by Russell Rathbun
Gospel Reading: Luke 17:11-19
For Sunday, October 13, 2013—Lectionary 28
The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea was recorded by Johnny Cash with Tom Petty, in the 90’s, and was originally written and performed by the Carter Sisters, in the 50’s, as well as being covered by countless country and gospel singers in between, but I think the definitive version is by the Louvin Brothers. Their close, plaintive harmony embodies the near hopeless grasp for grace the lyrics dramatize.
Praying Mothers
I did say dramatize, but I could have said mellow-dramatize—as in melodramatic—because this song is part of a subgenre of country gospel music known as the dead mother ballad, and they are all over-the-top maudlin.
There are many examples, the most well known is, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, and they all follow roughly the same scenario—all that mother ever wanted was for her son to repent. (Yes, it is always the son. Either girls are less sinful or wrote fewer songs about their dead mothers.) The son is always some kind of ne’er do well who lives out his tawdry life while his mother stays home and prays for his soul. Finally the prayers work or the son is convicted of his sin or Jesus gets around to the mother’s request and the wayward son repents. He returns home to share the good news with his long-suffering mother only to find that she has very recently died.
Tardy Sons
The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea is the genre at its best, maybe one better. It tells the story of a still unrepentant “drunkard” who returns to see his mother after a long absence but comes to find her not at home but in the graveyard. In a shifting point of view from son to mother and time frame from past to present to future the lyrics unfurl the story:
Lord have mercy on me /Was the kneeling drunkard's plea /And as he knelt there on the ground /I know that God in heaven looked down. Bring my darling boy to me /Was his mother's dying plea /And as he staggered through the gate /Alas he came just one day too late.
He stagers through the gate, but he is one day too late. The loss and shame or what ever it is, moves him and he repents and three years later dies, and guess what? He is finally reunited with his mother—in the grave.
Three years have passed since she went away /Her son is sleeping beside her today /And I know that in heaven his mother he'll see/ For God has heard that drunkard's plea Lord have mercy on me Was the kneeling drunkard's plea And as he knelt there on the ground I know that God in heaven looked down.
Lord have Mercy
Do you need a tissue? This Carter Sisters classic is not only quintessential low church, folk theology, but also has the ring of high church liturgy. The Kyrie is possibly the oldest part of Christian liturgy, used in the Eastern Orthodox Church as well as in Roman and Protestant rites. Kyrie Eleison is a Latin transliteration of the Greek Lord, have mercy on me.
This week’s Gospel reading gives us ten lepers who are standing a bit of a distance away from Jesus (as prescribed by Jewish law and custom) and shouting at him, “Lord, have mercy on me!” The Lord does have mercy on them, he heals them, but in a kind of delayed, out of sequence, way. He tells them to go show themselves to the priests and the implication is that after they do they are healed.
It is kind of like the dead mother ballad—her prayers pay off and the son repents, but only after she dies—like one day too late. There is something a little bit not completely graceful about the whole thing. Like even after the son repents and is saved by the mercy of God he is still shamed about the timing.
This Gospel text has the same sort of saved but shamed feel to it.
The Hardest Question
Why does Jesus have to take this amazing healing—ten leapers at once, that has to be some sort of record!—and turn around and act like a shaming mother? What? Only one of you could be bothered to come and thank me after all that healing? I didn’t think mercy came with conditions. Is healing not healing if you don’t say thank you? Is a repentant son not repentant if he comes one day too late?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question. Russell's researching his next book and has decided to let us in on the process. Check out the latest at: http://russellrathbun.com/
