8th Day: Church of Fools in the Covid Pandemic: Service Messages

Rossweisse

It seems to me that the messages offered in our Church of Fools services tend to get lost in the threads of their particular Fridays. Therefore, I'm taking it upon myself to open a new thread just for those messages. I invite others to post their past messages here, and to use this space in the future.

Warning: American viewpoint ahead!
Luke 4: 16-21

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”


This is the 4th of July weekend, when Americans celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and our liberation from colonial rule. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, a Deist inspired by the words of Christ, listed 27 grievances against King George III and the British Parliament, in language that still shines brightly 244 years later. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It inspired the representatives of 13 fractious colonies to band together to fight for that independence, and, eventually, to join together to form a new nation. It was a long and rocky road, a war that ran from 1775 until 1783, and internal squabbles without ceasing. The Patriots, as they styled themselves, fought at great risk to their lives and property. Declarations of independence by themselves don’t do the job.

Jesus knew that; the gospel goes on to say that he next gave some serious backtalk to the residents of Nazareth, who tried to throw him off a cliff as a result. He continued to deliver his message, preaching and healing throughout the Holy Land. He was put to death for his message of freedom, but in his death and resurrection we were all set free.

Over the fireplace in my home hangs a portrait of my four-times-great grandfather, along with his dress sword. He was an 18-year-old Tory, with an English mother and an English education, when a future general in the Patriot army came furtively to his home to court his sister. The British authorities got wind of it, and, assuming that he shared the soldier’s political views, arrested him. He was able to get it straightened out, but he’d had time to think those views through, and decided to fight with those he had once called “rebels.” (This is why I am not a Canadian*: it turned out to be the winning side. Thank you for the help, France!)

The Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution inspired other peoples to seek their own freedom from oppression. The United States, as a human institution, is certainly imperfect, and it is currently in crisis, the fruit of those imperfections ripening and the very foundation of its principles threatened. People who would tell you that they are patriots and Christians are actively working toward its destruction.

Thomas Jefferson, and my ancestor, were also human and imperfect; nevertheless, they helped to establish something of great value. This weekend is a good time to look at those principles anew, and to look to the words and deeds of Jesus, who saw all men as equal, and all women, too; who spoke truth to power; who healed all who needed healing; who died for us, and who waits to welcome us to a place where there is no poverty, where our sins are forgiven and where all oppression is at an end. That will be liberty indeed.

* Many Tories relocated to Canada after Britain lost the war.

Alan Cresswell

This is the message (in two parts) I gave for Good Friday (10th April)

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”,
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
The opening words of Psalm 22, which Matthew and Mark record as the dying words of Jesus, cried out in a loud voice from the cross.

In the previous few short hours Jesus had been deserted by all around him.
Judas, the man who he’d entrusted with the money that supported his ministry, had betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver.
Simon, who he’d called Peter, the rock on which his church would be founded, had denied knowing him, not once but three times.
The other disciples had fled and gone into hiding.
The crowd which had cheered his entry into Jerusalem a few days earlier had been turned into a mob baying for his blood.
Even the sun has ceased to shine as the land is plunged into darkness.

In the darkness, alone in his agony, from the hell that he finds himself in, he shouts his rant at the sky.
The rant of the psalmist. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? I cry out, but you do not answer me.”
The rant of countless people throughout history who have found themselves in hellish conditions, deserted and alone without apparent hope.

And, today we’ve spent weeks in lockdown, with no end in sight.
Weeks when we’ve been unable to see friends and family,
Weeks when we’ve been unable to meet together for worship,
weeks when we’ve struggled to keep social contacts,
weeks spent in fear that someone we love will not survive the pandemic,
weeks of worry about how to make ends meet,
weeks of uncertainty of employment.
For many, this is a form of hell from which they see no exit.

From this hell, we join with Jesus and scream our rant towards heaven … “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?”

And reflecting on the Epistle, Hebrews 10:19-25

I have found that I've developed a lockdown mentality. Does anyone else find themselves always questioning "Do I need to go outside?",
"Do I really need the half hour exercise walking around the neighbourhood?",
"Is it necessary to see something other than the inside of my flat?",
"Couldn’t I manage a couple more days scraping meals together from what I’ve got, do I need to go to the store?"
Does anyone else sneak outside, feeling guilty for doing so, hoping the neighbours don’t see us and think we’re too reckless with our lives and the lives of others?
Are we feeling like the early disciples, and many others down the centuries and today elsewhere, sneaking around to meet in secret corners of the internet as they met behind locked doors?

