How Does Music Penetrate and Transform?
Good Morning Friends,
Today my family, eleven singers from Mexico City and the Moorings Chancel Choir sing Schubert’s Mass in G with a string orchestra and organ as part of a Communion service. The Mass has six movement each conveying in music the essence of the meaning of the words, “Kyrie,” “Gloria,” “Credo,” “Sanctus,” “Benedictus” “Osanna in excelsis…” and “Agnus Dei” The music combines to help us experience the mystery of Christ in liturgy, music and communion. It is interesting that Schubert attended mass regularly as a child and probably continued the practice into his adulthood, especially while living with or visiting his family. As with other areas of his personal life, direct evidence concerning Schubert’s religious beliefs is hard to come by. I believe he was interested in theology but at times found it difficult to accept aspects of the dogma of his day. Regardless the music in the Mass is beautiful and to me seems youthful and natural. It hardly, if at all, hints at the bleak destiny and struggle and foreboding that would face the composer in his short life. Regardless of the character of the composer, the melodies lift us up with class and a unique attraction that combines to form the basis for a complete worship service. Simply put it communicates in devotional music more than just words. It is a beautiful piece of music. Sadly few knew Franz Schubert had written this music until after his death. And to what Schubert believed, it is not clear. Regardless God seems to continue to use what he created for a Holy purpose. In an 1824 diary entry he wrote that ‘It is with faith that man first enters the world. It comes long before reason and knowledge, for to understand something one must first believe something … Reason is nothing other than analyzed faith’. Undoubtedly Schubert had a gift and understood the answer to today’s question better than I. Still we ask on this Communion Sunday before Palm Sunday. How Does Music Penetrate and Transform?
Scripture: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21 (NRSV)
When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
John 11:28-44 (NRSV)
What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you! For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (NRSV)
Message: The first communion began at a Jewish observance of the Passover at what we call the Last Supper. On the night before the cross, Jesus gathered his family of disciples in an Upper Room to celebrate. He washed their feet and they remembered the freedom and deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. They drank wine in memory of the freedom, blessing, redemption and kingdom made possible because of the exodus. They saved a cup for Jesus’ return but were unwilling to accept that Jesus was going to die. Here they were reminded of the Passover lamb that was slain and whose blood was applied to the doorpost of the homes. But they did not get it then. So they sang a Psalm, probably from Psalm 115-118 about the glory of God and His great love and faithfulness as they went to Gethsemane. Yet this night was different from all other nights…from all the other Passovers. It had the bread and wine, bitter herbs and tears but it also was for Jesus, a condemned man, willing to take on the sins of the world, a song to be shared.
In today’s scripture, we have these fusion of events that take us out of time. We again look at the raising of Lazarus and in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we take a look back to the crucifixion, a look within at the tension of our existence, and a look around at Christ in our community of faith and a look ahead to the Lord’s coming again. Here we are to seek the experience of eternity in the practice of remembering that we do not worship an exclusively external God but one that is now residing also in us as spiritually real as the blood of the covenant and the body of the Spirit of God in us. Friends, music helps us realize that this life is larger than our individual experiences. Here music and the Eucharist and scripture combine as a wonderful gift of transcendence….one designed to be shared, for here we remember beyond the sacrifice of the lamb that is at the heart of Passover and beyond the sacrifice of Jesus that is at the heart of Easter. Here we celebrated as a human family a focus on the cup of the Kingdom of love beyond dogma…here we share the experience of acts of compassion…of living in the now but not yet. Here we are about the hard work of finding meaning in our life while facing the reality of our own death. Here we see and marvel at the skill of the Master in how He responded with creativity to the secularism of his day and how the creative work of music can touch our hearts with a love that moves us to action. Here our fears are set aside and repressions rolled away in the hope of our purpose. Here we too are raised from the dead in the silence and awareness of the reality of life. Here we sing to God’s glory.
Pray we declare in music our fellowship with one another because of our fellowship with Christ. Pray we remember His sacrifice and anticipate His return. Pray that the Lord our God, the King of the Universe brings forth bread from the earth and fruit of the vine to feed the whole world with goodness, grace, kindness and mercy. Pray we make each day count as if it is our last. Pray Jesus helps us to sing a new song in our hearts.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 