Worship notes for Sunday April 19...

WORSHIP NOTES:  Jazz for the Journey Sabbatical #2 - April 19, 2015

Introduction

That song – All Blues – cuts to the heart of what our shared sabbatical means to me.  It expresses to me the way that music can uncover common ground between people of who start off on very different shores.  It speaks of the earth and sky, the sea and you and me who all know that the blues is sometimes sad and some-times glad. And it does so with finesse and earthiness. 

The blues - they're the moan of pain and a taste of strife
A sad refrain which in the night is playing

Because the blues, Lord, can be the living dues we all are paying!

This morning my message is about what our shared sabbatical means… for me.  It will mean and be something very different for you – and that is how it should be – because we are all unique and blessed – every one and every hue. I don’t pray the same way you pray. My soul is fed in ways that are wondrously made – and so too for you – but not in exactly the same way. How does the Psalmist put it?

As a deer longs for flowing streams so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for the Lord, for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God

After my tears have become my food both day and night…

Oh do I love those words – and the groove – and the melancholy nature of the whole song!  They capture a piece of my longing and my quest for deep intimacy with God. You see, my spirituality is sensual and earthy, filled with sound and experience, and when that thirst is not sated – deeply – I grieve. I ache. I pant with longing:  As a deer longs and thirsts for streams of refreshment and renewal so my soul thirsts for you, O God.

For me an essential aspect of this sabbatical experience is time to be saturated in the spirit of the Lord through music – the visual arts – quiet contemplation – rest – time with my beloved – and creating and practicing my chosen instrument: the upright bass. When I play in concert with others – and you need to practice a lot by yourself so that when you do play with others you have something to say that is creative and beautiful - it almost always elicits within me the words of Jesus you heard earlier:  Go and learn what this means; I desire mercy not sacrifice.  Compassion and soul food rather than rules and rituals – relief and release from the burdens of fear and sin instead of more guilt and shame: Eugene Peterson goes so far as to retranslate that into: Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy NOT religion. And THAT is what I hear Jesus saying to me about my life: it is all about creating and sharing love in ways that are so real that we sense the holy within our humanity. And to do that consistently, to do that with verve and vigor, I need time to saturate my soul in music like “All Blues.” In so many ways this is what this sabbatical means to me.

Insights

Now as you probably have noticed, I’m speaking a LOT about this sabbatical and myself today – that is intentional – next week I’ll be sharing some thoughts about what this might hold for you and our community. But today I want to be wildly personal. And as I am want to do, I want to push the edges of my thoughts deeper – not necessarily in a linear or didactic fashion – but rather in an experiential way.  This morning I want you to listen and experience some of the prayer songs that sing of God’s mercy in my soul as a tutorial into in my hopes and dreams about this sabbatical. Most of the time preachers need to speak to the whole community – that is our calling – but today I need to be wildly personal with you in the hopes that what is most personal is also most true for our community.  

In addition to “All Blues,” the heart of this sabbatical is shaped by two other songs that are aesthetically, ethically, artistically and experientially at the core of my spirituality of music. The first is Paul Winter’s composition called “Canticle of the Sun and the Moon.” It was commissioned by the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in NYC to be part of an Earth Mass – Missa Gaia – and when Winter received this commission he didn’t know a thing about the structure or theology of the Mass. He didn’t know that the Mass retells the story of Christ’s sacrifice and gift of love for the whole world. He didn’t know ancient Latin. And he didn’t know much about the contemporary church of Jesus Christ. So as anyone with an iota of insight knows, rather than try to re-invent the wheel, he first studied the ancient traditions before beginning his composition.  He went to the root of historic Christian liturgy.

·        St. Bob Dylan once sang that “I will know my song well before I start singing.”  That is, I will take the time to appreciate, understand and come to love my roots.  I will practice them, honor them and be able to articulate their blessings – and failures – before I start to do something new with them. 

·        Aesthetically, Winter made time to listen to the great choral masses of Bach and Mozart, Schubert and Faure as well as the older liturgical works of the world of Gregorian Chant.

·        Aesthetically he honored the tradition before taking it in new directions – and that is important to me, too.  Before I can do something new, I have to saturate myself in the foundation.

After getting grounded in the aesthetics, Winter set about having conversations with people from different spiritual traditions to find out how the ancient ways might best be restated for a new generation:  he took the ethical challenge of his music seriously. In today’s composition he integrates the earth-centered words of St. Francis of Assisi with the poetry of the Hebrew Bible’s story of Job AND the classical hymnody of the 19^th century we know as “For the Beauty of the Earth. There is ancient and modern, classical and improvisational music embracing the songs of nature, Scripture, church tradition and the latest headlines in the NY Times – and it never sounds weird or chaotic – because Winter honored both the aesthetics and ethics of his prayer music.

