Tuesday night, our family attended the Billy Joel concert at the New Orleans Arena along with 10 or 15 thousand of our closest friends. If you like Joel’s music–“Piano Man,” “The Longest Time,” “She’s Always a Woman to Me”–you’ll understand why a couple of oldsters like Margaret and me were there. Not many our age made the trek, though. Too much trouble. Too expensive (tickets were over 80 bucks). Easier to buy the CD and stay home.

In a word, he was great. He gave a terrific show; he is an incredible musician. But it was loud. Man, was it loud. Some of the numbers, I sat there thinking, “I’m sure there is a kernel of music somewhere on the inside of all that noise.” But I think I know why they made it so loud, added the blinding lights, and rocked that building: for the young people. He was appealing to the youth. And apparently he did, because they were there in surprising strength. They knew the words better than I did.

Couple of times I thought my cell phone was going off. It was my body vibrating.

At the end, I decided that even though Billy Joel is of my generation or close to it, I am most definitely not his target audience. And I’m okay by that.

Earlier that evening before we left the house, our back door neighbor Bill called as I was setting out the garbage cans. “Joe, you got a minute?” I said, “Just about that.”

He said, “I preached a sermon recently, and now my home church wants me to preach it there. I need your help.”

Bill is a United Methodist. He owns a farm in the country and lives and works here in the city. We’ve been neighbors 13 years. He’s a good guy. Quiet. A family man.

“What did you preach about?” I asked. He said, “That we need to return Methodism to the old ways.” I said, “What old ways?” He answered, “To the ways of John Wesley.”

I said, “Okay, so what are the bad things you see in your denomination these days?” He answered, “Hillary Clinton is a Methodist.” That is exactly what he said.

I said, “What? Are you talking about liberal politics?”

He said, “Yes. And women in the pulpit. Women bishops. Gender-neutral scriptures. That sort of thing.”

I said, “What Bible text did you have?”

He said, “I didn’t really have a text.”

Bill is right. That sermon needs a lot of help, maybe more than I can give.

He has promised to write out his sermon and let me look it over.

If Bill is interested in a text, I know one. Jeremiah 6:16 reads: “Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

The problem, of course, is identifying exactly what that old path, the good way, really is and then finding it.

I may tell Bill about the Windsor Town Hall which Sir Christopher Wren designed some 300 years ago. After it was completed, the city manager refused to pay the bill. He said there were too few columns to hold up the building. Wren protested that the columns he had installed seemed to be doing a good job of it, but the manager was adamant. More columns or no money.

The great architect had four more columns installed in the Town Hall, each identical to the others in every respect but one: they lacked a half inch reaching the ceiling. They were not supporting anything.

I understand that municipal building still stands in Windsor.

Now, for our purposes here, let that town hall building represent various structures in our society. Each has columns that are strictly cosmetic–there for appearance only–and columns that are load-bearing: take them down and the whole building collapses. Each new generation arrives on the scene and begins pushing at columns, trying to clear away room to erect their own edifices.

What you hope is that the youngsters learn what is cosmetic and what is load-bearing before they begin shoving too hard.

Some of us can recall in the 1960s how the youth were trying to tear down the schools and the family and the government, all load-bearing institutions which must be maintained for a stable society. They did a lot of damage, some of which has not been repaired to this day.

They’re doing this in Bill’s church and in a lot of other denominations: throwing out centuries-old traditions and replacing them with modern practices more to their liking. Some traditions should be discarded. We recall the Lord telling the Pharisees of His day that their traditions were strangling the Word of God. (Matthew 15:3)

Some traditions however are essential to the well-being of society. The home. The church. The school. Integrity in government. A free press.

Lord help us to know which is which.

It’s quite all right for Billy Joel to adapt his music to the younger generation. It’s not a big loss. But what about when your church replaces the pipe organ with an electronic keyboard and a set of digital drums? Is that all right? What about when the church leaders pack the hymnals away and the worship services are filled with choruses?

Or when they change the wording in the Bible so that God is no longer a “He” or “Father,” but “Thou” and “Creator.” How does that suit you?

Is it all right for your church to decide that 20 centuries of traditional interpretation of Scripture is in error and that homosexuals should be accepted as full-fledged members of the church and even ordained as leaders? That’s being done in some churches. This generation of churches is the first in history to approve abortion on demand. Does that make it right?

Sometime in the dark of deep night, the old clock malfunctioned and struck 13 times. Grandpa rose out of his sleep and shook Grandma. “Ellie Mae, wake up!” he said. “It’s later than it has ever been before!”

It is indeed.

I’ll probably tell Bill about the time I was in a United Methodist Church in a small Mississippi town and noticed a poster promoting evangelism and revival in that denomination. I thought of that as rather remarkable in that denomination (see my admission below) and moved in closer to read the poster. Underneath the bold headlines, the text was calling on people to return to the teachings and ways of John Wesley. I was disappointed.

No one asked me, but I would have said to them, “Friend, it’s not about John Wesley. It’s about Jesus Christ. Today’s generation doesn’t care a whit about Mr. Wesley. Or John Calvin either for that matter. Or George Whitefield or Jacob Arminius or even Martin Luther.”

Granted, maybe they should. I write as a church history major who benefited from the study of all these church warriors.

Today, people are trying to find their way in life, trying to get through the day and raise their kids and survive in this stressful world. It’s pointless to try to filter Scripture’s teachings through a citizen of the 18th century when they could open the Word of God and read Jesus’ message for themselves. That, I submit, is what John Wesley wanted in the first place.

(My admission: I have a lot of Methodism in my DNA. For four years as a child, we attended the Methodist church in Affinity, WV. I went to MYF with my girlfriend in the teens. I graduated from a Methodist college. My roomate is a UMC preacher. My sister belongs to Zion UMC church.)

I’m on their side. I want them to do well. But I grieve when they or any of God’s people trash the traditions that have stood them in good stead for centuries in order to accommodate their practices to the tastes of outsiders who never have and will not ever share their values.

It’s not about Billy Joel or John Wesley, but about Jesus Christ who alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.