We’ve been attending the National Folk Festival (NASH) in Canberra every year (except the Covid ones) since 2014. It’s held over the long Easter weekend and has the idealistic slogan “Five days in a perfect world”.

That might not be strange for long-time folkies like us but during most of those years we were pastors of a church, and some people were surprised (horrified?) we weren’t in church for all the Holy Week activities. How could we go off to a folk festival and not be in church?

Well, we must admit we found more spiritual nourishment in the music, dance, storytelling, and celebration at the NASH then we ever had in Holy Week church activities. And each year we’ve come away from the festival challenged by new singers we’ve discovered and their songs about the struggle for social justice around the world.

One of the things we’ve discovered over the years is that many of the artists who sing about social justice see Jesus as an example to follow even though many of them have never (or seldom) darkened the door of a traditional church. One singer we discovered this year included these lines in a song called “Enough”:

“I heard about a man in a faraway land who made respectable folks aghast
steadily gathering an entourage of fishermen, prostitutes, and outcasts.

Near as they could figure it, he was illegitimate
and say he was born in a stable.
Say he made wine out of water one time
and knocked over some banker’s tables,
but it was like daring the authorities and clergy to do their worst
and he said the first would be last and last would be first.

Don’t give like the hypocrites and make a big show of it
well they’re always gathering more
and if you want to see heaven sell your possessions
give what you got to the poor
and if you try to save your life, you’ll surely lose it.

He said the kingdom is inside you if you choose it.
He and a dozen good buddies wandering around
sleeping rough they never had a lie. They always had enough.”

Lyrics by Scott Cook

Many of these artists understand that Jesus came with a message of love, compassion, and justice for the poor and hungry and they are inspired by this example of his. Our question is why do so many Christians who attend church each week not understand this?

We did attend a worship service at the NASH this Easter Sunday and the time was closed with the singing of Amazing Grace. This is a song that we heard played several times as we walked throughout the festival grounds. This time it was led by Gina Williams, an Aboriginal singer from WA. She explained that it was hard to translate the song into her native language because they had no words for “amazing” and “grace”. And the concept of justice they had was a retributive one.

So, her attempt to sing the first verse of the song translates as this in English:

“Big beautiful heart
Sweet listening
This weak one you keep
Before I (was) lost, now I am here
Blind, now I see”

Lyrics by Gina Williams

This is our prayer for so many of our Christian brothers and sisters who only see Jesus as a sacrifice to an angry God. Jesus is so much more and many outside the church see this.