“Forget your troubles, come on get happy.” Remember that one? “Forget your troubles c'mon get happy,/ you better chase all your cares away. / Shout hallelujah c'mon get happy / get ready for the judgment day.” You can almost hear Judy Garland, can’t you. With the jacket and fedora, singing and dancing a jazzy version of “Get Happy.” It was in the movie “Summer Stock.” Which turned out to be her last movie. And given the general tenor of her life - it seems somewhat ironic.
“The sun is shinin c'mon get happy, / the lord is waitin to take your hand. / shout hallelujah, c'mon get happy, / we're going to the promised land.” It wasn’t written for her or for that movie, though. The song was written in 1930 and first sung by Ruth Etting, who also first sang “Shine On Harvest Moon,” “Button Up Your Overcoat,” and “Ten Cents a Dance.” Etting’s life wasn’t a bed of roses either. Her second husband to be was shot and injured by her ex-husband, but she married him anyway, but since he was a decade younger than her in those days it was a bit of a scandal and ended her career. They even made a movie of it with Doris Day and James Cagney.
“The sun is shinin c'mon get happy, / the lord is waitin to take your hand. / shout hallelujah c'mon get happy, / we're gunna be goin to the promised land.” The most recent appearance of the song was in the TV show Glee in this its second season. Kurt and Rachel, two of the most outcast of outcast characters in the show, sing Get Happy mixed with Happy Days Are Here Again. Which has also been done before - by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland no less (There’s nothing new under the sun).
The problem is, if you saw the episode (or You Tubed it - is that a word?) then you can’t help but have the sense that the irony I referenced in the first paragraph is inherent in the song itself. Kurt and Rachel seem anything but happy as they sing. Almost as if the troubles they want to forget are overwhelming them. And the song seems a little like whistling in the dark.
Whether it was Ruth Etting singing in face of relationship troubles, or Judy singing in spite of personal issues that would send her life spiraling out of control, or Kurt and Rachel singing through the pain of a high school world that wouldn’t find a place for them - none of them seemed able to really forget their troubles. It is beyond our human capacity, it seems, to let go of what hurts us, of what threatens us. It seems almost insensitive to tell someone who has much to worry about that they shouldn’t worry. Doesn’t it?
Matthew 6:24-34 "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you -- you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
Has he done it again? Has he gone and given us an impossible task? Being poor is hard enough, meekness doesn’t come naturally to many of us. Reconciliation, tearing out eyes and cutting off hands, not getting angry, not looking with lust, saying only what we mean and meaning what we say, being perfect, God-like perfect – well, its all just too much. We feel burdened by the responsibilities of our faith. And we have thought it through enough to know that it isn’t these works that gain us a place in God’s kingdom. We know that - in our heads at least. But we are to let these attitudes and actions, these modes of being just fall from us like ripe fruit off our tree of righteousness. And it still feels like a burden. Like our limbs can’t bear the weight of all this fruit, and we are bent over by the encumbrance of our good works.
And then he has the nerve to tell us to not worry. Great. Why didn’t he start with this? We might have had a completely different attitude to all the stuff he’s been piling on. But here it feels like a cruel joke. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. But don’t worry about it. Right.
I know, we could say, just do it, don’t worry about it. But that doesn’t really work in the real world, does it. Anything we strive to do, we worry about. To a degree at least. We worry about what is important. We worry about what we want to spend time and energy on. Maybe all he really means is don’t worry excessively. Don’t worry in such a way that it cripples us. Jesus as Dr. Phil. Let it go, he says, take it easy he says. Do what you can do and be satisfied with that.
Well, that’s certainly good advice and something we should pay attention to more than we do. But is it gospel? Is it really good news? If we just pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps, if we just push away the dark clouds on our own horizons through sheer force of will, then when our energy wanes or our attention wavers, all those worries come rushing back in upon us, stronger and more desperate than before.
We aren’t birds, as beautiful as they are. We aren’t flowers, though they are lovely. And I don’t think Jesus us is really asking us to sit like baby birds in a nest mouths open, bodies quivering, waiting for the worms to fall from heaven. He isn’t really asking us to sit like potted plants waiting for the water to fall and the fertilizer to drop. So, why the little nature interlude? What exactly are we to consider when we do our birdwatching and flower contemplating?
Maybe we should listen again, to the third verse of Judy’s song - well, and Ruth’s and Kurt and Rachel’s (and I’m excited to see according to the previews - Dr. Gregory House’s song too!): “The sun is shinin c'mon get happy, / the lord is waitin to take your hand.” Look at the birds and know, in the sheer wonder of them, that God cares for them. Consider the lilies and understand, through the incomparable beauty of them, that God loves God’s creation. Of which we are a part.
The passage begins with a choice. But it is our choice. God has already chosen. And God has chosen us. Worries and all. Failings and all. God has chosen us. To love us, to be with us, to include us in the plans for the Kingdom, to place within us a longing for home. We choose in the context of being chosen. We love – God and neighbor both – in the context of being loved.
I don’t think Jesus really expects us to never worry again. If he did, why did he include a note that says “Today’s own trouble is enough for today”? He knows we will worry, we can’t help it. He just doesn’t want us to let worry be the definer of our lives. He would much rather that He be the definer, that God be the definer, that love be what shapes and orders our lives. The love we give and the love that surrounds us, like the beauty of flowers and the effervescent joy of the birds.
