Reflections on Dissections: S5E18 — “GOD.”
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
< Previous: S5E17 — “FEAR.” pt 2
This post is a companion to Dissect Podcast Season 5 Episode 18
In the previous post we saw how Kung Fu Kenny arrived at the culminating moment of the album where he realized that humility, love and his relationship with God were the most important things to hold onto. As a result, Kenny realized that he no longer needed to fear the loss of his money, his fame or even his mortal life since all of these things will stay on earth. Moreover, now that Kenny has overcome his fear of suffering, Kenny seems to have reached the end of his emotional journey within the narrative of DAMN.
As we have noted previously, Kenny’s emotional journey is a core part of DAMN.’s narrative beginning with the song “FEEL.” and going through his experience of loyalty, pride, humility, lust, love, rage and fear. Having wrestled with all of these feelings, Kenny’s experience of temporal, earthly emotions are now superseded by a transcendent feeling.
This what God feel like
Laughin’ to the bank like, “A-ha!”
Flex on swole like, “A-ha!”
You feel some type of way, then a-ha!
The track “GOD.” opens with a triumphant chorus in which Kenny tries to convey how he feels after turning back to God. In particular, Kenny says that he is “laughing to the bank”, which normally describes the satisfaction that a person has when they are able to make money very easily, especially by means of doing something that others thought was foolish.
This feeling of satisfaction and confidence in one’s financial provision is a clear contrast to the previous track, “FEAR.” Recall that “FEAR.” sampled segments from the song “Poverty’s Paradise” which appeared to make Jesus’s teachings on the Kingdom of God seem foolish. Ironically, after making the seemingly foolish choice to live under God’s rule, Kenny finds that God will provide everything that he needs, which is why Kenny is now “laughin to the bank”
Fittingly, this pattern of trusting in God’s provision after making a commitment to live under God’s rule is one of Jesus’s core teachings about the Kingdom of God.
“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his life’s span? And why are you worried about clothing? Notice how the lilies of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin thread for cloth, yet I say to you that not even King Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
Do not worry then, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear for clothing?’ For people from other nations eagerly seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.
Matthew 6:31–33
In addition to being free from worries about basic necessities, Kenny also describes himself as being “flex on swole.” In contemporary urban slang, “flexing” refers to the action of prominently displaying one’s money, jewelry, clothing or other valuables. This reverence to extravagant displays of wealth seems to follow naturally from the previous line about laughing to the bank. At the same time we should also note that in standard English, “flexing” refers to the act of tensing muscles in order to display one’s physical power. Fittingly, the idea of God providing power to those who were previously overcome by fear seems to be inspired by a statement from one of Saint Paul’s New Testament letters.
“God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and discipline.”
- 2 Timothy 1:7
In addition to power, Saint Paul asserts that God gives love and discipline to His children. This statement directly mirrors the end of the track “FEAR.” where Kenny’s cousin Carl Duckworth asserted that God disciplined Kenny just like a father disciplines a son whom he loves. Having endured through that painful period of discipline, Kenny is now reaping the benefits as can be seen in the line about laughing to the bank.
The other thing we should also note about Saint Paul’s assertion is the use of the word “spirit.” Early on in this blog series I suggested that we can understand the word spirit as a pattern of shared thoughts and feelings. Based on that definition, Saint Paul seems to be telling his readers that they no longer have to live under the feelings of fear that would normally overwhelm individuals from an oppressed minority group. Instead, God shares his feelings of power, love and discipline with his children by way of God’s Spirit. Thus when Kenny says “this what God feels like” he is expressing the indescribable experience of sharing in God’s thoughts and feelings. This is an experience which throughout the history of Christianity has often been referred to as being “filled with the Holy Spirit”.
For instance, after Jesus’s death, resurrection and ascension into the heavens, Jesus’s followers began to face threats of persecution from the Judean religious leaders unless they stopped preaching about Jesus. Rather than being overcome by fear, Jesus’s disciples gathered the members of their community and prayed for God to give them the confidence to continue preaching about Jesus in the face of violent threats. The text then recounts what happened as a result of this prayer.
