.

We poured out of the TLA and across the street to Lorenzo’s.  I must admit that it was gratifying when he marveled at the size of slices.  Although the place was mobbed, we were given enough berth to finish our pizza comfortably (one of the perks of looking big and scary I suppose).

Back out on the street we hugged and then he gave me his VIP lanyard.  I protested but he insisted that he still had plenty of swag to remember the show.  And this way I would have something too.  We exchanged numbers.  Not knowing his last name I just put him under “Metal Matt.”

Some of my favorite Gospel stories show Jesus finding faith in the most unlikely people- soldiers, lepers, prostitutes and tax collectors.  Time and time again he marvels to find they have more than religious professionals and otherwise upstanding citizens.  When I first saw Matt sitting down the row, I was scared to talk to him.  By the end of the night I was happy to offer him the guest room in my home.  And from a concert that, at least on the surface, was all about celebrating Satan, what I found instead is that faith continues to show up when you least expect it.

Help Wanted

So a priest, a minister and a rabbi walk into a bar….

It’s the start of many jokes and for the last three years has also been the title of our informal symposium on beer and faith.  We had every intention of bringing it back to Philly Beer Week this year but then we found  out that our compatriot and the minister in the equation, Bryan Berghoef, will be away on a pilgrimage to Iona.

Once Rabbi Eli Freedman and I got done calling him names behind his back, we set our minds to trying to find another person to take his place.  For a while it looked like we had someone lined up but unfortunately they will be away for Beer Week.

And so we turn to you, our friends and kindred spirits.  We’d love for one of you to join us this year at Fergie’s Pub as we wax poetic about beer, God and faith and the ways in which they all tie together.

Of course we have some standards.

To make sure we don’t wind up like the Mystery Men, here is what we are looking for.

The ideal candidate will:

#1 Be a person of faith

#2 Have extensive knowledge about their faith and its history

#3 Be comfortable talking to a crowd and taking questions

#4 Have a sense of humor

#5 Live in the Philly Metro area

#6 Be free on the afternoon of Sunday, June 5^th

#7 Love beer (duh)

In order to broaden our perspectives special consideration will be shown to those outside the Judeo-Christian tradition and to women.

If you’re interested in exploring this further please contact me through the blog or Facebook.  We hope to hear from you!

 

The Biblical Brew Off is Back!

Team Moses and Team Jesus are back and facing off once again to see which congregation’s beer reigns supreme.  But this year they also have to reckon with the women of the newly formed Team Eve. As before, each entry will be blindly evaluated by qualified judges according to BJCP standards. The team with the highest average score will be declared the winner.  There will also be a people’s choice- each person in attendance will get to vote for their one favorite beer.

But this is not just about bragging rights.  Each team will be competing for a charity.  Representing my parish of St. Tim’s, Team Jesus will be competing for North Light Community Center.  Team Moses from Rodeph Shalom will be competing for HAIS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). And Team Eve, made up of women from both congregations, will be competing for the Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network.  The purse will be split with 50% going to the winner’s charity and 30% to second place and the remaining 20% to third.  That way none of these worthy causes will walk away empty handed.

It all takes place this coming Saturday, May 7^th at Rodeph Shalom (615 North Broad Street).  Doors open at 7 pm.  Advance tickets are only $25 and can be purchased here. That gets you unlimited samples of the different beers, BBQ from Deke’s and a commemorative pint glass. We’ll also have custom growlers, t-shirts for each team and amazing baskets filled with beer and other goodies to bid on in a silent auction.

The only way to win this basket filled with rare beers from Vermont is to come to the Brew Off!

We hope you will join us for what is sure to be memorable evening of friendly competition, food, fellowship and of course beer.  Best of all, every penny we net goes to benefit those who are homeless, hungry and who have had to flee from war and persecution.

Thanks to Brian Biggs (who draws the logos) and Home Sweet Homebrew for all their support!

Breaking the Black Metal Seal

The room was a sea of black t-shirts that read “unholy” and “666” and there were more pentagrams than I could count.  Although I was there to see Myrkur, most were there to see the headliner, Behemoth, an extremely popular black metal band from Poland.

When it comes to what makes black metal “black” it does not get much more overt that what I saw that night.  Behemoth performed their new album, “The Satanist” in its entirety.  At one point the bassist, Orion, held a crucifix upside down over the crowd.  Later Nergal (who sings, plays guitar and is the undisputed creative force behind the band) handed out “communion” wafers that were imprinted with the band’s “unholy trinity” symbol (see below) to crazed fans in the first few rows.

And there I was, in the front row of the balcony, trying to take it all in.

Such was my first trip to a black metal show.  Not surprisingly I was not entirely at ease with what I saw and heard.  Was my presence there inherently in conflict with my Christianity and/or my vocation as a priest?  As I have written before, this question has long vexed me.

