One of the things I did during my holiday was to watch a film about the life of the guitarist and rock star Eric Clapton. In part, this was because he experienced a conversion to Christ, about which he has written in some of his songs.
Clapton knew significant trauma in his life being brought up by his grandparents as his mother was unable to look after him as a child and did not bond with him later in life. Additionally, later in life, his four-year-old son, Conor, died in a tragic accident when he fell from a window in a high-rise apartment. The film was particularly interesting because of a radical difference in the way he responded to the painful issues he experienced in his life in his early and later years.
Clapton found fame, wealth and adulation as a young man because of his musical talents but finding those things, when combined with his early traumas did not bring joy and contentment. Instead, they led him into drug and alcohol addition which was focused on his own desires, needs and wants, including desiring a relationship with Patti Boyd, the wife of his best friend, the Beatle George Harrison. Once out of control, through excessive drinking, he also found himself making racist statements on stage that he later regretted because his career was actually based on discovering the blues, the music of Black America.
So, his selfish and self-centred behaviours, which derived in part from early experiences of pain and hurt as a child, had the effect of destroying his and other’s relationships while leading him to say and do many things that, when sober, he regretted. At a key moment in his attempts to kick his addictions, he cried out to God for help and felt that he was answered. Getting sober and finding faith meant that when the rebuilding of a new life was rocked by the tragic death of his young son, he didn’t revert to his former absorption in drink and drugs instead he committed to living in a way that honoured his son. The film ended with Clapton as a happy family man who has set up a charity providing support to those who could not otherwise afford the help needed to get free of their own addictions and using his talents and those of his friends to raise funds to support that vital work.
Our Gospel reading today (Luke 14: 1, 7-14) sets up similar contrasts to those we find in the life of Eric Clapton. The context is a party, something that would have been very familiar to Clapton in his hedonistic days, and the question Jesus poses is how should we enter. In his early years, Clapton would have become familiar with being the star, the one who turned heads when he walked in the room, and would have become used, as a result, to being given all he wanted and desired, even if it did him harm.
Jesus commends the reverse of entering as the star. He encourages us to be the one who takes the last and lowest place at the table. One of the problems, as Clapton discovered, with being at the head of the table is that the only way from there, at some stage, is down. But, as Jesus notes, if you are in the last and lowest place, the only way is up. Jesus is famous for prophesying that, in the final reckoning, the first shall be last and the last first. This is a part of what Clapton discovered in later life as he changes from a life centred on his own needs and wants to one centred on others – his family and those seeking to be free from addictions.
His understanding of this change shows up in his songs, particularly a song called ‘Broken Hearted’, where, in the context of looking forward to heaven, he writes:
‘there's a place where we can go
Where we will not be parted
And who alone will enter there?
Only the broken-hearted’
We live in a world where leaders are increasingly focused on self-promotion – constantly creating narratives about how wonderful they are and how awful their predecessors were – and are advocating policies based on selfishness, particularly by blaming the problems faced by nations on those who have or are migrating from issues and situations most of us can’t imagine and couldn’t cope with. Placing the blame for the issues we face on those travelling to different countries ignores all the other problems our countries face and seeks to portray those who are actually victims of violence or oppressions as invaders. The inherent selfishness that is at the heart of such policies is that of saying we must keep all our resources for those that we see as being the same as ourselves instead of being willing to share – ‘sharing is caring’, as my grandchildren are rightly taught at their school.
How should we respond to our changing and self-centred world, as those who are told by Jesus to take the last and lowest place at the table? The answer is to be found in today’s Epistle (Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15-16):
‘Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honour by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’
Christian love – taking the last or lowest place - involves showing hospitality to strangers, remembering those who are in most difficulty or distress as though we are experiencing the same ourselves, being faithful to those closest to us, and living contentedly with what we have, not chasing after material wealth, in order that we trust God for his presence which means more than all we might otherwise gain.
Jesus is clear that those who live self-centred lives are on the wrong path, as all who exalt themselves will be humbled. As we have seen from the story of Eric Clapton’s life that is also what he discovered as he came to see it was a path of destruction, both for himself and for those around him. He wrote in his autobiography: ‘From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for life, and most of all, for my sobriety. I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and with my ego, this is the most I can do.’
Each of us, however, has to come to that realisation for ourselves, if we are as individuals or as nations are to change tack and, as Clapton also did, learn the lesson of Jesus’ parable and the value in God’s eyes of taking the last or lowest place. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.
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Eric Clapton - Broken Hearted.
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