What Billy Joel taught me about Christian life

There’s this story about Billy Joel that I’ve heard over the years. He doesn’t sell the front row tickets, so that someone from his team can go up to the nosebleed seats and bring committed, but economically challenged, fans down to be take that prime real estate. The idea is that he wants to honor people who are so committed to seeing him that they’re willing to sit in the top of the stadium to be his front row fans, rather than have a front row filled with bored people with money to throw around.

Ten days ago, my husband and I went to a Billy Joel concert. We sprang for ground level tickets, 15 rows back, because my husband is a pianist and a lifelong fan and it’s been a hard year. We wanted to celebrate life.

We got there an hour and a half ahead of time to make sure everything went smoothly. It was my first ever stadium concert (I know, it’s weird to be 50 and attending your first stadium concert, but there you go) and so I was looking around and taking everything in. Noting the age of the crowd (varied, but some pretty old), what concert tour shirts they were wearing (a survey of the 70s and 80s), and so on. Ground level seats are pint-sized folding chairs zip tied together, so when our neighbors arrived, we were literally shoulder against shoulder. After our experience at the football game, the niceness of our neighbors was pure gift.

Through it all, I was keeping an eye on the front row. It didn’t fill, and it didn’t fill, and it didn’t fill.

And then, about ten minutes before the show started, a line of 7 or 8 people came up the center aisle—mostly 20-somethings, maybe a parent or grandparent along with them—and folks, they were absolutely radiant. They stood out because everyone else coming in had that harried, “Where are the row numbers and where are the seat numbers and I’m late and I need to find my seat!” kind of concentration on their faces. This group of people looked totally different. Radiant, I’m telling you.

I watched them file into the front row, and a grizzled man in an army green Billy Joel shirt—not a tour shirt; it just said BILLY JOEL, as if that was all that needed saying—handed out grayish (silver, maybe?) paper tickets—legit paper tickets!—to each one of them in turn.

I banged on my husband’s arm. “Christian, Christian, look, they’re doing it!” I said. “They’re giving front row tickets to people from the top of the stadium!”

I gotta tell you, my night was already made. Everything that followed was icing on the cake.

Why am I sharing this story on a newsletter about living the faith intentionally?

That concert was such a high. The quality of the performance, the amazing artistic chemistry and sheer musical brilliance represented on that stage, the clear affection between artist and audience. I have to be intentional about saying “audience” because I keep wanting to say “assembly,” as in pastoral music verbiage, because this was full, conscious, active participation: the whole stadium singing on every song.

Amid all that, it took a couple of days for me to realize that what Billy Joel did for those people was the smallest kind gesture, completely gratuitous, an unprepossessing, unpretentious way to give back for all he’s been given.

It was a Christlike act.

Now, I don’t know Billy Joel’s faith or lack thereof. A few of his songs aren’t very, mmm, shall we say “supportive” of Christian values. :)

But whatever he believes or doesn’t believe, he does this small thing with great love. He models Christ in this way that is totally off the radar of Big Important Gestures Of Faith. And yet to those people, it is real, it is powerful, and utterly unforgettable.

I have a tendency to get stuck on having to do the right gestures of faith. Am I working enough at the food bank (no, once a month is not enough, but I’m already stretched so thin!)? Shouldn’t I be helping sort donations at City of Refuge too? What about volunteering to build mobility carts? Helping staff Room At The Inn in the winter?

Shouldn’t I, for that matter, approach people who leave their cars running and say, “Hey, would you consider turning your engine off?”

The thing is, these big things are important. But maybe I need to stop discounting the tiny, invisible gestures: complimenting and smiling at the clerk at Target; being patient (for real, not gritting my teeth and pretending to be) when the pharmacy person can’t figure out how to run my new insurance; closing my book and looking my chromosomally-gifted daughter in the eye when she wants to talk to me for the seventeen millionth time about the fire alarm or the thunderstorm last weekend during the marching festival or what friend hurt her feelings.

What if these small acts of kindness are where it all begins? What if, without those, all the rest of it is resounding gongs and clashing cymbals?

Where can I be the face of Christ in a place and time and form that only I have the power to do?

Where can you?