There are some musical artists I just never get tired of listening to. One of those artists is Rich Mullins. He was an extremely successful musician and songwriter throughout the 80’s and 90’s and was constantly played in the Gardner household growing up. One of the things I always loved about Rich Mullins was his use of obscure instruments, especially the hammered dulcimer. Most of you have probably never heard of it before, but Rich used it on multiple different songs. It seems like he was the kind of guy who could just pick up an instrument and learn how to play it relatively quickly. To give you an idea of the hammered dulcimer, I want to play you the first half of Rich’s song, “Calling Out Your Name,” which is on his 1991 album, The World As Best As I Remember It, Vol. 1. You get a multimedia homily this weekend! (For those who are reading this on our web site, I encourage you to look up this song and listen to it on YouTube.)
So clearly you can see that Rich was talented. And that talent brought him great success in the Christian music industry. Several of his albums sold over 500,000 copies, earning them a Gold status. Mullins regularly collaborated with other huge names in the Christian music industry like Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. But in spite of his great success, Rich desired to live a simple life. Along with some of his fellow band members, he formed a loosely knit group known as the “Kid Brothers of Saint Frank.” This group strove to live according to the principles of Saint Francis of Assisi by voluntarily giving up wealth and looking for opportunities to serve the poor. Rich was a great admirer of Saint Francis and even wrote a musical based on his life, called Canticle of the Plains.
In order to embrace poverty in his life for the sake of the Gospel, Rich assigned elders from his church to manage his money, instructing them to donate his annual salary to various charities and to pay him what the average working man in America was making at the time. This amounted to about $24,000 at the time, a little over $49,500 in today’s dollars. For a famous and successful musician, this was pretty dramatic. Because of this, Rich Mullins lived a relatively simple life compared to his friends in the music industry. It was not unusual to see him walking around in ragged jeans and a baggy, ill-fitting t-shirt. At the end of his life, before his tragic death in a car accident, Rich was living in a small trailer with his friend and fellow bandmate Mitch McVicker on a Navajo reservation near Window Rock, Arizona. He spent his last days teaching music to the kids on the reservation.
The reason Rich is on my mind is because of his uncomplaining commitment to poverty for the sake of the Gospel. Rich was unafraid to let go of money in order to draw closer to God and His mission for him. This allowed him not only to hone the creative gifts that God had blessed him with, but to share those gifts generously with others by teaching those who were very poor. Unfortunately, I never got to meet Rich personally, but those who did spoke of his profound impact on them. Even seeing his life from a distance has inspired me and I’m sure many others in our walk of faith. Because Rich wasn’t afraid to be radically devoted to God, the Holy Spirit worked through him in big and small ways to touch many people. For him, it wasn’t about worldly success, but glorifying God. One of my favorite lyrics in his music is from the song “If I Stand:” ‘If I sing, let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs.’ I believe Rich Mullins allowed the Lord to give him the joy to sing well and to glorify God through his art. He then took the further step of protecting himself against the pride and greed that would threaten his spiritual journey by giving up the wealth that the world would consider rightfully his.
RIch and other followers of Jesus like him give us living examples of what the call of Jesus looks like in real life. Jesus puts a radical challenge to each of us who desire to follow Him. He says to each of us in the Gospel today:
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna,
where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.
He’s reminding us that to live His life doesn’t just mean being a “good person,” it means to allow the grace of God to pull us away from that which kills us–sin–taking radical steps with His help where necessary. The word radical gets a bad rap in our world today, but it shouldn’t. Radical comes from the Latin root, radix, which means, ‘root.’ So being a radical disciple of Christ is a good thing! It means allowing God to change us at our roots, allowing His grace to pull out those roots of sin in our lives, even if that uprooting process might be painful and involve some dramatic steps. His grace can do that in us, if we let it. When we do, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit will touch others through us in deep and lasting ways.
Granted, we will not all have that call from God to be radical with our finances like Rich, but I do believe God is inviting us to radical discipleship each in our own way. How is he calling you and me today to allow Him to pull out those roots of sin that have taken hold in our hearts, and what change is God giving us the grace to make in our daily living to keep that sin from taking root again? When I look at that radical move away from worldly wealth and prestige that Rich Mullins undertook, I recognize a man humbly admitting his weakness toward greed and pride and taking radical steps to address it. How is the Father inviting you and me to take a radical step in His grace today?
+ Heavenly Father, thank you for the radical call that you give us through your Son. Jesus, our Savior, help us with your grace to find deeper freedom from those sins that kill us. Holy Spirit, help us to be confident in Your power in us in the midst of our weakness so that we can walk in that power. +