When they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.
- Acts 4:35
As this passage indicates, the earliest followers of Jesus were an oppressed minority group who experienced shared thoughts about Jesus’s message and a shared feeling of boldness as a result of being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Fittingly, this belief that God is especially attentive to the prayers of oppressed individuals who pray for the Holy Spirit is something that Kendrick rapped extensively about on the song “Faith” from his debut Kendrick Lamar EP.
This for my people that stressing whenever times is hard
Your mind’s slipping, wondering, “Is there really a God?”
Knowing you shouldn’t think that way and trying to freeze your brain
But whenever there’s pain, that feeling forever remains
We can’t believe what we can’t see and reality seems stronger than prayer
Cause you tried to change your life, and now you live in a wheelchair
And your son was born with cancer and he live in urgent care
At the tender age of 12, and you feel that no one cares
Searching for answers, that’s human nature, you ain’t in the wrong
Just know when you feeling that way His Spirit’s in the room
I watched people I know pray and catch the Holy Ghost
And wonder why I ain’t ever caught that feeling before- Kendrick Lamar from “Faith”
In “Faith” Kendrick speaks to poor members of the Black community in Compton who are tempted to lose their faith as they ask God why they have to suffer. Kendrick tells these people that when they are overwhelmed by feelings of fear, doubt and despair, God’s Spirit is there in the room waiting to fill them.
Kendrick recounts times when he watched people pray and “catch the Holy Ghost” which is a phrase often used in Charismatic African-American churches to describe the ecstatic feeling that makes individuals spontaneously raise their hands, dance, and shout while under the influence of the Holy Spirit — or that Holy Ghost as He is called in older English translations of the Bible.
At the same time the line “wonder why I ain’t ever caught that feeling before” seems to indicate that at the time that he wrote “Faith,” Kendrick had never experienced the feeling of “catching the Holy Ghost.” However, on the track “GOD.” Kung Fu Kenny now seems to have had a breakthrough in being able to personally experience what God feels like.
It’s also interesting to note that within the New Testament, receiving the Holy Spirit is compared to receiving money. For instance, in his letter to the church in Ephesus, Saint Paul writes:
When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation — when you believed in Christ — you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.
- Ephesians 1:13–14
In this passage, Saint Paul compares receiving the Holy Spirit to receiving the money given as a down payment of a much larger inheritance. Similarly, in his second letter to the Church in Corinth, Saint Paul writes:
It is God who establishes us together with you in Christ and who anointed us, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.
- 2 Corinthians 1:21–22 is a
In this passage, Saint Paul asserts that God is the one who anoints those who have joined themselves to “Christ.” Recall from our discussion of “XXX.” that the English word “Christ” comes from the Greek word Christos which means “anointed one” and is itself a translation of the Hebrew word “māšîaḥ” from where we get the English word “Messiah.” Throughout the Bible and also within the ongoing Eastern Orthodox practice of chrismation, an individual is anointed with oil to indicate how that person is coming under the direct influence of God’s Spirit.
Back on “XXX.” Kenny’s friend called and said “I know that you’re anointed / show me how to overcome.” Kenny recognized that his friend was hoping that Kenny could “bring him closer to the spiritual.” However, at the time Kenny ignored the fact that his “spirit knew better” and instead shared feelings of rage with his friend. Now, after overcoming the spirit of fear on the previous track, Kenny is able to receive the down payment of God’s Spirit “in his heart.”
This idea that the down payment of the Holy Spirit is held within the heart also seems to suggest that Kenny is not primarily talking about money when he says that he is “laughin to the bank.” Rather, Kenny seems to have come to accept Jesus’s teaching about accumulating wealth.
Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
- Matthew 6:19–21
In this passage, Jesus warns his followers against amassing wealth and attempting to keep it secure on earth. Jesus notes that even money in a bank can be stolen by thieves just like Rihanna’s money was stolen by her accountant. If Kenny continued to treasure the money in his bank account he might be eventually tempted to once again reject God’s Spirit and resort to violent retribution as he mentioned on “FEAR.” However, by accepting Jesus’s teachings about the Kingdom of God, Kenny seems to have realized that God’s Spirit is the greatest treasure that anyone could accumulate. Moreover, God’s Spirit is an inheritance that cannot be stolen because it is held securely in the heavens with a down payment deposited inside the heart of those who live under God’s rule.
