Presented to River Street Cafe, 20 November 2017
Read Ecclesiastes 9:11
Jethro Tull won the 1988 Grammy Award for
Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental, beating the favourite
Metallica. The award was controversial because most people rightfully do not
consider Jethro Tull hard rock, much less heavy metal. On the advice of their
manager, who told them they had no chance of winning, no one from the band even
attended the award ceremony. Their front man pays the flute and their band’s
logo is a silouhette of Ian Anderson playing the flute.
When asked about the controversy Ian
Anderson quipped, "Well, we do sometimes play our mandolins very
loudly." And their label, Chrysalis, responsed to the criticism by taking
out an advertisement in a British music periodical with a picture of a flute
lying in a pile of iron re-bar and the line, "the flute is a heavy metal
instrument."
In 1992, when Metallica finally won the
Grammy in the category, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich joked, "First thing
we're going to do is thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this
year"
Ecclesiates 9:11:
I
have seen something else under the sun:
The
race is not to the swift
or
the battle to the strong,
nor
does food come to the wise
or
wealth to the brilliant
or
favor to the learned;
but
time and chance happen to them all.
This is grace. It is our job to enjoy our
labour under the sun, as Ecclesiastes repeatedly reminds us throughout. We must
work hard; we should enjoy our work for we must remember that at the end of the
day, everything good does not directly correspond to our effort, influence or
anything else. Our blessings are due to the grace of God alone.
When have you experienced the grace of God
recently?
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