The Showman
The Showman
Does carrying that Crown never get too heavy
Take up all your days until you’re too old to carry on?
Does burying all that widow’s gold
Take up too much room inside your soul until its’ gone?
Are there any Inner Rooms left Inside?
Are there any Sacred Hours you can Find?
Where your sons can take to Flight?
Where your daughters can Delight?
Where your wife can hide from the Storm Outside?
Where you haven’t filled them up with Showman’s Pride?
Chorus: On Showman,
When the Lights Don’t Glow
Do you got nothing left but the memory a Show?
When the Curtain Falls Do you got no glory left at All?
When the Airtime Fails Do those reruns become your private Hell?
Do those reruns become your private Hell?
Does carrying that all that shame ever get to heavy
Take up all your days until you’re too old to carry on?
Does eating up all the praise and applause
Take up too much room inside your soul until its’ gone?
-Are there any Treasured Memories left Inside
Are there any Buried Seasons you can Find
Where your sons learned what is wrong and what is Right?
Where your daughters learned they are worth the Fight?
Where your wife found a stage on you where she can Shine?
Where you haven’t built them by the Showman’s Design?
-And when the audience heads home
Where will You go to be Whole?
Oh, Showman, the Joker has got you blinded by the Glow?
Oh, Showman, it is you thats missing it all and didn't Know
Oh, Showman, does the cold wind ever blow
Hard enough to push you off that Stage
Hard enough to push you off that Stage
The Showman is a social commentary, partially about the narcissism of our society which confuses attention with success, even if the attention is for selfish purposes or even for evil purposes. The one who receives attention is still a ‘success” no matter the cost to the society or even to their own children such as we see in the “celebrated” lives of many CEOs and rock stars and athletes who also happen to also be deadbeat dads and husbands along with being famous. We must first prove that we can Love before we are allowed to be the one who Leads.
“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer[a] must be above reproach, the husband of one wife,[b] sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” 1st Timothy 3:1-7
This song is also about Churchianity, that counterfeit of Christianity born when the Body of Messiah had its heart and soul surgically removed by the popes and pastors and theologians to become a Political Movement then a Philosophical Theory and then a Cultural Institution and finally into a Business. We all know that a Body intended to be a Bride is a harlot once it has been sold as part of a business, and the one that sold her is called a pimp instead of a pastor. There are far too many businessmen, politicians, motivational speakers, comedians and professional entertainers and sometimes even hypnotists, magicians and circus ringleaders calling themselves by the title “Pastor” these days, and a few spiritual pimps along with them that are either feared or worshiped to the point of total submission.
“Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.” Ezekiel 34:10
Derek Webb, a Christian Singer formerly of Caedman’s call addresses this is many of his lyrics “I am a whore I do confess, I put you on like a wedding dress, and run down the aisle, run down the aisle, I’m a prodigal with no way home who puts you on like a ring of gold, and run down the aisle, to you” Wedding Dress. The lyrics of “Ballad in Plain Red” is from the viewpoint of Satan bragging on doing his best work inside the Church “Yeah I’m turning shepherds into sheep and leaders into celebrities, it’s totally sabotaged just look around you. Forgot the song and forget the meals, we got a gymn and a ferris wheel, I swear now it looks just like a country club down the block. Yeah the check is in the mail from the 21st Century”. The most stirring of his lyrics is this though and is told from the perspective of Yeshua/Jesus “Well I found thieves and salesmen, living in my father’s house. I know how they got in here and I know how to get them out. I am turning this place over, from floor to balcony then just like these doves and sheep you will be set free. Go on and paint my picture, go on and make me up, and I will still be your defender, but you will be my missing son. Well I will send out an army, just to bring you back to me, then just like these doves and sheep you will be set free. You bring all your history and I will bring the bread and wine, and we will have ourselves a party, where all the drinks are on me, and then just like these doves and sheep you will be set free” Derek Webb.