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us
“We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place”.
We show trepidation about walking out our own front door, but with confidence we enter the Most Holy Place.
We can’t enter the buildings where we usually gather for worship, yet we can gather together in that Most Holy Place of which our buildings are poor reflections.
We meet in secret places, fearful yet refusing to give up meeting together.

For, Jesus entered Hell, that place of desolation and abandonment, physical mental and emotional anguish from which he shouted his rant at God.
And, in doing so he entered all our own hells, and with us shares our isolation and despair, joins with us in our rants at God.
And, with those words “it is finished” he opens the way before us,
and takes us with him along that new and living way into the very presence of God.

The God who hears our despairing rants, and accepts us.
The God who says, “I never forsook you, I will never forsake you”.

Alan Cresswell

For the 22nd May our message in two voices (delivered by myself and @fineline) from:
Genesis 32: 22-28 (Jacob wrestles) and Mark 7: 24-30 (Syro-phoenician woman)

Jacob had stayed behind, on his own after sending his family and all he owned across the Jabbok stream. And, that night he was confronted by a man, and they wrestled until dawn. We all recognise the phenomenon of wrestling with the issues of the day, often long into the night in the kitchen at the end of a party or on our own as we try to sleep. Our faith is something that rarely provides an easy answer to the questions our world throws at us, and compels us to wrestle both with what our faith means and how we live it in our complex world.

Jesus had travelled to Tyre seeking some time alone, away from the constant attention of the crowds. But he found himself confronted by a Syro-Phoenician woman, who was not going to let him get away with doing nothing to help her daughter. Her debating style can only be called robust - even when Jesus likens non-Jews to dogs, she took that insult and turned it back on him.

As Jacob wrestled with the man by the Jabbok stream, his adversary resorted to cheating to end the struggle, touching Jacobs’ hip, knocking it from it's socket. Still Jacob held on, he wasn’t going to let go. There are times as we struggle with what our faith means, with how it works out in practice in the world we live in, when it seems things are unfair. There are times when we just about think we’ve got it, and the world presents an unexpected twist. Sometimes those struggles can hurt, but like Jacob we can’t let go, but we persevere with trying to make sense of our faith and the world.

After being boldly challenged by the Syro-Phoenician woman, Jesus acknowledges her point and heals her daughter. It is not always easy to accept that someone has pointed out a flaw in our argument, and it can be harder still to then treat them with respect and kindness. But being open to accepting our errors and respecting those who challenge us is vital for growing in our lives, our relationships and our faith. If we are not open to the possibility of being wrong, we remain stuck in our errors.

After his struggle with the man Jacob finally recognises that he’s been wrestling with God himself. This wrestling not only leaves him with a limp, it fundamentally changes who he is. Even to the extent of a change in his name, from Jacob to Israel, “he struggles with God”. A name adopted by the nation who were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Israel is the people who struggle with God, and the new Israel in Christ, the Church, is no different. To live by faith is to struggle, to find we never quite fit in, to find our faith challenging our preconceptions, to find the world challenging our faith.

And there is a sense in which Jesus is changed by the challenge of the Syro-Phoenician woman. Having allowed her to contradict him, to speak up for the rights of foreigners, he then widens his mission. He leaves Tyre, and goes to the Decapolis, the Greek cities in the region of Galilee. His mission is now not just to the people of Israel but to all. He is offering the Gentiles not just the crumbs from the table, but a place at the table with the rest of the children of God.

So, let us struggle with our faith,
And in the struggle, be transformed.

Alan Cresswell

For 12th June (back to Hell forum) from Matthew 23:1-7, 13-39 my message was:

There’s one word that’s practically guaranteed to get us thinking Hellishly, to get a rise out of people and get arguments started.

That word is: Politicians.

Politics isn’t something new, we have always had politicians ruling our nations for better or for worse. Usually for worse. Even in first century Judea, politics was a fact of life. Even though there wasn’t a democracy we would recognise, certainly no elections, there was still politics.

In the Gospel accounts, and other sources, we can recognise political groupings; dare we call them political parties? Groups we can see reflected in contemporary politics. Groups of mostly wealthy men who might claim the language of the Prophets about sweeping away injustice and restoring the nation for all, but were mostly interested in maintaining their own position in society.

There were Herodians, who appear to have wanted to restore the dynasty of Herod the Great (so called) to the throne of the whole of Judea.

There were Sadducees, largely drawn from the wealthy and socially influential people of Jerusalem; strongly associated with maintaining the Temple, seeking to maintain political power within Jerusalem and the Temple. A group that disappears from history with the destruction of the Temple.