With all that around us, we might even find time to forget our troubles, c’mon be happy!
“The sun is shinin c'mon get happy, / the lord is waitin to take your hand. / shout hallelujah, c'mon get happy, / we're going to the promised land.” It wasn’t written for her or for that movie, though. The song was written in 1930 and first sung by Ruth Etting, who also first sang “Shine On Harvest Moon,” “Button Up Your Overcoat,” and “Ten Cents a Dance.” Etting’s life wasn’t a bed of roses either. Her second husband to be was shot and injured by her ex-husband, but she married him anyway, but since he was a decade younger than her in those days it was a bit of a scandal and ended her career. They even made a movie of it with Doris Day and James Cagney.
“The sun is shinin c'mon get happy, / the lord is waitin to take your hand. / shout hallelujah c'mon get happy, / we're gunna be goin to the promised land.” The most recent appearance of the song was in the TV show Glee in this its second season. Kurt and Rachel, two of the most outcast of outcast characters in the show, sing Get Happy mixed with Happy Days Are Here Again. Which has also been done before - by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland no less (There’s nothing new under the sun).
The problem is, if you saw the episode (or You Tubed it - is that a word?) then you can’t help but have the sense that the irony I referenced in the first paragraph is inherent in the song itself. Kurt and Rachel seem anything but happy as they sing. Almost as if the troubles they want to forget are overwhelming them. And the song seems a little like whistling in the dark.
Whether it was Ruth Etting singing in face of relationship troubles, or Judy singing in spite of personal issues that would send her life spiraling out of control, or Kurt and Rachel singing through the pain of a high school world that wouldn’t find a place for them - none of them seemed able to really forget their troubles. It is beyond our human capacity, it seems, to let go of what hurts us, of what threatens us. It seems almost insensitive to tell someone who has much to worry about that they shouldn’t worry. Doesn’t it?
Matthew 6:24-34 "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. 25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you -- you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today.
Has he done it again? Has he gone and given us an impossible task? Being poor is hard enough, meekness doesn’t come naturally to many of us. Reconciliation, tearing out eyes and cutting off hands, not getting angry, not looking with lust, saying only what we mean and meaning what we say, being perfect, God-like perfect – well, its all just too much. We feel burdened by the responsibilities of our faith. And we have thought it through enough to know that it isn’t these works that gain us a place in God’s kingdom. We know that - in our heads at least. But we are to let these attitudes and actions, these modes of being just fall from us like ripe fruit off our tree of righteousness. And it still feels like a burden. Like our limbs can’t bear the weight of all this fruit, and we are bent over by the encumbrance of our good works.
And then he has the nerve to tell us to not worry. Great. Why didn’t he start with this? We might have had a completely different attitude to all the stuff he’s been piling on. But here it feels like a cruel joke. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. But don’t worry about it. Right.
I know, we could say, just do it, don’t worry about it. But that doesn’t really work in the real world, does it. Anything we strive to do, we worry about. To a degree at least. We worry about what is important. We worry about what we want to spend time and energy on. Maybe all he really means is don’t worry excessively. Don’t worry in such a way that it cripples us. Jesus as Dr. Phil. Let it go, he says, take it easy he says. Do what you can do and be satisfied with that.
Well, that’s certainly good advice and something we should pay attention to more than we do. But is it gospel? Is it really good news? If we just pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps, if we just push away the dark clouds on our own horizons through sheer force of will, then when our energy wanes or our attention wavers, all those worries come rushing back in upon us, stronger and more desperate than before.
We aren’t birds, as beautiful as they are. We aren’t flowers, though they are lovely. And I don’t think Jesus us is really asking us to sit like baby birds in a nest mouths open, bodies quivering, waiting for the worms to fall from heaven. He isn’t really asking us to sit like potted plants waiting for the water to fall and the fertilizer to drop. So, why the little nature interlude? What exactly are we to consider when we do our birdwatching and flower contemplating?
Maybe we should listen again, to the third verse of Judy’s song - well, and Ruth’s and Kurt and Rachel’s (and I’m excited to see according to the previews - Dr. Gregory House’s song too!): “The sun is shinin c'mon get happy, / the lord is waitin to take your hand.” Look at the birds and know, in the sheer wonder of them, that God cares for them. Consider the lilies and understand, through the incomparable beauty of them, that God loves God’s creation. Of which we are a part.
The passage begins with a choice. But it is our choice. God has already chosen. And God has chosen us. Worries and all. Failings and all. God has chosen us. To love us, to be with us, to include us in the plans for the Kingdom, to place within us a longing for home. We choose in the context of being chosen. We love – God and neighbor both – in the context of being loved.
I don’t think Jesus really expects us to never worry again. If he did, why did he include a note that says “Today’s own trouble is enough for today”? He knows we will worry, we can’t help it. He just doesn’t want us to let worry be the definer of our lives. He would much rather that He be the definer, that God be the definer, that love be what shapes and orders our lives. The love we give and the love that surrounds us, like the beauty of flowers and the effervescent joy of the birds.
With all that around us, we might even find time to forget our troubles, c’mon be happy!
Shalom,
Derek
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