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In the Kingdom Yeshua came to build, there was only room for one King, and that King happened to be the most humble servant and not the most handsome or entertaining Church Celebrity. There was simply no room for Ecclesiastical Superstars who are called “Nicolaitans” in Revelation chapter two, and He instructed His followers to not celebrate them and in fact, to not even tolerate the “Deeds of the Nicolaitans” which He hates and we are also to hate. This term cmes from the Greek words “Nico” (to conquer) and “Laitans” (refers to the Laity). These were etymologically Ecclesiastical Superstars but historically were those who brought pagan worship into the Church for financial and political profit.
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. 6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. 7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’ Revelation 2:15
He left us leaders as servants and mentors, not as masters and commanders. The ones who made headlines in His Kingdom soon made the obituaries under “martyred this week” instead of the cover of “Fortune” and Oprah’s Book Club. There are also many good pastors who started out as Shepherds and ended up as celebrities not by their own design, many who lost families serving the Kingdom as best they understood but lost sight of the mandate to lead their family first before the Congregation, and many who were just trained to perpetuate a broken system and have never seen anything past the “vision” of their denomination. Many are preachers but few are shepherds, just as many are soldiers but few are warriors and many are politicians but few are leaders and many are teachers but few are mentors. The wheat and the tares can only be separated by the double edged blade of the Word of God and the Spirit of God who created them both.
“I appeal to you, brothers,[a] by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. 12 What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Corinthians 1:10
The Showman came about through many of my own experiences with Churches, which have simultaneously been the best and the worst and the most influential and also some of the strangest and most painful experiences of my life. I have helped to start a Church, I have been excommunicated from a Church, I have ran to Churches during a crisis and have ran away from a Church because of a crisis. They contain the seeds of my greatest hopes for this Nation and of my worst fears. The best men and women and the worst men and women in my life, in the lives of others and even in the historical record have all been in ministry in one form or another. Hitler’s Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebel’s had a Phd in Theology, Joseph Stalin attended Seminary, and even Ivan the Terrible of Russia read the Bible several hours a day, but Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. and even Ghandi studied it as well “I love your Jesus but can’t stand your Christians”.
So there must be something in the human heart that determines how a man responds to the Bible, a point brilliantly illustrated in the film “The Book of Eli” in which Gary Oldman’s character sends out roving marauder’s to find the world’s last Bible because he needs “the words” to control the masses and build his empire, while Denzel Washington’s character heeds the words to accomplish the impossible at great personal risk and sacrifice for the good of his fellow man. I myself read the Bible cover to cover 3 times when I was a teenager, and it increased the size of my vocabulary and my perspective but didn’t increase the size of my heart that I noticed or the softness of my heart either.
I consumed the “Letter of the Law”, that is, the letters in black and white, but never allowed the “Spirit of the Law”, that is, the principles and goals the Author intended, to seep into my own Spirit. The Letter of the Law will use the ink to feed self-righteousness and draw out a map to the “Tree of Knowledge”, but the Spirit of the Law will use the ink on the page to feed a hunger for righteousness (Loving our Creator and Loving our Neighbor in The Way we were instructed) which leads us to the Tree of Life. We must first we learn to carry the Tree that Yeshua was hung on, the one that had to be carried to allow us to pass the Cherub of Eden with the flaming sword, before we can encounter the Tree of Life. The stairway to Heaven can only be climbed on our knees and not by standing proudly in our extra long choir robes and white collars.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[b] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Deuteronomy 6:4 “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40
Churches and I have always had this Love-Hate Relationship. My mother drug my brother and I to Church while my dad sold drugs. After she died it was the grown folks at the Baptist Church who brought us food to the house those first few weeks and it was their children who made fun of our torn clothes that didn’t fit so I quit showing up for the youth group. It was my mother’s preacher that gave me a Greek English New Testament that laid a foundation in Scripture for the rest of my life and who tried to build my confidence by asking me the meaning of Greek words in front of the congregation during a sermon (despite me freezing up and forgetting), and it was another preacher later who to this day continues to make up lies about me to mention in his sermons about events he wasn’t even present to witness. I have been given true Prophetic Words from strangers at a Church the first time I met them (such a God wanting to partner with me in using my writing) and have also had people I have known for years try to force me to speak in tongues by grabbing my jaw bone and trying to move it with their hands. I have seen people fall forward in both awe and repentance like the Patriarchs and also seen them fall backwards like the Kundalinni (Serpent Cult) Hindu Priests in India.
