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Yesterday afternoon I heard an interview on NPR with Ma XiaoHui, an erhu virtuoso. It’s this amazing two-stringed Chinese violin that has a slightly nasal but amazingly rich tone. She plays Chinese folk music most of the time but has also adapted several pieces of classical music for the instrument. While talking about her transcription of Fritz Kreisler’s Liebeslied something she said really struck me:
“I don’t want to show people how great I am. That’s not the point at all. There’s the possibility [that] the famous melody played by my instrument can maybe give you another beautiful picture of this piece.”
What a beautiful understanding of what it means to perform and share music with others.
The past few days have been very full. I flew to Philadelphia on Monday to spend time with my younger brother who is a student at Temple University. After a night at his apartment in the city, I traveled to Collingswood, NJ to give a workshop to the Presbytery of West Jersey. It was a great opportunity to share my passion for diverse, engaging worship and to present music and resources to pastors and music leaders in that area.
The highlight of the day was a moving Communion service that we shared in the early evening. It got me thinking about the music that accompanies this central sacrament. So often, I’ve had the choir or organ play some reflective music as people come forward or are served. Nothing wrong with that, in my mind, as it certainly creates a space for reflection and meditation. At this service we sang a Gospel setting of Psalm 34, Taste and See, by James Moore as the members of the Presbytery came forward to receive the elements by intinction. The music was not difficult (it’s an uplifting, tuneful setting that is easy to pick up) and as people came forward I could hear the gentle “hum” of voices joining me on the refrain. After each verse the sound from the congregation grew, so that by the time everyone had been served and returned to their seats there was a fullness and energy in the room. We repeated the refrain several more times and found ourselves caught up in one of those blessed moments in worship where we had left the page. So often (at least in our tradition) we are so glued to the order of worship, the hymnal, or the piece of paper in our hands that it feels like a huge leap of faith to just put it down and sing without it. But when we do, something very unique and marvelous can happen. It seems to create a space where Spirit can step in and bring connectedness, an ecstatic experience, a palpable encounter with the Savior who has invited us to the table. I don’t think these moments can be created or recreated (my upbringing as a Pentecostal told me otherwise) but we receive them as gift. However, I do think that worship leaders can create a space (through music, language, symbols and ritual action) where worshippers can be invited to a place of openness, of vulnerability…where hearts are prepared to encounter the living Christ through our celebration of the Eucharist.
Now I’m settling into a quiet evening after a huge Thankgsgiving meal with my family. Maybe it’s the abundance of the day (the wonderful connections with my family and relatives; the table that should have collapsed from the amount of food on it) that have got me craving something simple and lean. I also recognize that these past days have been intense and I find myself needing solitude and quiet as a sort of antidote to being “on” all the time. I am sometimes perplexed at how I move from extreme to extreme within such a short timeframe and yet I am grateful that my faith and the patterns of the liturgical year honor these extremes.
This Sunday we celebrate The Feast of Christ the King/The Reign of Christ and herald the Savior with fanfares and victory hymns. But the very next week we are at a “ground zero” of sorts – a lean, quiet time when we are encouraged to open our eyes and hearts to less obvious signs. We are invited to make a space for God-with-us, for One who comes in the vulnerability of an infant and the gentleness of a mother’s touch. It is a time where we are invited to plow under the fruits of the harvest and prepare the soil of our hearts to receive the God who is coming to our world again.
There is a fine hymn text that my choir will sing on Sunday that captures some of these thoughts. It speaks deeply to my heart and helps me to claim the paradoxes and extremes of faith that are held together in the person and ministry of Christ. May it also speak to your heart as you prepare to welcome Christ again in these coming weeks.
You, Lord, are both lamb and shepherd.
You, Lord, are both prince and slave.
You, peacemaker and swordbringer
of the way you took and gave.
You, the everlasting instant;
you, whom we both scorn and crave.
Clothed in light upon the mountain,
stripped of might upon the cross,
shining in eternal glory,
beggared by a soldier’s toss.
You, the everlasting instant;
you who are both gift and cost.
You, who walk each day beside us,
sit in power at God’s side.
You, who preach a way that’s narrow,
have a love that reaches wide.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are our pilgrim guide.
Worthy is our earthly Jesus!
Worthy is our cosmic Christ!
Worthy your defeat and victory.
Worthy still your peace and strife.
You, the everlasting instant,
You, who are our death and life.
—Sylvia Dunstan, ©1991, from In Search of Hope and Grace, 40 Hymns and Gospel Songs, G.I.A. Publications, Chicago, IL 60638. For permission to copy this hymn text, contact G.I.A. Publications. This text can be sung to several tunes. One of the most poignant to me is Picardy - which we also use for the Advent/Communion hymn, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. There is also a set of choral variations on that tune by Alfred Fedak titled Christus Paradox.
Yesterday, I drove up to Peoria, IL to attend the memorial service of a friend whose partner died unexpectedly. He had been ill for several months but seemed to be getting better. Unfortunately his body (and likely his spirit) were ready to go.
Funerals are some of the most meaningful services that I participate in as a church musician. There is something powerful about this time of grieving, of remembering, and of affirming our hope in the Resurrection. They are certainly times of sorrow and grief but, at their best, they are always life-affirming. In the Presbyterian tradition it’s actually called “A Service of Witness to the Resurrection” rather than a Memorial Service or a Funeral. Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but that title really resonates with me.
Part of the strangeness of yesterday’s service was that I was not participating in it. [A confession: it is really tough for me to worship in other places, especially in other Protestant churches. I find it difficult to turn off my thoughts about the tone and feel of a service, the tempo of the hymns or music, the preaching, etc. When I go away on vacation I rarely worship in a church and when I do I'll usually go to a Roman Catholic church because it is different enough from what I usually do on Sundays that I can just relax into the experience.]
The service was in a funeral home. It was not a particularly worshipful space but when I walked in I could feel the love and support as people extended their condolences to my friend and his partner’s parents and family. I immediately saw several folks who I hadn’t seen in years, which was deeply comforting and connecting. The service began with some piano music, an invocation, a prayer, some readings from Scripture…all normal fare. My friend was invited to give a remembrance of his partner. It was beautifully spoken. As he concluded he shared some moving words that his partner had written in the weeks before he died. It was clear that he was connected to God, at peace and seeking direction and guidance for his life. You could feel air in the room lift.
Then things took on a very different tone. The pastor who was officiating (as tempted as I am, I won’t mention a denomination) basically got up and read several obscure passages from Ecclesiastes (not “To everything there is a season…” or others you might expect) and spent the rest of the service asking those present if they were sure of their eternal security. He actually came one step short of an altar call, asking if we knew where we would be if we died that night! (Which was even more inappropriate given that my friend’s partner had died in his sleep.) While he was speaking I felt a weight on my hands and head – an oppressiveness. It was like the air had been sucked out of the room.
I was so upset that this pastor (who I have to believe had some deep conviction that this was the right thing to do in the context) basically hijacked the service. A time set aside to help us grieve, to give us comfort, to help us remember a wonderful person became nothing short of a “Come to Jesus” sermon. It felt deeply violating on a spiritual as well as human level. It almost felt as if the life of the person we were there to remember was secondary.
The loss of someone is hard enough to bear but when someone else uses it as a means to scare or guilt people into faith, something is very wrong.
