He is one of my all-time favorites - probably most famous (among readers of a certain age) as the author of Harper Valley P.T.A., which made Jeannie C. Riley a star in the mid-60's. He was (and still is, I'm pleased to be able to report) the master of the Story-Song, and in fact his nickname is The Storyteller. If you - gentle reader - have somehow made it to 2013 and are not familiar with Tom T. Hall, you should STOP HERE and go to YouTube or Google and look him up (you are most likely to find a link to The Year That Clayton Delaney Died - an excellent place to begin). Leaving Nadderby will be here when you get back.
His songs were built on his life experiences. Just a few of the incidents which became songs were:
- A Week in a County Jail;
- (Old Dogs and Children and) Watermelon Wine;
- Salute to a Switchblade;
- and a personal favorite, The Ballad of 40 Dollars about a gravedigger musing over the passing of a friend who still owes him $40.
Is it any wonder I love this guy's work?
So why attack Tom T. as a Failed Theologian?
It is, alas, because of one of his most memorable, singable, songs - namely Me and Jesus - which has this Refrain:
'Me and Jesus got our own thing going -
Me and Jesus got it all worked out -
Me and Jesus got our own thing going -
And we don't need anybody to tell us what it's all about'.
You may well be asking, "So what's wrong with that?" As proud descendants of the Reformation, which helped to free Believers from the idea that we needed a priest to interpret all of our interactions with the God-who-made-us, shouldn't we be celebrating the chorus above?
Well - . . . no, although the world of the Believer would be much simpler if we could.
I (along with what I suspect is a great majority of Christians, especially American ones) would love it if we were only called to get together with Jesus and celebrate what we - just the 2 of us - have "got ... all worked out", but unfortunately we have been called to something . . . messier.
We are called to be a part of a Faith Community - the Bible/Church word you hear about that is koinonia - and Jesus set the example at the onset of this whole Kingdom of God thing. You will remember that he called more than one Disciple - there were 12 of them (and that was just the closest ones, the ones we came to know as Apostles - in reality there were dozens more).
You may also remember that even The Twelve had trouble getting everything right. Along with some responses to Jesus which were downright heroic, they also had a tendency to fundamentally miss the point over and over as Jesus tried to teach them how to be Kingdom people. Worse than that, they would go on to desert, deny, and even betray Jesus himself. So why should we have to live out our faith in connection with other believers?
Hey - I don't make the rules - I'm just reporting here.
In the first couple of milennia of this attempt to usher in the Kingdom of God, it has been affirmed again and again that our faith and discipleship is shaped by our interaction with believers around us - and in turn, their faith and discipleship is shaped by their interaction with us. Without Community, one of the tools used to shape us more completely into Kingdom People is missing.
I say this with no particular joy. If you find yourself at a place in life where there is no well-defined, obvious koinonia of which to be a part (as is my family's current lot, by and large), the getting-connected part is, at least, challenging.
So I understand Tom T. Hall - I really do - and many days yearn for a faith that is just "Me and Jesus" getting it all worked out, but on my best days I know I would never trade the workmanship in my life accomplished by many of the readers of this very blog. I won't say it was never messy, but thanks anyway.
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