The Gift of Music

As we anticipate the debut of our new organ on Sunday, I’d like to share some reflections on music that I wrote a couple of years ago:

Music has been central to Jewish and Christian worship from the early days of God engaging with his people. After God’s mighty action in delivering Israel from Egypt, Moses and Miriam broke forth in a song of praise (Exodus 15). The Psalter is filled with exhortations to sing to the Lord, and, subsequently, Jewish worship was filled with singing psalms, whether in the synagogue, in procession to the temple, or worship at the temple itself. Jesus and disciples, at the Last Supper, sang a hymn at the end of their meal (Matthew 26:30), and Paul exhorted his congregations to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Colossians 3:16, Ephesians 5:19), which, according to 1 Corinthians, the early Christians were doing as they gathered each week for worship (1 Corinthians 14:26). The Bible ends, of course, with the Book of Revelation, in which we find the redeemed people of God gathered with, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, “angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven” praising God in song (cf. Revelation 5:13, 7:10, 15:3-4, 19:6-8). In one of the oldest non-Christian writings on Christian worship, Pliny’s letter to the Roman Emperor Trajan in the early second century, Pliny writes that the early Christians “were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.” It’s also true that one of the marks of renewal or revival in churches throughout history has been a passion for song. As New Testament scholar Gordon Fee points out, “Where the Spirit is, there will be singing!” The monastic movement, medieval mysticism, the Reformation, the 18th century Evangelical revival, and the modern Charismatic movement have all produced fresh and passionate expressions of worship, illustrating St. Augustine’s famous sayings, “To sing is to pray twice” and “Singing belongs to one who loves.”

I find it fascinating that C. S. Lewis, in his fantasy story The Magician’s Nephew, has Aslan sing the world into existence. Music is the means to express our deepest emotions, whether pain, longing, or, more than anything, love. One of my dreams for our congregation is that we would be a community of passionate, vibrant singers, drawing on the best of historic and modern music written for the church’s public worship, led with both beauty and excellence.

It is unfortunate that, so often, our discussions of music in the church have to do with style – i.e. “traditional” or “contemporary” (which are actually quite misleading categories that cause unnecessary conflict!) – rather than the role music plays within the worship of God’s people. Appeals to a specific aesthetics, while important, are often counter-productive, as most aesthetic models are culturally conditioned, while we live increasingly in a multi-cultural world, and we certainly worship in a multi-cultural church, as, of course, the bulk of Anglicans live and worship in the Global South. I’m reminded of a line from Marva Dawn’s great book on worship called Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: “Because the people who come for worship represent an immense diversity of ages, emotions, concerns, and spiritual maturity, authentic worship requires a variety of musical styles to convey an assortment of moods and convictions.”

At Christ Church, we tend to use hymns, service music, and anthems drawn almost entirely from the Anglo-American Anglican tradition at our first service, while, at our second service, we draw from the riches of English Protestant hymnody, but also from modern sources that work within our liturgy. The “form” of our worship is identical in each service; it’s just the style of music that varies. Jamie Smith makes a helpful point on this in You Are What You Love when he makes a distinction between the form of the historic pattern of Christian liturgy and the style of music.

This summer, as we’ve combined our two services, I understand that, at least for some, the amount of modern music has been overwhelming. In looking back at the bulletins, I can see how one might draw that conclusion. However, for many of us (myself included!) the more flexible feel of the services with a variety of styles has been a huge gift. From a planning perspective, our organist has been away, and the choir has been off, so we’ve simply used the resources we’ve had available. For the Sundays in July and August, our organist will be back, and we’ll have the new organ, so we’ll certainly make use of it each Sunday!

I hope that we develop into a congregation that can appreciate and affirm various expressions of music, acknowledging that, while not every song will resonate with each individual, it is quite likely that someone, somewhere in the congregation is experiencing God’s presence in real, transformative ways. I would also hope that we could develop an ethos of taking risks – trying new songs and new practices from time and time, open to the possibility that God may work in and through them, but also open to the possibility that, after trying, we’d simply let it go. That seems to me a sign of maturity.

So, let’s come to worship this Sunday thankful for the gift of our new organ, and also the talented musicians who led the congregation in singing each week. Let’s also come open to God working in our lives, understanding that God is often most active when we’re most uncomfortable.

Peace,

Chris