Play That Funky Music, White Boy

Play That Funky Music, White Boy
by Robert Parissi

Spring is on its way! We already have some jonquils and crocuses peeking out of the ground. Tonight, even though it seems really early, we’re switching to Daylight Savings Time, and that always signals Spring to me. And Easter is also early this year, just about as early as it can be. Here’s a question for you (two questions, actually). First, why isn’t Easter always the Sunday after Passover? That’s seems to be when it should be to me. And (now that you know Easter isn’t the first Sunday after Passover) do you know how the date of Easter is calculated? For some reason, it’s the Sunday after the first full moon of Spring. Now you know.

Anyway, all these signs of Spring are around us and it got me thinking about new growth and the “growing pains” that can accompany it. As we step out into new ways of thinking and doing things, we can feel a little uncomfortable. And that brings us to today’s song, Play That Funky Music, White Boy, one of those one-hit wonder songs of the late 1970s.

We won’t spend a lot of time on the lyrics. Here’s a short Curriculum Vitae of our narrator: he was “playin’ in a Rock ‘n Roll band” and he “never had no problems.” And then one day – well, let’s let him tell it:

And everything around me
Got to start to feelin’ so low
And I decided quickly
To boogie down and check out the show

Yea, they were dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin’
And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted

Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music right
Play that funky music, white boy
Lay down and boogie, and play that funky music ‘til you die

I always like the way the song modulated up a whole step for the “chorus”, then somehow managed to wind up back in the tonic key in time for the next verse. But today, I’d like to focus on the “modulating up” part. As we head into Sunday for the weekend, you might consider where the Lord is leading you upward – maybe even a little bit out of your comfort zone – into areas of growth.

Jesus was always calling His friends upward. He still is, I guess, come to think of it. When the multitudes were assembled on the hillside and the disciples came to Jesus to tell him that everyone was getting hungry, Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.” After Peter had betrayed Jesus three times, I’m sure Peter was feeling really inadequate to serve the Master effectively. But Jesus told Peter (also three times), “Feed my sheep.” All through history, the Lord has called his friends to be something more than they could imagine themselves being. Think of Mary, of Peter, of Paul, and of Joan of Arc and the three children of Fatima and Martin Luther and Martin Luther King. And think of you: “no longer what we were before, but not all that we will be”, as another song says.

Of course, we usually don’t even realize all the wonderful things the Lord has in store for us. One of my favorite cartoons shows two caterpillars on a branch. They look up and see a beautiful butterfly in the air. One of the caterpillars says to the other, “Boy, you’ll never get me up there in one of those things!” Our singer’s in the same boat:

I tried to understand this,
I thought that they were out of their minds.
How could I be so foolish (how could I),
to not see I was the one behind.

Yea, they were dancin’ and singin’ and movin’ to the groovin’
And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted

Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music right . . .

And then, one day, it happens. The white boy gets funky. The rough fisherman becomes The Rock on which the Church is built. The Handmaid of the Lord gives birth to the Son of God. The caterpillar awakens to find he is the butterfly.

Tomorrow, when you awake, watch for signs of new birth. They’re all around us and in us. Watch!