THE CALL TO PREACH RAG

In my post for August 18, I noted that I am no longer writing but put that particular post up for the sake of some poor history grad student who needed info for a thesis on preaching in the olden days. [Actually, it was just something I wanted to write and I used history grad students as an excuse.] Nina Morwell said, in response, that I should include some music, since she is now a music history grad student and needs an excuse to neglect her studies. So, here, for Nina, is a song that combines the history of “preachers in the olden days” with the history of Vietnam War protest…  [Below the song is the explanation of why and how an adolescent boy is trying to avoid God’s call.]

THE CALL TO PREACH RAG

[To the tune of “The Draft Dodger Rag,” by Phil Ochs. You can get it on YouTube, by Ochs himself, or The Smothers Brothers, and also in what I think is its best version by The Chad Mitchell Trio.]

I’m just an ordinary Methodist boy

From a hillbilly liberal church

I believe in God, that God’s temple’s your bod

And leaving Old Scratch in the lurch

I don’t smoke or chew or go with girls who do

I’m regular at Sunday School

But when God called me to preach I let out a screech

‘cause I ain’t no religious fool

I believe in kindness, against spiritual blindness

Want all of god’s children well fed

But I pick my nose and go to movie shows

So this is what I said…

Lord, I’m only fourteen, I’m caught in between

My hormones and my brain

If I have to pray, every day

I’ll probably go insane

You’ve got nothing to gain

I’m just too plain

To make your Kingdom come

So call some other, from a neglectful mother

‘cause I ain’t gonna be that dumb

I believe in the testaments, old and new

And the spirit that always flew

Down from heaven, with feathers and leaven

And manna all over like dew

I believe in Noah, the whale and Jonah

And parting the Sea of Red

But if preaching I try I’ll surely die

So this is what I said…

My sore throat’s getting worse

I forget the third verse

In church I can’t stay awake

Weddings I hate, to funerals I’m late

I’m really just a fake

It will be more fitting, if you get someone sitting

In the pew that’s way up there

Cause here in the back, in the doofus pack

This is all we’ve got to share…

Lord, I’m only fourteen, I’m caught in between

My hormones and my brain

If I have to pray, every day

I’ll probably go insane

You’ve got nothing to gain

I’m just too plain

To make your Kingdom come

So call some other, from a neglectful mother

‘cause I ain’t gonna be that dumb

It’s been sixty years of laughs and tears

Since I started to preach for God

My hearing is dicey, I can’t eat it if it’s spicy

And I’m getting tired in the bod

If you’re called to go to lead God’s show

On a cloudy or sunny day

Be it fast of slow you’ve got to go with the flow

It won’t do you any good to say…

Lord, I’m only fourteen, I’m caught in between

My hormones and my brain

If I have to pray, every day

I’ll probably go insane

You’ve got nothing to gain

I’m just too plain

To make your Kingdom come

So call some other, from a neglectful mother

‘cause I ain’t gonna be that dumb

This is explained more fully than anyone needs in The Strange Calling, but in brief… When I was 14, I told God I would be a preacher if “He” would save my sister’s life. He did, and I was stuck… except, I knew you have to have a “call” to be a preacher, and was a deal the same as a call? If it wasn’t really a call, then I didn’t have to go, did I? I wasn’t sure, so I decided to give it sixty years, and if I didn’t know by then…

John Robert McFarland