232. Rock Goes The Gospel - Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop"

"Blitzkrieg Bop" is a song by the American punk band The Ramones. It was released as the band's debut single in February 1976 in the United States. It appeared as the opening track on the band's debut album, Ramones, also released that month. The song, whose composition was credited to the band as a whole, was written by drummer Tommy Ramone (music and lyrics) and bassist Dee Dee Ramone (lyrics). Based on a simple three-chord pattern, "Blitzkrieg Bop" opens with the chant "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" The song is popular at sporting events where "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" is sometimes shouted as a rallying cry, particularly in the city of Glasgow where fans chant "Hey! Ho! Glasgow!" "Blitzkrieg Bop" is number 92 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In March 2005, Q magazine placed it at number 31 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks, and in 2008 Rolling Stone placed it number 18 on top 100 of Best Guitar Songs of All Time. In 2009 it was named the 25th greatest hard rock song of all time by VH1. The Ramones' famous chant, "Hey, Ho, Let's Go!" is a big part of this song. They wanted their own chant after hearing "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers, which had the chant "S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, Night." Joey Ramone explained: "I hate to blow the mystique, but at the time we really liked bubblegum music, and we really liked the Bay City Rollers. Their song 'Saturday Night' had a great chant in it, so we wanted a song with a chant in it: 'Hey! Ho! Let's Go!'. 'Blitzkrieg Bop' was our 'Saturday Night'."

Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go

They're forming in a straight line
They're going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They're piling in the back seat
They're generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop.

Hey ho, let's go
Shoot'em in the back now
What they want, I don't know
They're all reved up and ready to go

The Ramones wrote this as a salute to their fans - it's about having a good time at a show. Some fans interpret the song differently, however and there are a few interpretations. The lyrics tell about being pumped up and ready for something and it that theme of being ready that we will explore this morning. The bible passage finds Jesus speaking a parable in Matthew 25:1-13 about those who were ready.

A Parable about Readiness (Matthew 25:1-13)

Together, the parables in Matthew refuse to let us think that the Christian life equals passivity. Each parable commends readiness, whether that readiness involves actively caring for those in God's "house" or meeting the needs of people who suffer. This is the second of of a group of four parables, found in Matthew 25:1-13, focuses less on particular actions that exhibit faithful readiness (for specific examples of these, see the fourth parable, in in this group Matthew 25:31-46) and more on the question of what it means to live faithfully as we wait for God's intentions to be brought to their full fruition.

This parable about ten bridesmaids (called "virgins" in the original Greek) characterises Christianity as a waiting religion. Awaiting the fullness of the "kingdom of God" Jesus promised, Christians hope for new realities to come into existence. Christian faith involves waiting with confidence. The ten bridesmaids await a bridegroom's arrival, when the wedding festivities will begin at last. When fullness will arrive. But the wait proves to be difficult, as it usually is for people with high expectations. It lasts deep into the night. The ten who wait look almost identical, except for one detail. All are bridesmaids. All were invited. All want to see the bridegroom and join the party. All wait into the night. Even the five wise bridesmaids fall asleep, too; none is especially heroic or invulnerable.

Only one difference separates the two groups: some, those described as wise, were prepared for the bridegroom's absence. These five took pains to do what was necessary while the bridegroom remained away, symbolised by their surplus lamp oil. The others, the foolish ones, are exposed when they find their lamps empty at the big moment: because they did not bother to equip themselves to wait the right way, they will not be equipped to share the party with Jesus the bridegroom when he becomes present. So they find themselves disinvited and locked out. The bridegroom claims not to know them. What happened?

Faithful Readiness

What makes this parable about anything other than what it looks like on its own -- a description of a mean, demanding Jesus? We need the rest of Matthew's Gospel to answer that question, for the rest of Matthew conveys an understanding of what it looks like to live in readiness. Such a life is marked by active waiting as we expect God to make all things new. It's more like eagerly expecting and diligently preparing in anticipation of your future than it is like waiting silently in line to get through the customs checkpoint at the airport. Despite Jesus' absence, despite the presence of circumstances that conspire to rob us of wakefulness and hope, Christians express expectation. They anticipate.

And so we pass faith along to our children. We rely upon one another and upon the best of our traditions to sustain us when doubt and fatigue prove overwhelming. We forgive one another's sins, study scriptures, baptize people into a new identity, and share a meal to recognize the sustenance God provides. These things aren't mere rituals or time-fillers. They sustain us in Jesus' absence, when the hazards of nighttime, fatigue, and resignation confront us all. They promote readiness. But Matthew's Gospel, including Jesus' troublesome parables, will not allow us to neglect another dimension of this waiting. Living with deferred hope also prompts us to consider others who experience unfulfillment or absence in their own lives, especially absence of opportunity, absence of justice, or absence of hope. And so faithfulness must also consist in serving those who are poor, oppressed, and outside. It involves working for reconciliation.

Active Readiness

Faithful readiness must be active readiness. It means saying that even though the wedding banquet hasn't yet begun, together we will act as if it has. To live otherwise is to be exposed as unaware, perhaps revealing our estrangement from the bridegroom, from Jesus himself. Too many followers of Jesus read this disturbing parable and fixate on the reality inside the door, as they long for a promised wedding banquet to come and neglect their present circumstances. Other readers focus on the locked door and can't abide an exclusion that appears harsh and unyielding -- all that, just for forgetting an oil flask? As important as those details are, they miss the fact that most of the action in the parable takes place on this side of the door, in a world that waits, in a world that suffers as it waits. Where we stand today, where we sometimes are overcome by sleepiness, no banquet door has been shut yet.

This means opportunity.

And so faithful readiness expresses itself actively, sometimes through impatience with suffering. It may express itself in outrage over yet more incidents of gun violence in the news and over the ongoing cowardice that keeps politicians from taking up measures to combat the problem. Faithful readiness can express itself in bold solidarity. Consider medical professionals who travel into West Africa to combat Ebola and to provide care to its victims while ignorant and fearful people try to isolate Africa even further, acting as if this is another continent's problem, or another people's problem. Faithful readiness can express itself in impulses for change and longings for freedom and human dignity. We may see it in some who participate in on the streets of our world's cities and among those who support those people with prayer and material or strategic support. Faithful readiness can express itself in a refusal to accept closed doors, to borrow and refashion an image from the parable. This happens especially when doors are locked to keep out the vulnerable and to buttress our prejudices. Watch the inspiring stories of active readiness expressed by people of faith who advocate for the children and parents of syrian migrants. Take a moment to consider the heroic efforts of those who serve the transient community on the border of France and many other acts of active readiness. Hey ho, let's go.....They're all reved up and ready to go.