Tell me what you want!

Doug and Jo write: 

Yesterday the Gospel and the Sermon were about finding the ultimate Treasure, the Kingdom of God. I mentioned that I had checked out the internet sermon for our video service, by the Dean of St Albans, the Venerable Jeffrey John. Jeffrey had begun his sermon by mentioning the Spice Girls and their big hit single “Wannabe” which contains the phrase “I’ll tell you what you want, what you really really want”. It gets us rapidly to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it? There’s nothing quite like a contemporary illustration. It reminds me of a song I used to like by 10cc, “The Dean and I”.

 

Going further back than the Dean, on Saturday there was the news that the great blues guitarist and singer Peter Green has died. Who can forget classics like Black Magic Woman, Oh Well and Albatross. He had reached a career high when he left the band, Fleetwood Mac. They went on to yet greater success with a very different style of music. Peter Green is said to have had some mental health issues but he continued to produce music. Like some others, he found the pressures of fame hard to deal with. He not only left his band but gave up the money he had acquired.

 

One of his contemporaries was Cat Stevens, who had his own spiritual search. On his first album he asks fundamental questions on “I Wish I Knew”, following later with Peace Train and his version of Morning has Broken. He left showbiz for many years, and found faith in the Muslim religion. He says of Green that “When I heard he left Fleetwood Mac in 1970 to get a real life and donate his wealth to charity, he became something of a role model for me”. And the truth is that to find the true treasure we will need to be more single-minded, seeing the things of this world including fortune and fame, as ephemeral. For Christians that treasure is found in the Kingdom of God, brought to us by Jesus. He invites us to seek and find not so much what we want but what we really – really – need.