The Vicar, The Priest, & The Rock Star

The Next Line: Season of Lent

            What do a modern-day priest, a WWI Army chaplain, and a 1980’s rock star have in common? It seems like the start of a joke, so I’ll give you a minute to ponder………ok, time’s up.

When researching poems related to the Lenten season, I stumbled upon a poem by Geoffrey Anketell (GA) Studdert Kennedy. The poem is titled Indifference, or  sometimes called, When Jesus Came to Birmingham, which instantly reminded me of the song, When Jesus Left Birmingham, by John (Cougar) Mellencamp. After I read about GA’s life and what he promoted in his religious roles, last week’s sermon by Father Ben Grothouse sprung to mind. So, let’s see what happens when a priest, a vicar, and a rock star walk into a bar.

GA Kennedy was born in Leeds in 1883, and in 1914 he was appointed Vicar of St. Paul’s in Worcester, England and served as a voluntary chaplain in the British Army during WWI. In 1917 he ran into ‘No Man’s Land’ at the Messines Ridge to help the wounded during an attack on the German frontline. For his bravery he was awarded the Military Cross. After the war, he was appointed to the Church of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, in Lombard Street, London but he soon moved to work for the Industrial Christian Fellowship where he advocated for the Church to promote social reform into its teachings. Not social reform merely on the political front, but social reform of the individuals who attended Mass by incorporating their spiritual life into their personal life, leaving no separation between the two.

In 1923 he addressed the Anglo-Catholic Congress where he stated, “It is not enough to make the devotional life our main concern and allow an occasional lecture or preachment on social matters to be added as a make-weight. The social life must be brought right into the heart of our devotion, and our devotion right into the heart of our social life. There is only one spiritual life, and that is the sacramental life – sacramental in its fullest, its widest, and its deepest sense, which means the consecration of the whole man and all his human relationships to God.” (Source: patrickcomerford.com)

Indifference

GA Studdert Kennedy

When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged him on a tree,

They drove great nails through hands and feet and made a Calvary.

They crowned him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,

For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

When Jesus came to Birmingham, they simply pass Him by.

They would not hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;

For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,

They only just passed down the street and left Him in the rain.

Still Jesus cried, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’

And still it rained the winter rain that drenched Him through and through;

The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,

And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Cavalry.

GA explains that ‘while we as a human race are not as barbaric as we once were, that does not mean that we are good people simply because we do not cause physical harm to others, or that we can remain indifferent’, which is exactly what Father Ben Grothouse talked about in last week’s sermon.

Father Ben Grothouse is one of the priests at the Catholic church I attend in Keller, TX. Father Ben, as he is called, is a young priest who delivers his timely sermons with heart-felt passion. He’s full of vim and vigor, as they say. In last week’s sermon, he stated, nay, he implored us to take stock of our lives and to stop going through the motions of being a ‘good’ Catholic, to really assess how we live our lives, and to start living a life of sacrifice, devotion, and dedication to Jesus and his teachings, and like GA Kennedy mentions, to quit separating our spiritual and our personal lives.

Referring to how we often justify our behavior, Father Ben said “…Where is the root of our sin? Where do we look, whenever we look at our lives to know whether or not we’re in a good state, whether we’re in a state of grace or whether we are a God-less sinner? I think so many of us, we just look through the actions that we do; ‘Well, I didn’t get completely drunk last night. I didn’t be a complete glutton at the chili cookoff last night’…sin doesn’t just come about with the actions that we commit. It goes deeper; it’s something that’s rooted in the hearts that we have.”

He goes on to say, “You know, I think that we have this weird problem where we disconnect our hearts from the actions that we commit. ‘You know, I don’t actively murder people, so I must be the good and holiest person alive’ and then you come to me or Father Flynn and talk about how you just despise someone who’s in politics or on the internet, or somebody that’s living in your house right now.’ I’m looking at you spouses, ‘Oh, my husband, he just drives me nuts!’ We do these things, and they build resentments, they build hatred, they poison our hearts to the point where we’re living two separate lives.” If you would like to hear the entire sermon, you can view the Mass by going to seascc.org and finding the live stream of the 2/15/26 Mass.

Merging our spiritual and personal lives to the point that there is no separation is obviously tough and just being a little better or indifferent is not enough to live a truly spiritual life that is reflected in our daily activities. This is the dilemma that John Mellencamp sings about in his 1993  album, Human Wheels, the album that features the song, When Jesus Left Birmingham. But before we get to that, let’s go back a little further into John’s career.

John Mellencamp was born in Seymour, Indiana in 1951. When you think of John Mellencamp, or Johnny Cougar as he was known in his early career, you probably remember his hits, Jack & Diane, Hurts So Good, Small Town, and others. On the surface, it may seem illogical or maybe even blasphemous to compare his work to that of the afore-mentioned priests, but I believe that many of John’s songs echoed their messages. Throughout his career John seemed to be having an identity crisis. In what seems to be an attempt to shed his rock-n-roll personae, he changed his stage name from Johnny Cougar to John Cougar Mellencamp then to simply, John Mellencamp. Along with his name, his song lyrics also changed, a little away from the personal pleasures of life and more toward social injustices and reform.

Before Human Wheels, the 1985 album Scarecrow started Mellencamp’s shift toward social and personal injustices.  In the song Rain on the Scarecrow, he sings, ‘Scarecrow on a wooden cross, blackbird in the barn. Four hundred empty acres, that used to be my farm. I grew up like my daddy did, my grandpa cleared this land. When I was five, I walked the fence while grandpa held my hand.’ He goes on to tell the story of how his farm gets auctioned off  because they can’t pay the loans against it. Here he is talking to his childhood friend who is the auctioneer tasked with the job of selling the farm - ‘Calling it your job, ol’ hoss, sure don’t make it right, but if you want me to I’ll say a prayer, for your soul tonight.’

The album, and this song in particular, were written to shed light on the American farming crisis of the mid-80’s as many small farms were failing, causing banks to foreclose and sell land that had been family owned for generations. That same year he joined Willie Nelson and Neil Young in forming the benefit concert Farm Aid, where dozens of musical artists would perform, with the benefits being donated to help American farmers. While not as popular or highly promoted as it was at its inception, Farm Aid is still performed annually, having raised over 90 million dollars to date.

Eight years after releasing Scarecrow,  John released  his twelfth album,  Human Wheels, which featured songs that touch on the typical aspects of being human and the struggle to turn away from temptation and toward faith, the same themes that GA Kennedy and Father Ben talk about. The song When Jesus Left Birmingham  demonstrates the difficulty of living one life, a life where our spiritual and physical identities are integrated into one human expression. Here are the first and fourth verses.

When Jesus left Birmingham

All the disciples went crazy

When Jesus left Birmingham

All the people went completely nuts

They all busted out in a wild night

Riding high on a golden calf

When Jesus left Birmingham

All the people had themselves a big, long laugh.

I see myself with a rosary

I’m in a garden and I’m talking to myself

I ain’t sayin’ much worth repeating

Just askin’ for forgiveness and all of his best

When those crazy nights come callin’

Man, I’m just as human as I can be

When Jesus left Birmingham

He left it there for you and me.

The first verse reminds us of how quickly we can forget the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, while the fourth verse takes us right back to our typical human ways, ending with the realization that Jesus’s teachings are always accessible, and if we choose, we can live one life where our faith is in sync with our actions, just like GA Kennedy and Father Ben strongly advise.