Buffalo Springfield - For What Its Worth Video by Rab - MySpace Video

For What It’s Worth
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

Buffalo Springfield - For What Its Worth Video by Rab - MySpace Video

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This could be a song about almost any human strife that’s gotten out of hand.
It’s a cry for reasonable thinking in the midst of paraonoia and conflict.

It could be a song about Palm Sunday and Holy Week—a field day for the heat, standing in the street, waving signs, worry about the men with weapons, the ones who will take you away if you step out of line.

It could be a song now about Afghanistan or Iran. Or any of our current political battles: Healthcare Reform, Gun Control—all of the things that divide us by opinion, political party, national loyalty.

It’s a song that seems largely about politics, about the Viet Nam war and the upheaval of the 60s. But the song was written for something a little narrower: the closing of the club Pandora’s Box in West Hollywood, California—that did have to do with local politicians acting against the youth who attended the club, clogging up the main road and not spending very much money—it is still a song that is critical of authority and institution.

For What It’s Worth was written by Stephen Stills and performed by Buffalo Springfield. Stills said that the name of the song came about when he presented it to the record company: He said: "I have this song here, for what it's worth, if you want it." Later they decided that should be its name. It is considered the 99th greatest song of all time by Acclaimed Music

Part of what I am discovering in preaching this series, is that there is a certain holiness in film and music: in our cultural art. Now, not all art is sacred, not all art is well-done or meaningful—plenty of movies and songs seem to be cheaply slapped together. But the ones that are genuine communicate something important about who we are that transcends the decades—how we find meaning in our lives and what’s important to us.
It’s pop culture, but it’s also sacred. Scripture, too, says something about who we are and who we were.

A 2006 documentary on Bob Dylan discussed his uncanny ability to name so many universal and timely sentiments. It also talked about how prophetic his music was, especially in the 60s, but it also showed clips of him discussing how he didn’t really feel like he had his thumb on the sentiments of the American people, but was just writing what came to him—almost as if he were channeling these words without understanding their power, and not wanting to take credit for something he didn’t feel he was really doing on purpose.

For What It’s Worth strikes me as a similar situation—a song that ends up speaking to many people, even now, not so much because of the writer, or the band, but because of it’s call to stop and look and listen to the world around us.

Not a child of the 60s myself, this is a song I usually here in movies. It was in both Forrest Gump and Lord of War. In fact, I really like this song, but didn’t know what it was called until Sean Hagan suggested it. Because the title doesn’t appear anywhere in the lyrics, it’s a song that I hear in a movie and think – I love this song, what is it?—and then forget all about it until the next time that it pops up in a movie and I tell myself that I really need to figure out what this song is. So it’s a song that I associate with movie scenes: with olive green choppers flying over a rice field, with soldiers in Vietnam, or protestors in DC.

I’m poaching the following form a news article about the song—because I like the way it’s written—Lewis Black wrote this paragraph about leaving a protest rally and hearing this song play on the radio:

“Music has always been a balm of enormous healing properties for my soul and well-being, but for a half-decade or so around that time, it was also reporting from the front. The relevance was beyond rational and not even rooted in reason. By its very nature, it was not a typed broadside, a considered political opinion, or an ideological speech; it was a chunk of unconscious reaction ripped up from all of us and offered as a way of dealing with all that was going on around us. They were just people; they weren't leaders, but more akin to impressionist poets, offering complex, emotional snapshots of a truly blasted environment. ”

Scripture is also a complex, emotional snapshot—of a moment in history, but with language and grace that transcends the centuries.

The war and strife mentioned in the Bible is real, and particular—actual battles in historical time and space. And yet, when Ecclesiastes tells us that there is a time for peace and a time for war, that still speaks to us today. Joel tells of beating plowshares into swords, for a battle of judgment against neighboring nations. Isaiah tells of final days, when war will end, when we will beat swords into plowshares.

There is a time to fight and a time to listen
There is a time to act and a time to stand still
There is a time for the things that divide us and a time for the things that bring us closer together

In the midst of conflict, it’s important to remember that our whole lives are not conflict and strife. Paranoia, fear, darkness are not the end of the story. Separation, distrust, division are not the end of the story.

God is not the “man with a gun over there.”

We can all continue in our own battlegrounds, arguing for our opinions, beliefs, and worldviews—we can argue blindly in a “you’re either us for us or against us” kind of way, or we can stop and listen and look at everything around us.

Maybe we don’t all agree on having a government run health care program, but maybe we can agree that all people deserve to have decent care. Maybe we don’t all agree on the path ahead for the church: for The UMC or Washington Street, but maybe we can agree to trust in God’s spirit moving among us. Maybe we don’t all trust each other, but maybe we can each learn to be more trustworthy. Maybe we don’t all agree on all the finer points of theology: but we do believe in all-powerful, all-loving God, who can save us all.