There were various groups of Zealots, extremists seeking to overthrow Roman rule by whatever means necessary. Possibly the only political group not lead by the rich elite, because so often the only voice ordinary people have is violence. Sometimes they had a bit more impact than the People’s Front of Judea, or is that the Judean People’s Front? But, ultimately they’d find that they weren’t a match for the legions of Rome.

And, of course, the Pharisees. The Pharisees were Religious, and they believed themselves to be Right. They were Populists, appealing to the common people, or at least the common man as they didn’t have much time for women. Though leading Pharisees were wealthy,
they created a veneer that they were not a party of the Elite, unlike Herodians and Sadducees. They presented an appealingly simple appearing message: obey the Law of Moses and God will Make Jews Great Again. A message that endured beyond the destruction of the Temple, the Pharisees were the only one of these groups to survive into the second century.

Self-serving wealthy politicians who hold up the symbols of religion for their gain, but do not follow that faith, are nothing new. Nor are religious leaders who lend support to wealthy politicians who say the right words in support of their particular narrow ethical views,,or the politicians who willingly take their support. The spirit of the Pharisees lives on. We all rant against them at times. And, as is often the case, Jesus got there first in expressing His opinions of self-serving hypocritical politicians.

From Matthew chapter 23:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

“Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’
You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’
You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Alan Cresswell

For June 26th from Mark 4:26-34 (Parable of the Mustard Seed) my message:

Following on from a bit of a throw-away comment last week about butterflies, when I said I’d preached on butterflies two years ago, and in recognition of National Insect Week, I’ve recycled that sermon. I hope you’ll forgive me playing upto my persona as a mad scientist, and take the chance to talk a bit about science. In particular, non-linear dynamics, that branch of science for systems that follow deterministic laws, but where very small differences in initial conditions can be inflated into vastly different conditions later on. More commonly known as chaos theory. It’s the speciality of Dr Ian Malcolm in the Jurassic Park movies played by Jeff Goldblum, who throughout the movies keeps on telling everyone that non-linear systems are beyond control, as attempt after attempt to control things fail. Usually resulting in people being eaten.

A commonly used example is called the “butterfly effect”; within models to predict the weather, the difference in the input to a equivalent to the movement of air from a butterfly flapping it’s wings can result in the model predicting a hurricane several days later.

The parable of the mustard seed describes another example of something very small resulting in something very large. The smallest of all seeds that grows into the greatest of all shrubs, providing a home for the birds.
As Christians in the UK, and most of the western world, we need to get used to small things. Most congregations are experiencing a time of decline. We find ourselves with fewer members, and those who are still here are not getting younger. The less conservative churches most of us belong too no longer have the influence in the world they once had. Even the Ship isn’t immune to this sense of decline. Day by day we look more and more like a mustard seed, small and insignificant.

If we want to regain the former glory of the church, or of the Ship, we could follow the lead of society and find a saviour as seen in the parables of our time - the biggest block-buster movies. In Gotham City the police are incapable of maintaining order, and it takes a single extremely wealthy man, Bruce Wayne, to spend his wealth developing a vigilante alter-ego, Bat Man. Or, in the Marvel Universe Tony Stark becomes Iron Man, in one of the movies declaring “I have privatised world peace”.

And, of course, the movies work because they express how many people think. Who’s going to save us from global warming? Elon Musk will develop the electric cars we’ll need to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Or, we need Bill & Melinda Gates to find the cure to malaria, James Dyson to make hospital ventilators or Marcus Rashford to convince the government to provide meals for children.

The church, of course, isn’t immune from the same way of thinking. So often looking for an individual to turn things around – the next Billy Graham or John Wesley. Or, on a smaller scale the right minister who will run all the activities that bring people flooding back to the church, and manages to visit our sick members, preaches outstanding sermons week in and week out, and has the diplomatic skills needed to manage the interactions between old and new church members. We know that ministers aren’t superheroes, and such expectations for a minister, or any individual, to be people who on their own can turn things around, whether a local congregation or the wider church are unrealistic.

The parable of the mustard seed points to a different approach. The value of the very small, the almost insignificant to grow into something great. The butterfly effect, that even the smallest action can lead to massive changes. We probably all feel very small, insignificant, without power to change anything. But, the parable inspires us to do what little we can; no matter how small, within the providence of God that seed can grow into a mighty tree. When we stand up against injustice, or take a knee, that wee flap may become a hurricane that will blow away the edifice of systemic racism. When we decide to stay home, when we put on a mask when we need to go where other people are, that act may be what’s going to push coronavirus into decline. When we work from home rather then drive to work, or decide to eat meat-free for a day a week, those cuts in our carbon footprint may tip the balance in preventing the worst of the climate emergency. Because we are not alone, as individuals we’re insignificant and our acts are very small, but the call of Christ isn’t for powerful individuals to do it all but for His church, his Body composed of lots of powerless individuals living by faith.