This recognition of the incomparable treasure found in the hearts of those who are filled with God’s Spirit then leads to the concluding statement of Kung Fu Kenny’s narrative development.
My heart is rich, my heart is famous
Here at the end of the second verse of “GOD.” Kenny seems delightfully surprised as he comes to the realization that having God’s Spirit inside of him means that his heart is rich and his heart is famous regardless of what happens to him on earth. This realization dispels the final two fears that plagued 27 year old Kenny.
At 27, my biggest fear was losin’ it all
Scared to spend money, had me sleepin’ from hall to hall
Scared to go back to Section 8 with my mama stressin’
30 shows a month and I still won’t buy me no Lexus
…
At 27 years old, my biggest fear was bein’ judged
How they look at me reflect on myself, my family, my city
What they say ‘bout me reveal if my reputation would miss me
What they see from me would trickle down generations in time
What they hear from me would make ’em highlight my simplest lines- Kendrick Lamar from “FEAR.”
In the third verse of “FEAR.”, we saw how being rich and famous ironically led Kenny to be more overwhelmed by more fear. In particular, Kenny feared losing his riches to bad financial management and losing his fame to being judged in the court of public opinion. However, now that Kenny has chosen to accept God’s love and treasure God’s Spirit, Kenny’s wealth is managed by God and Kenny’s name is known by the creator of the universe.
By recognizing that his riches and fame come from his loving relationship with God, Kenny also seems to prove that he is following in the footsteps of the great Israelite ancestor, Abraham. In particular, at a pivotal moment in Abraham’s life after he refused to receive earthly riches from a human king, God appeared to Abraham in a vision and said:
Do not fear, I am a shield to you; Your very great reward.
- Genesis 15:1
Here Abraham learned that God would be the one to provide security and riches. There also seems to to be an implied acknowledgment that God himself is the reward, the treasure that Abraham will receive in much the same way that Jesus’s followers would receive God’s Spirit.
Additionally, we should note that when God first called Abraham and told him to go to a foreign land, God made a promise to Abraham, saying:
I will make you into a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.- Genesis 12:2–3
Here God promised that he would be the one to make Abraham’s name great, or in other words, the one to make Abraham famous. In fact, God seems to say that making Abraham famous is a core part of how Abraham will experience God’s blessing on his life and how God will keep Abraham from being cursed. However, this blessing is not for Abraham to enjoy for himself. Rather, Abraham is blessed so that through his descendants all families and ethnic groups on the earth will be blessed.
Later on in the narrative, after God promises to miraculously give Abraham a newborn son when he and his wife are very old, God goes on to explain exactly how Abraham will bring blessings to all the nations of the earth.
Abraham will certainly become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.
- Genesis 18:18–19
Here we see God telling Abraham to teach his descendants — later identified as the Israelites — to keep God’s commandments. God explained that keeping these commandments will lead Abraham’s descendants to live in a way that creates more justice and right relationships. As justice and right relationships increase around the world, all nations would be blessed. Moreover, as Abraham’s descendants taught people of other nations how to keep God’s commandments, these descendants would fulfill God’s intention behind the name Abraham, which means “father of many nations.”
Hence, when we consider the overarching biblical plot line we see that reversing curses into blessings is predicated on father’s being present to teach God’s commandments to their children. As it turns out, this crucially important role of a father as a vehicle for God’s blessing also happens to be one of the main conclusions to the plot line of DAMN., as we will explore in our next post.
Resources:
- “The Radical Christianity of Kendrick Lamar” article by Buzzfeed.
- “Holy Spirit” video by Bible Project
- “Overview Genesis: 13–50” video by Bible Project
- “Justice” video by Bible Project
- “Jason Keaton & Uncle Bobby” music video
- “i” lyric video