Further, Winter melds musical disciplines that sometimes have been held in opposition in order to show how the whole can be greater than the individual parts. This is what St. Paul teaches about the Body of Christ: we need ALL the parts – the minds and tongues, the hands and unmentionable organs –  in order to make a healthy, loving, holy body. Too often people think we must choose between classical music and jazz, rock and roll over folk songs. But Winter trusts that what is good, true and beautiful in every style can work to complement and strengthen something new. So just like my band mates, he takes his skill as a jazz artist and writes choral music, he links the classical virtues of high art with the organic beauty of songs composed by the wolf and whale. And he puts them right alongside world music from cultures that are very different from our own.

When you hear this work – and we will share one part now and the whole Earth Mass in early November as part of the culmination of our sabbatical – you can’t help but celebrate the blessings of common ground. Experientially – without even knowing it – this music takes you on a journey of radical integration through your senses. This work not only celebrates the mercy and compassion Jesus wants for you and me, but it does so in a way that makes clear the aesthetic, ethical, artistic and spiritual essentials of this sabbatical.

Now there are two other truths in this Canticle I need to say out loud for you before we play it:  Winter saturates his song with complexity and simplicity. In this he honors the wisdom of paradox. Sometimes you will hear the singers in unison, sometimes they will be in harmony – there will be moments when their voices fit easily with the score and other times when they are singing in completion with the music or working against the rhythm. Sometimes the song is very straight forward – like the words of the hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth” – and at other times – if we get it right – it will be highly syncopated and complex.  

·        And just so that it remains fun, Winter builds in a time for instrumental improvisation: it wouldn’t really be jazz without a chance for some of the players to playful compose what they are feeling on the spot, right?

·        We won’t do much of that today – but we will when we do the whole Mass in November – but remember: improvisation always tells a story – it lets us know what the musicians are feeling and experiencing in the moment: sometimes it is hope, other times despair. Often it is playful but sometimes it is anguishing and poignant. And all of that is taking place in real time.

Ok, let’s give it a shot – and please note that there WILL be a test after we finish!

“Canticle for Brother Sun and Sister Moon”

Now because this sabbatical is so important to me – and to us all as a faith community – I’m going to throw away any reference to the clock at this point and say if you need to leave, you have my permission. But learning about the ethics of aesthetics and spirituality is too important to overlook. So did you hear or feel ANY of what I was explaining when we played this song? What did you GET from this composition?

What we just shared with you in this composition is exactly what I hope to experience during part of this sabbatical. It is ALL about being so refreshed that my creativity  might advance mercy not religion. You see, as your pastor I long for times of deep, extended, quiet and sensual communion with my God.  I have my own ways of being in prayer throughout the year but they are rarely sustained enough to nourish and heal my whole being. That’s what the Hebrew of Psalm 42 tells us:  it begins with the first person singular word, nafshi, which is usually translated “I” but actually means “with my whole being.” For me this sabbatical – and that songs– speak about trusting God’s creative love with my whole being so that what I live is mercy not religion.

So, because we only have one more Sunday together before our four months of being apart – I need to tell you one more thing about the marriage of this thirsty deer and God’s commitment to mercy rather than religion:  it must be embodied. It must be owned in our hearts and our flesh as well as our minds and our souls. If God’s mercy – what I often call grace – is just an idea, it will be compromised. Betrayed. Abandoned. Look at the difference between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. Ideas and words evaporate. 

But, love that is felt – love that is deep calling to deep – the bread of our tears nourished by our whole being – that love is stronger than death. That love is what Easter is all about. So please don’t ever think that Jesus is being poetic when he tells us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. He’s rephrasing Psalm 42: you must love the Lord with NAFSHI – your whole being. That’s why Dianne and I are taking four months away – we need to rest in that love with our whole being again – stop thinking so much and just trust.

And if there was ever one song that FEELS like the truth of this Psalm more than any other, it is “Don’t Give Up.” It not only FEELS like Psalm 42 to me, it FEELS like Christ’s call to be about mercy not religion, too. And because some people have told me that don’t “get” what I mean when I talk about the feeling of a song, let me be explicit:

·        This is not a literal song about mercy and on the surface it has nothing to do with Jesus – so don’t stay up in your head and worry about how I hear the voice of Jesus in these words. I don’t – but I FEEL the movement of the Lord’s energy in this song because it moves just like the tension in Psalm 42.

·        The verses state the longing and emptiness while the chorus expresses the promise of hope:  it is a call and response – an aching followed by grace – the bread of our tears followed by mercy.  Even the arrangement and vocal harmonies give shape and form to this rhythm:  solo verses of lament are gently followed by a chorus of compassion.

·        And just so that we can’t help but get this – and I am talking sensually not abstractly – after an extended instrumental improvisation in a minor key, we all come back together in a major key that sounds like a gospel choir proclaiming the presence of faith, hope and love in our midst.  See if you can hear that – and feel that – in “Don’t Give Up.” 

My sabbatical is defined by the songs we’ve played today: I wanted to share them with my colleagues and you in the hope that their beauty will evoke in you an aching for more of God’s mercy. For when your whole being longs for the Lord, you will not be content with compromise or abstractions: you will be read to follow Jesus who said: go and learn what this means, I desire mercy not religion…