As part of the Body of Christ, we do our small parts to bring the Kingdom into force, for the will of God to be done on earth. Our parts may be small to the point of appearing insignificant, but we are encouraged that the very small can produce large outcomes.

So, I invite you to unmute your microphones and join together in the prayer the unites us, in whatever form and language you are comfortable with, as we pray:
Our Father …

Martha

It wasn't me for the syro-phoenician woman, Alan; I think I missed that one.

Amanda B Reckondwyth

John 2:1-11: “Why do you involve me?”

There are two things about John’s account of the wedding feast at Cana that especially interest me, and they both have to do with Mary.

We don’t know much about Jesus’ childhood. The Bible is mostly silent, except for Luke’s account of the twelve year old Jesus hob-nobbing with the wise old men at temple. Oh, we have legends, such as the story of the boy Jesus tending a rose garden, when the neighborhood bullies tore down his rose bush and fashioned a crown of thorns out of the bare branches. And as good Shippies we know what makes the baby Jesus and his Blessed Mother cry. But really, we don’t know very much else.

Nor do we have stories of what kind of mother Mary was. Was she the stereotypical Jewish mother? “Yeshua, eat your lentils. What do you mean, you don’t like them? There are starving children in Samaria who would be grateful for those lentils. But go ahead, waste them, after your poor mother slaved all day to cook them.” No, I don’t think Mary was like that.

Let’s look at the wedding feast at Cana. It’s hard to know exactly how old Jesus was at the time. John tells us that he had already begun to attract a following, and had already called a few disciples. He had also set off for Galilee on his own. And yet his mother brings him to a wedding feast. “Oh, come, Yeshua. There’ll be others there your age. You’ll love it.” I’m probably wrong, but I like to think of Jesus as a teenager then. Perhaps John had his chronology wrong. There are other stories in the Bible that don’t exactly follow a linear timeline.

But anyway, there they are, eating and drinking and making merry. And what happens? The caterers run out of wine. And what does Mary do? Does she say, “Oh Yeshua, make some wine for them. You can do it. Make your mother proud of you, there’s a dear.” No. She simply says, “They have no more wine.”

But Jesus knows what she wants him to do. And he has an answer ready for her: “Why do you involve me?” Translators throughout the ages have struggled with that phrase. If you do a Google search, you’ll find some rather rude renderings, the rudest of which, I think, is the New Living Bible’s “Dear woman, that’s not our problem.” But I prefer to translate it as the teenager’s standard response to a mother’s request: “Oh, Ma, do I have to?”

How does Mary react? Does she say, “Yes, you have to, now do as your mother says and be quick about it!” No. She says nothing. She simply turns to the servants and says, “Do whatever he tells you.” And we know what happened next.

When we pray, how do we involve God in our lives? Do we approach him with a list of demands? “This is what I want you to do for me, God – and in return, I’ll put candles on every altar, I’ll give to every charity – oh, there’s a lot I can do for you, God!” Or rather do we do as Mary did: let God know (as if he didn’t already know) what it is that is troubling us, and then tell him that we will do whatever he tells us to do?

In short, do we pray as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Oh God, if it is possible, let these things trouble me no more. But not as I wish, rather as you wish.” Or better still, do we use the words that Jesus himself taught us to use: “Oh God, give me the vision to know your will. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven . . . for thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory.”

We cannot do better than to follow Mary’s advice: “Do whatever he tells you.” If Jesus could change water into wine, and fine wine at that, how much more will he do for us if only we would “do whatever he tells us?”

In the words of the psalmist: “One thing have I desired of the Lord, which I will require: Even that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the fair beauty of the Lord; and to visit his Temple.” And in return, I’ll put candles on every altar – genuine beeswax candles. And you can be sure that no one serving at that altar will be wearing anything on his feet other than black socks and black leather shoes.

Amen.

Alan Cresswell

Martha wrote: »

It wasn't me for the syro-phoenician woman, Alan; I think I missed that one.

Sorry, my brain seems to be mis-firing. That was @fineline (unless my brain's still in a different place!). I've edited the post to correct it (which means your post will be meaningless!)

fineline

Hi, yes, I did the one about the Syro-Phoenician woman, while Alan talked about the OT reading, and we were taking turns. (Sorry, not been on Ship of Fools much lately.)

Amanda B Reckondwyth

Here is the link to the Lambscapes video: https://youtu.be/DGYifA_M6B4

And my sermon:

"The heart moulds a person's expression whether for better or worse."