Although I listen to a lot of dark, heavy music there have been bands that I wouldn’t listen to, not because I didn’t like their music, but because they were overtly Satanic.  But the more I thought about it, the more I began to question whether or not this divide was an artifice. After a lot of reflection, and in large part because I really wanted to see Myrkur perform her first gig in the USA, I thought it was finally time to push past those self-imposed restrictions and see how being at black metal concert made me feel.

It started with the crowd.  No one seemed particularly intent sacrificing a virgin after the show.  In fact, setting aside their appearance, most everyone I met was really nice.  It seemed that many, if not most, of the fans were there first and foremost for the music.

Of course you can find similar bands that don’t utilize satanic words and symbols so there must be some particular appeal to the pentagrams, et al.  If this wasn’t about religion per se then what was the attraction?

If what I’ve read on the subject is correct then despite appearances to the contrary, it not actually about worshiping a supernatural being but rather the ideals they see represented by the character of Satan.  Nergal summarized it pretty well in an interview with the Guardian “To me, Satan stands for everything that is dear to me. I’ve always been very fond of independence and autonomy and freethinking and freedom and intelligence. Satan has always been a very strong symbol of all those values, so for me it’s very natural to take his side.”

Assuming that the majority of fans echo his views this means that in essence it was really all about rebellion.  All the inverted crosses and blasphemy had much more to do with the adolescent rush one gets from pissing off the establishment and giving the finger to the family, school, boss, church or culture that has frustrated you and left you feeling alienated than it did with actually worshiping Satan.

That is a sentiment I certainly understand.  Getting into music in order to freak out your parents…check.   Creating a scary persona to intimidate your classmates… check. Indulging in everything dark and brooding in order to convince yourself that you are deep and profound… check. Been there, done that, still have the tattered t-shirts.

Of course recognizing this doesn’t leave me entirely at ease .  There are still some fundamental philosophical divides that merit further exploration. And doutbless there are some for whom all this is not merely a gesture but a reflection of deeply held beliefs that are in complete opposition to my own.  Yet understanding that for most the pentagrams were largely symbolic allowed me to sit through the entire show and find something to appreciate in the sounds, theatre and above all in the energy of the crowd below.  Click here to read a review of this show and see way better pictures than I took.

I’ll be writing more on this soon.  Until then I’d really like to hear your thoughts.

Holy Bartenders

I really value and respect a good bartender.  They remember your name.  They remember your drink.  They can keep a dozen orders going all at the same time and the best ones can manage it all with great aplomb.  All of this is in addition to the work they do listening, offering advice and generally caring about the people they serve. It’s not a stretch to say the best bartenders are holy.

No, not like this:

More like this:

With that in mind here is a condensed version of my most recent sermon.

 

I have a lot of respect for people who change careers and reinvent themselves.  Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I weren’t a priest.  Let’s face it, seminary training doesn’t really prepare you with many other marketable skills.  I can’t fix a car or write a legal brief.  I don’t know how to start an IV or create a comprehensive lessons plan to teach 4th graders about history.  But there is one job that I think could be an easy fit.  I could become a bartender.

Think about it… What skills does a bartender need?  Well, you have to be good with people.  You have to listen to their problems and sometimes offer them advice.  I can do that.  You have to be organized and able to multitask.  I can do that.  You have to be able to diffuse conflict or even settle an argument.  I can do that too.  And when it comes to actually serving drinks, well it just so happens I know a little bit about beer.

All this overlap might explain why so many bartenders feel like they often wind up doing the work of a priest.  They deal with people who are lonely, sad or upset on a daily basis.  Any bartender worth their salt knows how to listen as a patron unburdens themselves after a tough day.  How many times have they had to hear a confession or offer advice on how to try and save a relationship?   I would bet that more than a few have even stopped a person from hurting themselves or someone else.  It’s fair to say that a barkeep has the chance to do some holy work if they are so inclined.

The overlap between priests and bartenders isn’t new.  In fact, in today’s Gospel Reading we find that Jesus himself might have helped blur the line between the two professions when he turned water into wine.  Let me set the scene.   We find Jesus as a guest at a wedding when the unthinkable happens.  The wine runs out.  Now wine was extremely important in Jesus’ time.  Why?  First because drinking water could make you sick.  Wine was a much safer choice, thus an essential part of everyday life.  Of course given what I see from some of your Facebook posts, not much has changed.

But wine was also important for religious purposes.  This was particularly true when it came to weddings.  Not only did it play an important role when it came to enhancing the guests’ enjoyment, wine also had great religious significance.  It was seen as a sign of G-D’s blessing.  To run out of wine then would not simply leave you with disappointed guests… it was a serious faux pas.

