I had the privilege of participating in a nearly 35-year-old tradition two weeks ago. On Feb. 18, along with a few thousand people, I sang the opening verse and chorus of “Hungry Heart” at Bruce Springsteen’s stop in Atlanta while on his latest tour.
Tradition was born in November of 1980 when Bruce and the E street Band opened the song with a lengthy instrumental section. The audience began singing on their own. They sang out in unison:
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back.
Like a river that don’t know where it’s flowin
I took a wrong turn and I just kept going
Everybody’s got a Hungry Heart
Everybody’s got a Hungry Heart
Lay down your money and you play your part
Everybody’s got a Hungry Heart
Hunger, food and eating are ever-present themes throughout the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. The lectionary text for this past week comes from Isaiah 55. The prophet opens this chapter asking: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food” (55:2).
This passage does not provide us with a clichéd understanding of hungering for God nor does Springsteen in “Hungry Heart.” Too often American Christianity pushes our focus so forcefully in one direction or another that we can look back on our lives and see that “wrong turn” where we just “kept going.”
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord,” the prophet writes (55:8).
We construct so many normative ideas as to how the Christian life should work. Over the past 150 years, Christianity in America has entrenched in our minds a moral norm that serves as the template for the way we ought to live our lives. The Church too quickly tells us to “lay down your money and you play your part.” We become cogs in a machine and are simply left empty and unsatisfied.
There is a greater need for Christians to realize that there is no singular lifestyle, no singular part that we must “play” in order to fit into God’s work of redemption. The beauty of the gospel is in its expansiveness and ability to cover all walks of life from Samaritan women (John 4) to Jewish tax collectors (Luke 19).
The human experience will certainly always and forever include regret for the decisions we did not make. Hearts will always be hungry to imagine our many lives that were unsung and unlived.
But perhaps we can live more satisfied lives by living into the dreams and opportunities placed before us. If only we would realize that our lives have never been intended to be cookie-cutter parts that we merely play.