This post is the working copy of a sermon I gave at Edwards Church, UCC in Framingham, MA on June 7, 2015. The live version deviates a bit, in that I was not reading from these notes. (PDF)
“Truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:19-20, NSRV)
Why are you here?
Decision Point Navigation
The most miserable and the most wonderful of situations, both stem from single choices, which might be buried deeper than you’d first think. I like to play a game that tries to navigate through past choices in an attempt to find the exact point that started me on any particular path.
Life is a series of forks, at which we’ve already made countless decisions, and whose alternate endings reside only in our dreams. We make these decisions everyday, quite proudly at times when we decide to “reclaim” our lives or “seize the day”. But, what of the smaller, more casual forks we’ve encountered? How often do you stop to think about the seemingly trivial decision points that have already happened?
So, I ask again, “Why are you here?” Or more clearly, “What got you here?”
Right now you are living on a time line entirely of your own doing. The only reason you are sitting where you are right now is because at some point in your life you made a decision that got you here. And, that decision was made only because of a previous decision that had got you to that point. And so on.
You could just as well ask me why I am standing in front of you today? Well, the immediate answer is that I got up this morning, and drove in. But, I wouldn’t be standing here without an established association with Edwards Church. And I wouldn’t be at Edwards Church were it not for a desire some years back to revalidate my life with a more active musical identity.
I’ll save you a few steps, and take you back to a time when my parents brought me to their church every Sunday, and at some point, I saw a liturgist and thought, why not me? And, after a while, I thought I’d join the choir so I could spend more time with my dad on weeknights. I guess you could even suggest that it was my grandfather who put me here, in giving his own son an internal fire some thirty years before I was even born.
Try it yourself. Think about something that defines you today, and work your way backward to the first time that you started on the path that would lead to that becoming a defining characteristic about yourself today. Then, see if you can work backward again, until you find the node where your current life began to take shape.
As you saw, with just a few minutes of quiet reflection, I have found a root cause, if you will, for my interest in preaching. I’m currently working toward the goal of becoming a commissioned minister of music in the UCC, a process that will strengthen my role here at Edwards Church, all the while fusing two words which mean so much to me: “music” and “ministry”.
Music is one of two things that I am most passionate about; two things (unlike natural family) that I infused into my life through conscious decision, and that are completely traceable through this practice I describe above. As far as the musical end goes, that magical, fragile node was heralded not by trumpets, drums, and angel wings, but rather by the unlikely sound of a squeaky AV cart, barreling down the corridor to my fifth grade classroom. The music teacher inserted a VHS copy of the film Amadeus that day and, I like to think, put her feet on the desk, congratulating herself on a job well done, for she had just set in motion a series of forks that would come to define who I am today. The second passion, my marriage, thankfully, featured on that same series of forks. I love my life so much, I shudder to think of what might have happened, had that music teacher had had a more solid lesson plan that day, one that didn’t involve watching a movie. How different my life might be now if that had been one of the 21 days I was absent that year. That’s an 11-percent chance I may not have even been in the building on what would become the most pivotal day of my life.
[Read more in my original post, “My Story About ‘Amadeus’“]
My interest in music, oddly enough, began as a solitary love. I would sit, hours on end, with scores all around me, listening to our stereo, confounded by so much music to absorb. Sure, I was involved in band and chorus in middle and high school, but that fire burned its brightest when I was sitting alone with my mistress, music.
Two or Three Are Met Together
It wasn’t until college that I truly began to understand more about this beautiful community. In the first few days of freshman year I performed my choral placement audition, and was selected for a group called the Chamber Singers. Somehow I was made aware that it was customary for the Chamber Singers to meet for an hour before the director arrived to review and prepare. So, I made my way to the auditorium stage and found the pick-up rehearsal already in progress. A room full of “older kids”, I was the only new student. I should have been scared, terrified even, but someone in that circle compelled me to join my new family. By chance, they were refreshing themselves on a piece that I had learned the previous year, myself: Maurice Duruflé’s setting of the Ubi caritas plainchant, a piece which translates, fittingly, as “Where charity and love are found, so is God there.”
Our student accompanist was the de facto warm-up rehearsal facilitator, and for this particular a cappella piece, he was pacing the circle, conducting the group. You could tell Chris, as momentary leader, was taking it all in, loving his life. At one point, as he passed in front of me, I could feel my sound reach his ear, and he in turn threw a glance to our teaching assistant, whose eyes swelled momentarily, pleased with her choice for the “new guy”. This all happened in real-time, and I remember it so vividly, because it is one of the most beautiful examples I can imagine of the community of singing.
Incidentally, I found out this past summer that Chris had died suddenly, shy of his fortieth birthday. I can guarantee that everyone overwhelmed by the news that July day was comforted by one thing, memories of the music we’d shared with Chris.
[Read more in my original post, “Invited with a Glance“]
Chamber music is defined as music which is intended to be played with one person covering each part. Unlike some of the choirs I would later join, which might have forty basses singing the same line with me, behind an orchestra with 15 first violins, chamber music requires your attendance, because without you a part will be non-existent. Chamber music is also intended to be performed as an amusement, satisfying to those who are making the music, rather than for an audience.
The activity of singing in a group has been well-documented of late as beneficial to longevity, and good health. It was even noted in the summer of 2013 that when a group of choristers sang together, their heart rates slowed and then– synchronized.
“The congregation’s voice is the heart of all church music. It can and should be beautiful, meaningful, musical, full of the spirit, responsive both to text and tune, and magnetic in drawing together all who hear.”
But, the effects of good living through song are not in place only for those in established groups like my college chamber singers or the Edwards Church choir. The great choral clinician and pedagogue Alice Parker, who wrote the joyous anthems you heard here on Palm Sunday and Easter, has long preached that music is not for a chosen few, but rather for the whole congregation, and by extension, the whole community. When we who wear the robes lead the congregation in song, it is a joyful noise for the world!
Go Forth, Serve the Lord
A bit over a year ago, I was reminded of this notion, as my wife and I made our way into Symphony Hall and scanned tickets that had been in our hands for the previous six months. We’d waited several years for a chance to see Gustavo Dudamel. He is a young, Latin conductor, a shining star of his generation, and regarded by many as classical music’s potential savior. It was as if the rookie of the year was on the opposing team at Fenway Park. And after a difficult period of instability on our own podium, we in Boston might well have been threatened by his increasing fame. But that didn’t seem to be on anyone’s mind, as I listened to the conversations going on around me. We were filled with excitement and anticipation, eager to share the experience with the musicians, and with our neighbors. I continued the sports analogy in my head the following week and came to a shocking realization: To go home completely happy, it is required in sports that fully one half of the players on the field have a bad day. Think about that.
Conversely, no one has ever gone to the symphony, an oratorio, or an opera, praying that the soprano gives the performance of a lifetime, while the baritone chokes just as marvelously. We attend, instead, hoping for an experience in which the performers are so in sync with each other that a buttress forms, upon which the work may shine ever brighter than the last time we saw the exact same work performed. In music, your team always wins.
[Read more in my original post, “How Beautiful a Community“]
So, when I ask you, “Why are you here?” you now know this is why I am here.