It is in such scandalous circumstances that we find Jesus today.  The wedding is in full swing yet the wine has run out.  Yet Jesus barely seems to notice.  Indeed, it is only after some prodding from his mother that he gets involved.  And so it is that rather reluctantly Jesus steps up to the task and enables both the good times and the blessings to continue to flow.

That’s all very nice but what does it mean?  Jesus doesn’t say.  In fact, the only thing that Jesus is clear about is that it is not yet his time to go public in his role as the Messiah.  Indeed, apart from his mother, a few of the servants and later, his disciples, no one seemed to know what occurred.  So apart from the demonstration of Jesus’ miraculous power, what, if anything does it mean for us today?

Let’s start with the fact that Jesus’s first miracle was both largely anonymous and devoid of any overtly religious trappings.  Think about it.  He never makes a show out of what he was doing nor does he appear to take any credit for it.  Moreover, he never invokes the name of G-D nor does he even do so much as bless the water.  So what’s the point?

Perhaps what Jesus is trying to show us is that miracles can happen regardless of whether or not we recognize them.  G-D acts in our lives, not just in obvious ways or through obvious people like priests… G-D also acts through mundane or even the profane circumstances or people.

Unfortunately, when this happens, we, just like the steward in the Gospel, tend to miss the fact that a miracle just occurred.  When Jesus’ wine is brought to him, he tastes just how wonderful it is but has no idea where it has come from. He mistakes it as a sign that the groom has mistakenly kept the best wine until late in the game.  Not once does he even suspect that the wine is a sign of G-D’s presence and blessing.

How often do we miss out on seeing what G-D is doing for us because it comes, not in church or from a priest or from reading the Bible but just in the course of daily life?  Maybe the whole point of this water into wine thing is to help us see that miracles happen all the time. G-D moves among us and intervenes in our lives in the most unexpected ways.  Yet we are too wrapped up in the problems of the moment or in trying to get through the day to even notice.  If we were just more open to that sacred possibility, how many more times might we find that the hand of G-D has touched us… helping us get through a crisis or deal with a problem or perhaps even helping find a respite of joy?

The truth is that G-D works just as much through the caring shown by a cop or a teacher or our dry cleaner as G-D does through the church.  Yet we are far more likely to give thanks to G-D when that blessing comes through our priest as opposed to our bartender.  Maybe the whole point of the Miracle at Cana is that we shouldn’t be so quick to make that judgment.  Jesus takes ordinary water and turns it into wine.   In the same way G-D takes ordinary people and makes them instruments of healing and blessing.  The question is that when these miracles happen, will we take them as a happy coincidence or will we recognize them for what they truly are?

The good news is that either way G-D will continue to reach out and bless your life.  The worst that can happen is that you enjoy that blessing unaware and go on with your day.  Yet how much more meaningful might those blessings be if we saw the hand of G-D at work when they happened?

When the guests drank the wine at Cana, there is no doubt they enjoyed it.  It was the good stuff after all.   But imagine if they knew where it came from?  Imagine if they knew just how truly special it was?  That wine would have done much more than brighten their day… it would have changed their lives because they would have known that G-D was in their midst and was there blessing them.

Now think about your life.  Think about times in which someone, especially someone unexpected, touched your life and blessed you when you needed it most.  That was G-D at work. Yet like the steward at the wedding, you probably didn’t know it.   But what if you did?  What if you saw that act of kindness or compassion for what it truly was- a blessing?  How much more joy and hope might you find if you remembered that G-D is not limited to sacred places or people?   Such preconceptions only limit our lives, but they cannot limit G-D.  And in the end, the blessing we need might come not from our priest but from a nurse, a mechanic, a crossing guard or even from our bartender.

AMEN

“…a godly, righteous and sober life”

So now that we are deep in the midst of the penitential season of Lent I realized that several folks have asked me if I was again giving up alcohol. I am not, at least not this year. Instead this Lent I have chosen to focus not on giving up a pleasure but on using that spiritual energy and discipline to try and do something positive each day.
Yet last week as I knelt on the cold stone floor of the church and lead the people in confession this post (and the experience that inspired it) came to mind.
I hope you enjoy it!

So This Priest Walks Into a Bar...

It was the morning after attending the 2^nd Annual Philly Craft Beer Festival.  As I knelt on the cold tile of the church floor and said these words (which come at the end of our confession of sin) I couldn’t help but be struck by the irony.  There I was at 8:05 am, still slightly green around the gills from many hours of sampling craft beer the day before, and I was praying that God would inspire me and help me to lead a “sober” life.  Did I really mean what I was praying for?  How does one define a “sober” life?  This got me to thinking about what it means to find an honest balance between one’s spirituality and one’s love of beer (or wine or scotch or whatever your drink of choice may be).

