Ecclesiastes 9:11: Mandolins

Jethro Tull won the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental, beating the favourite Metallica. The award was controversial because most people rightfully do not consider Jethro Tull hard rock, much less heavy metal. On the advice of their manager, who told them they had no chance of winning, no one from the band even attended the award ceremony. Their front man pays the flute and their band’s logo is a silhouette of Ian Anderson playing the flute.

When asked about the controversy Ian Anderson quipped, "Well, we do sometimes play our mandolins very loudly." And their label, Chrysalis, responsed to the criticism by taking out an advertisement in a British music periodical with a picture of a flute lying in a pile of iron re-bar and the line, "the flute is a heavy metal instrument."

In 1992, when Metallica finally won the Grammy in the category, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich joked, "First thing we're going to do is thank Jethro Tull for not putting out an album this year"

Ecclesiastes 9:11:

I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift

or the battle to the strong,

nor does food come to the wise

or wealth to the brilliant

or favor to the learned;

but time and chance happen to them all.

This is grace. It is our job to enjoy our labour under the sun, as Ecclesiastes repeatedly reminds us throughout. We must work hard; we should enjoy our work for we must remember that at the end of the day, everything good does not directly correspond to our effort, influence or anything else. Our blessings are due to the grace of God alone.

  

When have you experienced the grace of God recently?

  

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Presented originally by Michael Ramsay to River Street Cafe, 20 November 2017