Distinctly Welcoming iPod - No. 4 "Go to Sleep"

In teaching on a Christian engagement in our multifaith world, I love to point to that old curmudgeon Jeremiah. Somehow, this prophet, who is perhaps the great archetype of Christ in his suffering on behalf of the city, holds together an uncompromising sense of what it means to be a follower of God (wholehearted worship evidenced in acts of justice and mercy) with a vocation to the people to be a blessing to all. So, in Jeremiah 29, when the fate that he has prophesied to his cost is sealed and the Babylonians have finally taken over the holy city of Jerusalem, he writes to the Israelites that have been carried into exile in Babylon. The essence of the prophecy is that they are to be a blessing to the people of that city and that their own future is dependent on the way that they bless those that worship other gods in this strange city. It's a message for our time. In Radiohead's blistering "Go to Sleep" you get the usual opaque lyrics but I see this song as being the culmination of the album: a satire of those that would carry on regardless, as if nothing need change. In Radiohead's vision, rampant globalisation and ecological meltdown are continuing apace but the powers that be would prefer that "We don't really want a monster taking over", "We don't want the loonies takin' over". What are the monsters? For some, its Islam, for others its secular humanism. Maybe we should just recognise that we're now strangers in an alien land and take our worship more seriously and recognise our vocation to bless all peoples. If you don't know the song, see the video here on Youtube, and you get the additional Jeremiah style image of that prophet's own vocation to tear down and destroy, to plant and to build. What may need tearing down are so many of the church's cherished pretensions to hold the ring of privilege. And if the video doesn't grab you, just enjoy the freewheeling guitar solo at the end: lament and protest for the 21st Century.