Harmonies in Church and in Life

Last week, we examined how the story of Job stresses the importance of knowing who God is. In a situation where there was nothing Job could do to fix his own situation, Job was able to be justified before God despite his terrible hurt because his knowledge of God’s goodness, love, compassion, wisdom, and power was greater than his perceptions of his own situation. Briefly, we examined that worship is one of the primary exercises by which we as individuals, and as a collective, meditate on a truthful understanding of God.

In my opinion, one of the most beautiful examples of worship in Scripture is the song of Mary, often called the Magnificat, which she sings after she is told that she will be the mother of the Messiah. In Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 46, we read her worship of God:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.

    For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for he who is mighty has done great things for me,

    and holy is his name.

And his mercy is for those who fear him

    from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm;

    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

he has brought down the mighty from their thrones

    and exalted those of humble estate;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

    and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

    in remembrance of his mercy,

as he spoke to our fathers,

    to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

I know many people in the church who do not enjoy worship. Some people don’t like singing and some people don’t like the sound of acapella worship. They may like the sound of acapella worship even less when it’s performed by a group of imperfect, non-professionally trained singers like we are. But it is possible to dislike singing and acapella music and still enjoy our experience of worship. These things are simply the vehicle for what worship actually is: to express reverence and adoration for our God. What I want to focus on today is what makes worship important, how we can appreciate that, and how these more abstract characteristics of worship also reflect truths about the way we experience Godly life as a whole, visible as a microcosm in our worship of God.

Some of my most profound religious experiences come from an event known as Tahoe Family Encampment. Until last year, I made a habit of driving all the way to California every July to attend this event. The Encampment is like a huge tent revival with over a thousand people in attendance, and people rent cabins on the lake or camp out, and talented teachers from all over the nation preach, and the fellowship time with people that you experience over a week is invaluable. But the part of the Encampment that most holds a place in my heart would take place in the evening, long after the keynotes and discussion groups and scheduled events had ended. We campers and attendees would find an open field (and it could be in a different place every year), make a campfire, and spread the word for a time of gathering. Dusk had fallen, a chill was starting to settle in, and the Ponderosa pines encircled us in a way that mystically framed the moon and the clear night sky above us. Faces I knew and loved intermingled with ones I did not know in the orange glow of the campfire. Organically, we would gather together in a large circle, and without any plan or leadership, men would begin songs. We especially preferred the newer songs, songs I would call devotional songs, and songs that had separate harmonies: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. One man might lead one song or several, and then someone else would take a turn. Most were songs that we by now had learned by heart; sometimes they were new, and we were eager to learn them in such a comradely setting. Brethren from black, deep south congregations would teach us old gospel songs with a liveliness and a passion that the younger singers especially loved. We sang songs that were rejoicing, we sang songs that were sad and self-reflecting, we sang songs that were reverent and mystical. In that setting, the singing sounded otherworldly. Basses sang powerful steady lines while sopranos lifted angelic crescendos, and altos and tenors rang out dancing melodies that tied the two together. The feelings that those melodies invoked will never leave my memory. But if someone there were to have taken a recording that night, it is quite likely that there would be nothing about that singing that sounded special after the fact. What distinguished that singing was why everyone was there. Everyone was there because they deeply desired to be there, and because they were eager to play their specific part in the collective effort of raising God’s praise. This wasn’t a Sunday morning assembly, it wasn’t a pre-planned event on the paper itinerary, and it wasn’t a sideshow to a keynote lecture. It was nothing more and nothing less than a gathering of brothers and sisters who truly loved God and truly loved you, and who in one unified effort embodied their love in song.

I see theological meaning these harmonies, in the melding of different melodies which correspond to the different types of voices we have. If we all had the same voice, the songs that we sing would be bland and uninteresting: and more importantly, there would be little practical need to have all of us participating. But here, the differences between how God made each of us creates new possibilities for greater complexity, beauty, and interaction between us.

In the culture in which we live now, those types of differences are undervalued. They are viewed as limitations, as unfair limitations, that restrict our freedom and influence our value. If we were only individuals, that may be true. If we existed alone in the world, perhaps we would have reason to resent our particular limitations. But God has always intended us to live in community: in the church, in marriage, in work, in the world. Where one person has an inadequacy, another can fill that role. A manufacturing company cannot hire only laborers: it must hire managers, advertisers, human resource officers, legal experts, and accountants. It is only because different individuals in the company have different abilities that the company can function. Most other aspects of life are the same.