Scholars and theologians have debated down through the ages which sacred writings are canonical, i.e. inspired by God, and which are not. I once heard a Catholic priest say in a sermon that the Protestants pick and choose which books they want to include in the Bible. Well, didn't everybody? Father seemed to have forgotten that even St. Jerome doubted the canonicity of the Apocrypha.

What's a poor soul to think? If we believe that there is a God, and that he is good, how could he have created a creature as fierce as the tiger, "burning bright in the forests of the night?" How could he have created animals that are the natural enemies of each other, let alone people who are likewise? Why do the rich hate the poor?

Wouldn't it be better if we “all just got along," as Rodney King once asked. Wouldn't it be better if we saw all of creation as a gift from God, to be given back to God, as Anna and Joachim gave the gift of a daughter back to God? And what a gift it was! Through their gift came the most precious gift of all from God to us: his only begotten Son.

If we believe in God, we believe that God has a purpose in creation. We don't need scholars and theologians to tell us which writings to believe and which to regard with suspicion. Our hearts will set us straight with God, with our fellow man, and with all of creation. And we can have a little fun with it at the same time. If anyone knows how to have fun with God, it’s us here on the Ship of Fools. Eric Barnes knew how to have fun with Handel and Schubert and Verdi, just like Mary’s little lamb had fun following her around.

Let our belief in God and his creation, and our love for him and our fellow creatures, mould our expression for better. We could certainly do worse!

Amen.

Martha

Link to Day of Trouble https://youtube.com/watch?v=n-Ye8WwxzGI

And the talk from 31 July service:

My children are taking music lessons.

Oh sorry – this talk was supposed to be about heaven, wasn’t it? And if you’ve ever shared a house with a beginner musician, you’ve probably just been plunged straight into the other place. Especially if they were learning the violin. Fortunately mine are learning keyboard and guitar, which aren’t quite as painful to the ears.

It certainly makes you feel for poor Heman in that passage from 1 Chronicles, doesn’t it? 14 sons and 3 daughters, all practising away on their cymbals, harps and lyres. It must have been deafening!

But it’s not the thought of practising endless scales and arpeggios that motivates someone to pick up an instrument. It’s the thought of being really good – able to sit down at the piano and play a flowing piece of Chopin, or step onto a stage and slam out an amazing guitar riff. It’s that idea of being able to create effortless, beautiful music.

Of course, being able to do anything effortlessly requires a lot of hard work.

It’s interesting then, that Paul compares spiritual growth to playing a musical instrument. Sometimes I think that we have the idea that we shouldn’t be able to get better at being a Christian. Either we should be instantly brilliant at everything (because God has given us all the gifts we need) or we can never be any good at anything (because our efforts count for nothing, it’s only God’s grace that saves us).

I find both of those options quite depressing, because most of the fun in life comes from learning something and getting better at it. So I’m glad that Paul talks about striving to excel in building up the church. I’m glad that Jesus describes being trained for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ picture of a householder picking just the right items out of his treasury reminded me a lot of a musician’s repertoire. We gain knowledge and experience to be able to pick just the right tune – or word, or Bible verse – for the occasion. And like the men sorting the fish, we get better at recognising the good stuff and chucking out the bad.

So it’s encouraging to know that if I don’t pray very well, I can learn to do it better – it’s not just that I haven’t got enough of God’s grace. Or if I’ve spent my life trying to listen to God and convey his words to others, that I might have some hope of actually being good at it. And if I practice really hard, I might even learn how to prophesy to God with cymbals, however you do that!

The other encouraging thing is that in music, as in the Christian life, we don’t have to be at the top-notch level to be involved. A few years ago I joined a community gospel choir in Bristol. It’s still running; they produced the music video that we heard earlier. The leader, Geraldine, was a wonderful inspiring musician. She’d get us to breathe deep, relax our stressed shoulders, open our mouths, and somehow our mediocre voices would combine to produce something amazing. So it is with the church. Most of us won’t be great evangelists or prophets, but we can still take part in the great orchestra that we call the Body of Christ, whether we’re first violin or just tinkling a triangle at the back. And together, we produce something which is much more than our individual talents.

So as I listen to my son trundling through “When the Saints” for the hundredth time, I’ll be holding out hope that he will enjoy learning and getting better at the keyboard. I’m hoping that he gets to experience the excitement that comes from making music with others.

And I hope that we will find the enjoyment that comes from learning and growing in our faith, too – striving for excellence at every level, even if that final effortless beautiful music is only possible in heaven.

Rossweisse

Excellent, @Martha! It was good to be able to read and savor it.