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*** What is it called? You hear a word for the very first time and then it suddenly pops up everywhere in conversation. Or you are driving down the street and hear a commercial for a business on the radio and find yourself driving past that business at that very moment. Whatever that phenomenon is called has been happening to me this past week; that is, the identification of a theme a week ago at this moment – the transforming power of music and the ability of music to be an eloquent carrier of the faith – with more sermon illustrations popping up than one can comprehend. And so the theme continues on this third Sunday of Advent, with more evidence all around us. As you might know, Third Church has participated in a partnership, first with Temple B’rith Kodesh, later adding the Islamic Center of Rochester. Faith to Faith. Last Sunday, a group watched a documentary film called “Knowledge Is the Beginning.” It focused on the story of an experiment called the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, a group of young people from the countries in the Middle East – Arab and Israeli, Muslim, Jew, Christian – brought together by the late Palestinian political scientist Edward Said and the Israeli-born pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, who was the distinguished conductor of the Chicago Symphony for many years. The lessons are many: Sitting together, sharing music stands together, playing in harmony, so to speak. Finding common ground, a chance for dialogue, what one young Jordanian-Palestinian called a “changed view of what a human being is.” The group visited the Buchenwald concentration camp together. They argued about the first and second intifadas, gathering when the period of suicide bombings was particularly high. One young Israeli cellist noted that “we don’t come to be a part of this to pretend we’re happy – we come here in spite of the fact that something’s wrong.” And it all came together because of music. “The message of music is the message of peace,” Barenboim said, insisting that a life without music is impoverished. Music, he continued, by its very nature, becomes an alternative model for the conflict of identities. It can elevate feelings and imaginations to new unimaginable spheres. We know that to be true, do we not? It happened in another way this past Monday. A group of our bell ringers offered a Christmas concert at the Episcopal Church Home. It was well-attended, very-well attended, with many residents and their aides making a concerted effort to be present. Chris Lenti and others reported to me a wonderful happening, testifying both to the power of the human spirit and music’s ability to connect with something deep in that spirit. The bell choirs would begin ringing a familiar Christmas tune, and one, and then another, and then the whole room of residents would begin singing, unbidden, the familiar words cascading across and echoing throughout the room. Something deep within their memory and experience was unlocked in a way no verbal interaction ever could. All that is to say that I bet you might struggle to remember words that were said this morning – no offense taken. But I bet you will be humming “Angels We Have Heard on High” all week. And we get three biblical doses of it this morning. * The poetry of Isaiah that anticipates, as Walter Brueggemann
writes, “a massive reversal of fortunes, wrought by the
power of God.” We will remember that Jesus inaugurated
his ministry by claiming these words, but look what is happening
here. Oppressed, brokenhearted, imprisoned, bereaved –
all have their fortunes reversed, their status quo transformed
by the righteousness of God. There is a musical quality to all of this – to the poetry of Isaiah, the testimony of John, the joyous rhapsody of the psalm. But even on this Sunday, this conversation needs to be about more than the power of music, but rather must draw us to the message to which this powerful music testifies. Today is a day of great joy, our trio of texts insists to us, because the way that life is will not be the way that life is to be. Misfortune, oppression, darkness – this is not God’s intention for God’s people and the one who will come to restore all things. That will be true for each one of us and it will be true for all of us together. “More and more, Beverly Gaventa writes, “…despair fades into an awareness that a gracious inbreaking of God’s presence is at hand.” And if that is true, and I believe that it is, our task is two-fold. We are to embrace that promise of graciousness in our own lives. And we are to embrace it on behalf of the world into which God’s light will shine. Christina Rosetti prayed: “Open wide the windows of our spirits and fill us full of light; open wide the doors of our hearts that we may receive and entertain Thee with all our powers of adoration.” We would pray no less – for ourselves, for the world. In the film about the Middle Eastern youth orchestra, Edward Said said something to the effect that while music can seem harmless, it can be a bit subversive. That is true, I believe. That is even more true with the message we have received this morning, the gospel we are called to anticipate. It is subversive, transforming everything, redeeming everything, restoring everything. Good news. Liberty. Healing. Comfort. Justice. Restoration. Light. Good news. Isaiah understood it. John understood it. The psalmist understood it. Jesus certainly understood it. And so may we. In the name of the one anointed to bring good news. Gloria in excelsis deo. Amen.
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