The answer is not nearly as poetic as the circumstances that inspired…

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667- The Neighbor of the Beast… or can a Christian listen to Black Metal?

With apologies to those who are looking for a beer related post, I offer instead more thoughts on music.  I promise, we will return to sudsy musings again very soon.

Last week my friend Marcus sent me an editorial entitled, “Dear Watain, Thank You For Being The Greatest Band Ever.”  It was an interesting, even amusing read but it got me to thinking… can a Christian listen to black metal in good conscience?

Let’s backtrack for a moment, black metal is a sub genre of heavy metal that is typified, not just by its volume or often shrieked vocals, but also by its pro-Satanic and/or anti-Christian lyrics.  Watain most certainly falls into that category.  If you are not feint of heart then click here to see one of their videos complete with disturbing lyrics.

I hope that if you watched the video you are still with me and have not run off searching for some holy water to sprinkle on your monitor.

Anyway, even though I had an idea about  their ideology, because I trust Marcus’ musical judgment I gave them a listen.  While I must give them mad props for quoting New Model Army on their homepage, to me their music is only OK.  I don’t love it and am not struggling with the question as to whether or not I should download the album or go see them live.  I just don’t happen to like them that much.

But that brings me to the real point of this post.  Because there are bands that I do happen to like such as Arch Enemy and King of Asgard (which I am listening to as I write this), which although they may not be as decidedly Satanic as Watain, are still no friends  to Christianity.  The question is can I as a Christian (or worse yet as a priest) listen to these bands at all?

I struggled with this all through my teenage years.  I loved heavy metal.  But my mother carefully scrutinized anything I wanted to order from Columbia House (remember them?) to make sure that nothing Satanic or unwholesome made its way through.  I can still remember her vetoing a Journey album because of the song title “Lovin’, touching, squeezing.”   Yet somehow, I managed to get a copy of Back in Black under her radar.  Later it was Holy Diver by Dio.

Yet even after mom finally gave in and let me choose my own music, I could never go in for overtly Satanic references, symbolism or lyrics such as “Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden, let alone Slayer, Venom or Celtic Frost.  (Of course I now fully realize the absurdity of this  considering the lyrics on Hell’s Bells and the fact that ole Ronnie James (RIP) was all about challenging the Judeo-Christian worldview and values)

In time I got involved in some pretty conservative youth groups.  It was there that I was first really introduced both to “Christian Rock” and to the notion that as a Christian I should not be listening to anything that was not expressly Christian.  For months I wrestled with this until finally one day, in my zeal, I took all the non-Christian albums and posters out into the back yard, put them in a trash can, and burned them.

As you may have guessed, this phase didn’t last.  In the end the music won out over the ideology.  This was aided and abetted by the fact that a lot of “Christian” Rock (in this case meaning bands on “Christian” labels as opposed Christian bands like U2 or The Call who are on secular labels) just sucks.  There are exceptions of course, but especially in the metal genre they were inferior rip offs of secular bands.  I realized that the reason why I loved a band was not necessarily because I agreed or disagreed with them philosophically, but because of the quality and character of the music they made.

And so began to rebuild my collection appropriately starting with Back in Black.  Today I have about 1000 albums which includes a huge range of music and covers the whole spectrum of ideologies.  Yet I still struggle with the original question.

For example, when last at an Arch Enemy gig, I remember trying to decide if I should buy one of their t-shirts which prominently sported a pentagram (which is often associated with Satanism) in the background.  I thought about what my parishioners might think if they saw me in it.  And so ultimately I didn’t buy it.

It is no different when it comes to deciding to listen to bands like Watain or the critically acclaimed Ghost BC.  If  the music is all that matters, then there should be no issue.  Listen to it and like it for what it is. After all, no music, no matter how hostile to Christianity it may be, is going to destroy my faith.

So what is the role of ideology when it comes to music?  I realize we are venturing into the realm of hermeneutics ( the study of how we interpret things) now which is a long way from the relative simplicity of Iron Maiden, but the question is important.  Does the intent or personal ideology of the author/performer have any moral bearing on its validity or quality?  Does their moral standing (or lack thereof) reflect on us if we choose to listen to it?  To parse the issue differently, should we no longer read the philosophy of Martin Heidegger because he was a Nazi sympathizer?   Or in terms of music, what about Wagner?  He was a nationalist whose work was co-opted by the Nazis… should we nix Ride of the Valkyries from our playlists?

Not such an easy question now is it?  And so I turn it over to you, gentle reader.  What do you think?  Does the fact that I like Arch Enemy make me a bad Christian?  Does the fact that I am uncomfortable listening to Ghost BC because of my faith make me a hypocrite?  Where do you draw the line, if you draw the line at all?