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It was my 8th grade teacher at Hornsby Elementary who gave me my first Bible and to get new clothes (that my dad lit on fire with a lighter on the front porch as soon as I got home), and it was my religion professor who was a Methodist Preacher that took me to a Mosque, a Hindu Temple and a Buddhist Yoga Club in Nashville. I have argued with deacons while I was wearing black nail paint and served in the function of a deacon wearing a button up shirt and tie when I helped start a Church. I have read books on Theology for a year in Seminary and years before that, read books on Vampires for a year in my teens, and read both in the middle it seems. It was a Baptist Preacher that I was starting a Church with who did everything he could to save my marriage despite our numerous disagreements about theology, and it was a Messianic Preacher who seemed to be doing everything he could to destroy many people’s marriages despite them agreeing with him on theology. People are strange, people in Church are stranger, and people in ministry are the strangest of them all. Strange as in they might perform an exorcism just to show off where no demons come out of the sorcerer they are “delivering” for a Pastor to prove he is somebody, or the no name usher might slide you a twenty dollar bill as you leave the sermon after 20 minutes of your first visit when you have never been inside that building in your life and nobody but God knows you will suddenly and desperately need the gas money the next day when your debit card doesn’t work at the pump. As a general rule, the bigger the Show the less of the Spirit is in it.
We must all be careful in our judgement and just rightly, because we all serve as “Priests” to either the Creator or the Destroyer. Everyone at some point in their life serves as “Apostles” (those who are sent out for a mission to a certain group of people by the one they worship), as Evangelists (those who bring the message of the one they worship), as Teachers (those who give us the information that builds the people’s perspective of themselves and the one they worship), Prophets (those who share the heart of the one they worship, often through music) and as Pastors (those who gather and lead the people who all worship the same one). Everyone worships someone and seeks to bring others into doing the same, everyone sets the course of life by ideas about themselves and who created them, everyone gathers who those who they share worship with and everyone shares their passions. Even if we suppose that we only worship ourselves, that is an instruction of a supernatural being that is being followed after listening to his evangelists and receiving his apostles and gathering with those of like mind, the one who said through his apostle Aleister Crowley, founder of the World Satanist Church “Do As Thou Willt”. That slogan has been the mantra of America since the 1960’s Sex, Music and Drug Revolution, passed on through the priests of “self” and looking at the aftermath of violence and fatherlessness and greed, the message of the Destroyer. (For more on how that happen look up the Documentary “They Sold Their Souls for Rock and Roll” on Youtube, it’s a spiritual history of the music industry).
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The Spirit of a man determines how he responds to the Words of God, and to God’s People, and to the Gifting that God has given him. This of course includes the 5 Fold Ministry Giftings of Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher, Prophet and Apostle, the 5 Gifts that we can use for Him or for ourselves (the same as for the Destroyer). If we wish to both know and walk in truth, we have to humble ourselves before our Creator asking both for forgiveness and for truth. Otherwise we become as the Pharisee who assumed he was in line to be a governor in the World to Come when in reality he was on the path to being a beggar, while the desperate ragamuffin beside him was humble enough to one day be exalted.
“ He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two menwent up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed[a] thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God,be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:10 2
Prayer for The Showmen And Their Sheep
Director of The Universe
We ask you to give us Shepherds after your own Heart
We ask that we follow by your Spirit and not by Our Eyes
We ask that we are ruled by Statesmen instead of Politicians
We ask that we led by Leaders instead of Liars
We ask for Pastors and Prophets in the Pews instead of Pimps and Profiteers
We ask to bow our knees beside Broken Saints instead of Shiny Showmen
We ask that we be Washed by the Blood instead of Whitewashed by the Crowd
“But woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not enter yourselves, nor do you let those enter who are trying to go in” Matthew 23:13
Resource: “Courageous” movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70MVn1q-yyM
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