In 1971, I was working as a local disc jockey in Chillicothe, Ohio. Yes, I am that old. The world was a scary place in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and my generation was determined to make a difference. Our hearts were in the right place, but our strategy was flawed. We thought political change was the answer. I have since learned that changing the hearts of men and women is the answer, and that happens best through a redemptive and real relationship with Jesus.

One of the songs that impacted me deeply during my early DJ days was compiled by a Los Angeles disc jockey named Tom Clay. He remixed two hit songs from the sixties—“What the World Needs Now Is Love” and “Abraham, Martin and John,” adding audio clips to create a compelling social commentary.

The medley is as powerful today as when I listened to it as a young radio announcer. The record begins with a child being interviewed about the meaning of segregation and bigotry, but the youngster clearly has no idea what those words mean.

Then Clay powerfully integrates excerpts of speeches by John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for his assassinated brother, Robert. Those moments are intercut with sound bites of news coverage of their tragic deaths and other news stories.

At the time, I didn’t realize the implications of how volatile our country was during that period. My parents rarely shared their fears, but they must have wondered if my generation would have any hope at all with the violence and hatred running wild. Hearing those heart-wrenching sound bites mixed in with the lyrics from “Abraham, Martin and John” still makes me emotional.

“Abraham, Martin and John” laments that Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and John and Robert Kennedy all died too young as victims of senseless hatred. As the lyrics ask if anyone has seen my good friend John, the remix interrupts with CBS broadcaster Walter Cronkite’s special bulletin on November 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy is dead.

The song turns to “my old friend Martin.” Were King’s words included in the song—“Difficult days ahead . . .”—a possible premonition of his own violent death? And when Senator Robert Kennedy pays tribute to Dr. King, lines from that speech are stitched into the lyrics, wondering who
will be the next person to “suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed,” an eerie self-prophecy. Kennedy would die during the presidential campaign of 1968.

The compilation gently transitions to the lyric “what the world needs now is love, sweet love,” ending with the child’s voice again, asked to define the word prejudice.

“Umm, I think it’s when somebody’s sick.”

Spot on.

Fast-forward fifty years, and it feels like not much has changed

I am sick. So are you. Since the Garden of Eden all of us have been sick in our sin. Christians are forgiven, justified, and righteous because of Christ, but (and this is a big but) we are saints who still sin. We still have blind spots.

I don’t know if those responses from the children in the song were spontaneous or scripted, but I do know that Jesus asked us to have the trusting heart of a child. Jesus is not saying that I should act childish and immature. If that were the case, I wouldn’t need much teaching. Instead, he meant that I must have that childlike trust, dependence, surrender to authority, and need for relationship. A child isn’t born hating another color, country, or idea. That is learned from adults.

Pray that God will allow you to see everyone you come in contact with today as a child sees him or her. Without prejudice or bigotry or judgment. That may prove harder than you expect. But that may reveal exactly how desperately you and I need new lenses.

GOD’S TAKE
About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” Matthew 18:1-4

Taken from Waking Up Slowly