Revelation 4
Ministry of Music Sunday
22nd November 2015
The great reformed Martin Luther
(1483-1546) held music in high esteem. He
said, “Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.”[1]
The other reformers didn’t share Luther’s enthusiasm. Ülrich Zwingli
(1484-1531) in Zurich, who was himself a musician, wanted all instrumental
music banned from worship. John Knox
(d.1572) in Scotland favored only psalms sung in the Kirk, in plain song, with
no musical accompaniment. The organ was
considered the “Devil’s Bagpipe.” (Maybe you consider bagpipes as the Devil’s organ.)
Luther, on the other hand, embraced music as a gift. He wrote, “I wish to see all art, principally
music, in the service of Him who gave and created them. Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. …Singers
are never sorrowful, but are merry, and smile through their troubles in
song. Music makes people kinder,
gentler, more steadfast and reasonable.
I am strongly persuaded that after theology there is no art”—note that
theology is deemed an art, which it was and is—“that can be placed on a level
with music; for besides theology, music is the only art capable of affording
peace and joy of heart…the devil flees before the sound of music almost as much
as before the Word of God.”[2]
Music
can proclaim God’s Word, meaning, not the Bible, per se, but God’s creative Word, the Divine Voice that spoke, maybe
even sang the universe into existence. Music is a force, a power; it has power over
us, it has power to move through us, it has power to move us, change us, causing
to act or feel or be in new ways.
Luther is right. Music deserves the highest praise. Can you imagine worshipping God without
music? Without song? Quakers do, of
course. Silence is holy. But so is
music. Just look at all the psalms, the
songs, the poetry of Israel set to music.
These words were set to music, music that filled the house of
Yahweh. Psalm 149: “Praise Yahweh! Sing to Yahweh with a new song, God’s praise
in the assembly of the faithful. …Let
them praise God’s name with dancing, making melody to God with tambourine and
lyre” (Psalm 149:1, 3).
But there are times when we don’t
feel like singing. We can’t. It might feel a little odd, perhaps
disrespectful, to praise music this morning after the events in France and Mali
this past week. These are challenging
times. When we’re feeling low or
depressed it’s tough to carry a tune in our hearts. When we’re sad, even the sound of music,
music that we usually love, doesn’t touch us the same.
It’s
tough to sing when you’re anxious or weighed-down with worry. Israel knew what that was like. Writing in captivity, far from home, Psalm
137 goes like this, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we
remembered Zion. There on the poplars we
hung [up] our harps, for there are captors asked us for songs, our tormentors
demanded songs of joy; they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ [But] how can we sing the songs of the LORD
while in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1-4).
When we’re in exile, feeling far from home, it’s tough to sing songs of
praise. In those times our soul prefer
minor, discordant keys. Exile and loss
give birth to the Blues and jazz, as our African-American brothers and sisters
know all too well.
It might be tough to sing when one
is low and alone. But maybe that’s the
time we really need to sing with others.
Something happens when the people of God come together, week after week,
to sing in community. Whether or not one
can carry a tune, something magical and holy happens when we sing, whether it’s
a song of lament or a rousing hymn tune.
Something happens—the Spirit shows up—when we make music to the Lord together.
For
we were born to worship, born to glorify God in music and song! As far as we can tell, we are the only
creatures capable of worship. We might
think it's our reasoning and thinking capabilities that make us special as homo sapiens, the one who is wise. Or maybe it’s our ability to work and create
that makes us special as homo faber,
the one who works. Biblically speaking, we
are first homo adorans—the one who worships.
Eugene Peterson says the most important
thing a pastor does each week is say, “Let us worship God!” In the deepest recesses of the soul we know
that this is who we are. The soul longs
to worship.
That’s what Miss Miller
discovered. There was once a young American
woman, aged twenty, raised a Presbyterian, who was dealing with something
disturbing in her life. We don’t know
her real name; she’s called Miss Miller.
It was 1898, on a cruise ship leaving from Naples, Italy, when she had a
dream. It began with these words, “…when
the morning stars sang together,” a direct quote from Job 38:7. Then she heard a choir singing an amazing
hymn of creation. When she awoke she
wrote down the gift her psyche gave her:
When
God had first made Sound
A
myriad ears sprang into being
And
throughout all the Universe
Rolled
a mighty echo:
‘Glory
to the God of Sound.’
When
beauty (light) first was given by God,
A
myriad eyes sprang out to see
And
hearing ears and seeing eyes
Again
gave forth that mighty song:
‘Glory
to the God of Beauty!’
When
God had first given Love,
A
myriad hearts lept up;
And
ears full of music, eyes all full of Beauty,
Hearts
all full of love sang:
‘Glory
to the God of Love!’[3]
Remarkable. The depths of the soul longs to worship!
 |
| William Blake, The Four and Twenty Elders (Rev. 4). |
Sound. Beauty. Love.
All the elements of music, of worship, right? Each of these elements is found in the glorious
vision recorded in Revelation 4. This is
the God, this God who is Beauty, who
calls forth from us beauty and sound and love, who causes our hearts and minds
and voices to resound together.
Resonance. From the Latin “resound,” meaning, “to sound
out together with a loud sound.”
Resonance. There’s actually a
science behind this word. Resonance “occurs
when one object vibrating at the same natural frequency of a second object
forces that second object into vibrational motion.” Resonance is essentially
attunement among elements or agents or an alignment of energy. “Consider a tuning fork used to tune a piano:
striking the fork against a solid surface will set it vibrating at a certain
frequency, producing a reference pitch; the relevant string on the piano can
then be adjusted (loosened or tightened) so that the string resonates with the
same frequency, so that they match. In
fact, if the vibrating fork is put in proximity with the tuned string, [the fork]
will then begin to vibrate with the same frequency—they are said to be in
resonance.”[4]
What’s true of pitch is true of people. When we sing together, when we are in
resonance with one another, we affect one another. Singing together, making music together
builds community, forges connections, and when this occurs something happens to
us, we’re actually changed. And now
transpose this idea to worship directed toward God. When we sing along with the stars of heaven,
singing with the heavenly chorus, when we join our voices with those who sing
around the throne of the Lamb, when we resonate with the rhythm of God’s love
and grace humming through the universe, something really happens to us!
We are created for resonance with
God. We are created to resound with songs of praise. Worship with music was
central to the church from the beginning.
Paul wrote to the Colossians, “…with gratitude in your hearts, sing
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God” (Colossians 3:16). And worship continues
to bless and reform the church. It’s why
worship is at the heart of all that we do.
And it’s music, of all the arts, which is uniquely blessed to help us
resonate, to sound forth with praise and thanksgiving to God!
Glory to the God of Sound!
Glory to the God of Beauty!
Glory to the God of Love!
[1]Martin Luther, “Preface
to Georg Rhau’s Symphoniae Iucundae”
(1538), Luther’s Works: Volume 53 –
Liturgy and Hymns (Fortress Press, 1965), 321-323.
[2]Martin Luther, Foreword
to the Wittenberg Gesangbuch, 1524.
[3] Miss Frank Miller
(pseudonym), with an introduction by Théodore Flournoy (1854-1920), Archives de psychologie (Geneva), V
(1906), 36-51. Cited in C. G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 5
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 42.
[4] Joseph Cambray, Synchronicity: Nature & Psyche in an
Interconnected Universe (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University
Press, 2009), 68ff.
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