New Worship?

Anyone who knows me will know I love this band. I have loved them even more over the past couple of years.
Over a number of posts I would like to put forward an idea that may not sit well with some. I would like to review a number of songs, by this band and others, and see how they blend, (in my mind anyway) with the drive, the groan, the desire for things like justice, siding with the oppressed, resisting the oppressor, uplifting the downtrodden, peace and hope that I believe Jesus intended in the story his life told.
Along with this I would like to place these songs into the arena as worship songs. Songs that may not immediately or comfortably fit the conventional idea of worship songs as seen in church today but fit other criteria that were present in Jesus' life. Criteria that I believe have been sorely overlooked throughout the history of what we have come to know as Christianity.
As a precursor I would point to some of the attributes of Jesus' life that tend to be ignored or played down in order to keep the 'Western' image of conservative Christianity.

1. He was born a fugitive on the run. A king with an army behind him wanted His blood in the earliest days of His childhood.

2. During his most formative years, those spent teaching and expressing the Kingdom of God, he spent homeless.

3. He was hated by those in authority because his ideas threatened the very fabric of that authority. Some of His ideas taken literally would turn all forms of governance and domination on their head.

4. His teachings of the Kingdom of God and their ramifications are some of the most dangerous and subversive ideas put to print.

5. In some of his teachings he purposely placed himself in the shoes of the downtrodden, the lowly, the poor and those in prison to expressly have his followers treat them with love and respect.

6. His one act of violence was against his own people in a literal overturning of those with money and power.

7. His death was symbolic of the removal of power structures and ideas expressed on earth and their replacement by the subversive ideas of the Kingdom of God. A dangerous story told and retold by the ritual of communion.

With these ideas in mind I would like to portray these songs as anthems that provoke. Songs that force us to think and struggle with the world around us. Songs that move us out of apathy to engage injustice, poverty, violence and remind us of the downtrodden.

So let our first song in this series rip!

The song is called "Wake Up" by the band Rage Against The Machine.
Some may fondly remember it as the parting anthem of the movie The Matrix (a movie that deserves a post of it's own).
Just a few words about the music: It's hard edged guitar is a really driving and groaning sound. Good for getting that @rse of a pew! This song also has a wailing guitar at the beginning and end. It's kind of like a siren alerting one out of a stupor, an affect Rage use in a number of their songs.

Here's some selected lyrics:

C'mon!
Standing with the fury that they had in 66

Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy,

Movements, come and movements go

the puppets, the police, the judges, the feds

20 20 visions and murals with metaphors

They gave the power to the have nots
and then came the shot

Whado I Whado I have to do to wake up
to break the culture up, to break the structure up

I think I heard a shot!
Wake Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How long not long
'cause what you reap is what you sow!

Of course this song is using US politics in the 60's as a driver pointing out names like King and Malcolm X and implicating the US Government and FBI but on a deeper level I believe it speaks against any authority using oppression. Telling those that sit idly by in a silent majority that just sitting there is an act of acceptance. In our world that often means blindly consuming or hopelessly believing that injustice cannot be faced or addressed due to an overwhelming status quo.
I believe this song is a driver to get us motivated and out of that pessimistic mentality.
Let's listen and WAKE UP!