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“There’s a Song in the Air.” There’s a sound-track to our lives. Now for some it is Rachmaninoff, and for some it is Rap. Whatever it is, we have a choice in it, and the choice matters.
Scientists say that one of the last things that goes in a patient with Alzheimer’s is songs. They have documented people who have lost the ability to speak, and yet, when you play songs from their era, they may sing along. Supposedly this is because the way melody and words are coded in our brain is in a different place than just our speech center. It is embedded in the deepest recesses of our brain. It becomes the melody of our lives.
And so, when the Apostle Paul exhorts us to “be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord..” he is tapping into something that may have always been true for humans.
My father walks around whistling. I know Ann Marie says she constantly has music playing in the background of her consciousness. I often have a tune that will not let me go, and I remember times in my life, when I just could not keep myself from singing.
Now music isn’t just for times when we are calm and enjoying ourselves. Think of the power of “We Shall Overcome” in the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s. Think of the war protest songs of folk music (and rock) that became Top 10—Where Have All the Flowers Gone, If I Had a Hammer, Give Peace a Chance, War. Just recently one of the Presidential Candidates brought up a memory of “Tie[ing] a Yellow Ribbon” round the old oak trees as we waited for hostages to come home from Iran in the late 70’s. Who can forget the Madonna Sensation “Material Girl” which became the anthem for many in the 1980’s. I could go on and on, and I’m just giving you my growing up eras! We each have our own.
So music surrounds us. And it’s important. For it’s not just the melody that seeps into our souls. The words that accompany those melodies become entrenched as well. And that is why denominations put out new hymnbooks every 20 years or so, because our language changes, our theology becomes more refined, it is a snapshot of how we see ourselves and our world.
I remember how avante-guard it seemed to be singing “Kumbaya” which came from Africa. Or dancing around to “I danced in the morning when the world was begun…” Those are nothing like A Mighty Fortress is our God. Or even, Great Is Thy Faithfulness. They just sing to God in a slightly different way. Our “new” hymnbook has widened our musicial vision—introducing us to melodies from Latin and South America, and Asia; giving us access to familiar hymns from other denominations; and updating some words and concepts. We don’t talk in the language of the 16th-and 17th centuries, we don’t even talk like those of the 19th century when so many of the “old standards” were written. Why should we sing only in those words?
Again, think of the power of the universal hymn “Jesus loves me.” True, it was written for children, but it distills the message of the gospel. No having to go back to the original language, no trying to understand the context of what you are singing. Jesus loves me echoes in our brains whether we want it to or not—and that is the beauty and the danger of the melodies of our lives.
In this brief passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, I hear him saying several things. The music he lifts up is music that has something to do with God—psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Don’t think I am advocating that you stop listening to your car radio. I’m not. But I am saying, find some way to have “God music” in your life.
Paul also says, “as you sing… among yourselves.” This music making is not just an individual trip we take. It is meant to have a communal component. When we gather, we should praise God with music, with our voices, high and low, timid or strong, on pitch or monotone. We are intended to be a chorus, not a solo.
And finally, I hear Paul underlining the point of this music—making melody to the Lord in our hearts. Of course, I as a preacher, and Paul as an apostle, are going to think that music should be to the glory of God. I sometimes wonder to whose glory some music is going. Or maybe there is no intension. All the more reason to pay attention to what we allow to seep into our brains and get branded there!
The songs we sing, the words we learn by heart, become not just the soundtrack of our lives, but often the unconscious bedrock on which we stand. I can’t tell you why, but I am haunted by one of the “new to us” hymns that came out of Korea. “To My Precious Lord” tells the story of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet from the woman’s perspective. “To my precious Lord, I bring my flask of fragrant oil; kneeling down, I kiss his feet, anoint them with the oil.”
Maybe it is because as a female, I have had to search high and low for Biblical models—and usually they are nameless. Maybe it is because in our society, women still can’t play with the “big boys”—look what happened to Megan Kelly when she asked difficult questions in the first Republican debate. Maybe it is that even in my beloved church, I have had to defend my right to be in the pulpit as a woman one too many times. (And if you wonder why, read the verses in Ephesians that follow our text, that the lectionary committee decided to leave out. It starts with “Wives be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord…”)
“To My Precious Lord” speaks in a woman’s voice. That famous woman who anointed Jesus feet with her oil and washed them with her tears. And even though Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in all the world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her,” (Matt 26:13) we don’t know her name. But in this hymn, we all get to become her—her gift becomes something to be emulated. She might not have a name, but she is an important actor in history. One to be remembered. One in whom we are to see ourselves—in fact, deeper than that, by singing the hymn, we become her.
So, the final verse of that hymn becomes the prayer for each of us, “When in clouds of glory you come back to earth again, Jesus, with your love, embrace and claim me as your friend.”
May it be so for all of us. Alleluia, Amen.
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