Everyone has limitations that they can complain about. I am introverted, I’m naturally overly obsessed with my own thoughts and prone to depression, I’m physically clumsy, and I’m very bad at connecting with people who are not like me. These will probably be features that always characterize me, and I have to learn to work within those limitations. But complementing these limitations, I have advantages in life that other people don’t. I can communicate clearly and effectively, I have a good mind for analysis and problem solving, and I’m pretty competent at a wide range of physical and mechanical skills. If I can appreciate and cultivate these skills that I have been gifted, I can play an important role in my family, my church, and my community.

Of course, there will be times when my weak spots are an inconvenience to me. But Romans 9:19-21 bears remembering:  “You will say to me then, ‘Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?”

When we become a body together in the church, if we have a vision of unity, our talents and limitations can fit together like puzzle pieces. Of course, if we don’t have a vision of unity, if we aren’t trying to assemble a puzzle, we won’t see each other that way. Others’ limitations will be irritations and hindrances to us. All too often this is what happens in the church. The way we rectify this is by seeking a unified vision, and appreciating how others are meeting different needs in the body than we are. Paul speaks of this very phenomenon to a very fractured group of Christians in 1 Corinthians 12, and has this to advise:

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

This is the system God has ordained: that we use our distinct traits to work together to worship and serve God. How futile is it if we try to get by in life on our own? We only have one piece of the puzzle, only a handful of the abilities, that are necessary to be an effective servant of God. One member may not like being in front of a crowd, but he may be instrumental in handling the technological needs of the church building that no one else can. One member may not be the best at exegetical study, but their ability to connect in a genuine manner with any one they meets makes them an exemplary evangelist. One person with a poor speaking manner may be a great bible student with excellent insight if people will have patience to listen. All you women in the congregation don’t have roles leading the order of worship, but you have the talents of encouragement and connecting with people that none of us men possess naturally. If all the members in the church were carbon copies of any of these examples, the church would be defunct, both because it lacked any of the other gifts, and also because everyone would be hampered by the same insufficiencies. We have talents that cover each others’ shortcomings. Because we are a body, none of us has to do it all by ourselves.

Even more poignant is when members have traits or behaviors that makes them truly difficult to deal with. Such situations are inevitable; we are human. How quick are we to write such people off, without taking time to see the value that God finds in them? Jesus did not reject Matthew for being a tax collector, or Simon for his impulsiveness, or the Sons of Thunder for their temper; so also must we be patience with those who are in the church as God works out their true potential.

I’ve given you practical reasons for desiring harmony in the church body, but really, that’s not the ultimate reason to do so. The reason to do so is because it’s what God desires of us. In this way, the very act of playing our role in the church becomes an act of worship. This isn’t my connection: Paul himself connects togetherness in the church to temple worship in Ephesians 2:19-22, saying this:

“You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

I know that the bible has nothing to say about four-part harmonies. But the reason I like this style of singing so much is because it is a participatory exercise in the ideals that God expresses about his church in Scripture: a cooperation whereby different people with different abilities and different expressions and different preferences come together voluntarily and find a way to make their incongruities work together in perfect harmony. We’ve all experienced the unpleasantness of singing in discord—just as we’ve all experienced the unpleasantness of a congregation in discord. But if you’ve been lucky enough to experience a congregation in loving unity, you know, as I do, that it is a transcendent experience, more wonderful than any singing I heard in Tahoe. When you experience that kind of love from people, the kind of love that just doesn’t exist naturally amongst strangers, and usually even not among family, you see a glimpse of the nature of God Himself—just as He told us it should be. That’s what I’m striving for here, and I know it’s what you are striving for as well. I am simply here to remind you of our common goal. So this week I encourage you to find a way to connect with someone who is here, or someone who you would like to be here: a phone call, an invitation, or an offer to pray or study with someone. Because just as our songs must become beautiful through practice, so it is with our congregation as well. Christ-like love is a learning process and a practice. I see so much of that here already, and I’m excited to see what happens as we grow and learn in the future.