Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
May 17, 2009 Music Appreciation Sunday
Psalm 150
After 9/11, I shared with you a story told by the anthropologist, naturalist and poet, Loren Eiseley. I would like to share that story again today, on this day when we reflect on music, worship, and our shared ministry together. He writes, "I have said that I saw a judgment upon life, and that it was not passed by men. Those who stare at birds in cages or who test minds by their closeness to our own may not care for it. I shall never see an episode like it again if I live to be a hundred, because man is an intruder into such silences. The light must be right, and the observer must remain unseen. No one sets up such an experiment. What he sees, he sees by chance. You may put it that I had come over a mountain, that I had slogged through fern and pine needles for half a long day, and that on the edge of a little glade with one long, crooked branch extending across it, I had sat down to rest my back against a stump. Through accident I was concealed from the glade, although I could see into it perfectly. The sun was warm there, and the murmurs of forest life blurred softly away into my sleep.
"When I awoke, dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing, the light was slanting down through the pines in such a way that the glade was lit like some vast cathedral. There on the extended branch sat an enormous raven with a red and squirming nestling in its beak. The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the nestling's parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the branch and sat still. Up to that point the little tragedy had followed the usual pattern, but suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the tiny parents.
"No one dared to attack the raven, but they cried there in some instinctive common misery. The glade filled with their soft rustling and their cries. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. There was a dim intangible ethic he had violated, that they knew. He was a bird of death. And he, the murderer, sat there, glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed.
"It was then I saw the judgment. It was the judgment of life against death. I will never see it again so forcefully presented. For in the midst of protest, they forgot the violence. There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. Another took the song, then another, the song passing from one bird to another, doubtfully at first, as though some evil thing were being slowly forgotten. Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. In simple truth they had forgotten about the raven, for they were singers of life, and not of death." Singers of life.
Praise him with trumpet sound;
Praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance;
Praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with clanging cymbals;
Praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.
"Let everything that breathes..." You get the feeling that the Psalmist, kind of like those birds, is a singer of life and is inviting us to join him in the song. And it remains my fervent hope and prayer that that is precisely what we can do in our worship - in our life - together...be singers of life and light, even in those inevitable times when we find ourselves in the midst of death and darkness; that together we can continue to affirm that yes, life is sweet and sunlight beautiful.
And that’s why today I am pleased that we can pause and celebrate the music ministry of our church, in its many forms and ever growing diversity. For I believe we just have to have somewhere where we can come and keep singing our song, no matter what.
Schroeder is playing his little piano. Lucy, who is always a thorn in his side, comes up and says, "That was very beautiful Schroeder. What was that?" He answers, "That was Beethoven's Sonata No. 11. Opus 22." She looks at him for a moment, then replies, "Now you have me worried. Little by little Beethoven is sneaking around, over and under my mental block."
Now, I don't know how you feel about Beethoven or music in general. But that is precisely what I think music - and worship - can do... get a hold of us - sneak in, around, over and under our hearts and souls, no matter what condition they may be in.
Now yes, we continue to find ourselves in challenging times. In this congregation there have been job losses, job cutbacks, medical procedures are postponed, retirement plans changed. Some of us are doing just fine and can be grateful, but for many there remains a feeling of uncertainty in the air. When will the other shoe drop? It seems that the future ain't quite what it used to be. Did you see that recent cartoon with a college president addressing the class of '09 with these words, "Grads go forth. And remember, those refusing to leave voluntarily will be evicted by force." It is a little uncertain out there, a little worrisome. Here I am talking about making a joyful noise when many of us are cotton-mouthed dry with uncertainty and worry. Maybe these aren't the days for songs.
Except, I keep thinking of those birds and the Psalmist encouraging us to sing, to worship, to praise. And the only requirement, the only condition seems to be that we're able to draw breath. Preacher and teacher, Barbara Essex, puts it like this: "For Israel, it was easy to sing when things were going well. Full bellies, safe shelter, and secure homeland made singing a joyous, entertaining enterprise. But singing under trying circumstances - well, that is difficult. But, things are never over with God; there might still be a divine word. The psalmist says, 'hold on and see what God might yet do, and sing while you wait.' Sing not because you are happy. Sing because you have a song - a song about a God who loves, cares, and acts. Our God makes a way out of no way, makes crooked paths straight, brings down mountains and elevates valleys, brings joy out of sorrow and brings life out of death." So sing, sing with the supportive chorus of all creation as together we confirm the love, grace and power of God.
Now I don't know when and where you sing: in the shower, holding a child or grandchild in your lap? The National Anthem before a game or fireworks? In the Rotary Club we sing but we really know only two or three songs. Sometimes I sing while I'm fishing, although I'm not sure it's appreciated either by other fishermen or the fish. But think about it, when do you come together with other people and sing - maybe four or five times in an hour? I suspect that for most of us it is only here, in worship. We don't just listen to good music, which is a blessing, we participate in the music. And my hope is, kind of like Lucy, we can find the music sneaking in over, under and through us, opening us, creating space within us that allows for something God-centered, God-authored to happen. I think of certain hymns - "I was There to Hear Your Borning Cry" and "How Great Thou Art." I think of the foot tapping when our acoustic/blue grass group leads worship. I think of you singing the Hallelujah Chorus at the11:00 o'clock Easter service. I think of the singing and music at the 9:00 o'clock Easter service - a number of you continue to tell me that service lingers with you. Bells, brass, vocal choirs…the music becomes a bridge to the presence of the Holy in our midst - to the God who forgives and restores and never lets us go, even when it feels like all else has been abandoned.
I have read, and I think it's true, that in our highly pragmatic and increasingly technological society, the intangibles that nourish our souls get pushed aside and forgotten. The aesthetic gives way to the empirical; the romantic to the routine, the fantasy to the functional; the sublime to the systematic. And so perhaps it is no accident that the largest book of the Bible, right in the very middle of the Bible, is the book of songs, the Psalms. For it just might be in this time, and every time, faith needs its poetry and music maybe more than it needs its prose and preaching. For in good and bad, triumph and tragedy, our songs help us to see something else - something over, above and beyond the tragedy and trouble of this life, something that is both incredible and possible. It lifts you up. It just lifts you up. We're not blind to the troubles of our world or our neighbor. We are touched by and sensitive to injustice and human pain. We know how far we have to go to be the people God would have us to be. But still we sing, we sing even in what are often the strange and hostile wastelands of today. We sing, sing of a faith that comes from the inside out, not the outside in, for there is something in us - a vision, a hope - which will just not let us go.
So we are going to keep singing, and I am going to keep encouraging Brian and all our directors, our singers and musicians, to keep exploring new expressions of worship music even as we honor more traditional forms. We will sing and praise and worship as long as we have breath, not because we are blind to the ways of the world, but because we are open and receptive to the ways of God, and again, are always ready to affirm that life is sweet and sunlight beautiful.