Listen to this sermon about the life and faith of Bach.
New Testament Reading–Matthew 5:14-16
I want to begin my sermon this morning with a visualization. You can close your eyes if you want. Imagine that it is the middle of the night, and you are sitting up in your bed. All through the night until this point you have been tossing and turning. You have been wrestling with some of your worst demons. Perhaps, it is the demon of grief and heartache. Perhaps, it is the demon of workplace stress. Whatever it is, you have been wrestling with it when all of the sudden an idea comes to you. You sit bolt upright. You get out of bed and go down stairs to where there is a large locked cabinet. You don’t have the key to this cabinet, but you are determined to get what is inside. You will not be denied getting what a voice from the innermost reaches of your soul says you need. You manage to find enough space in the lattice work of the cabinet to squeeze in part of your hand and grab with the tips of your fingers an object that will enable you to put your demons to rest for at least a little while.
Now, what is that object? The object in question might be different for each one of us. For some, the object might be a CD. For others, it might be a cassette tape or something called a record. For still others, it might be an iPod. We are talking about generational differences here. Moreover, for still others who are musically gifted, the object in question might be sheet music or maybe even a hymnal. Despite all the different objects that each of us might grab with our finger tips, the one uniting feature is that the object contains music that the innermost parts of your soul know you need right now in order to feel soothed, consoled, comforted, and uplifted. Take a moment to think of a song that does that for you. You might even imagine that you can hear its melody right now…You might almost want to hum it out loud, but let’s try not to…
You can open your eyes now. That exercise was in a sense more than a visualization. As they say in the movie theaters, it was inspired by real life events. It was a reenactment of a moment in the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. At the age of ten, both of Bach’s parents died within eight months of each other. He then went to live with his brother who was fourteen years older than him. His brother was an organist, and Bach had already developed a passion for playing the organ. We might imagine that it was music that helped him deal with his grief. His older brother instructed him in playing, but there were certain pieces that his brother wouldn’t let him try because he believed they were too difficult. Because sheet music was an expensive item to have, Bach’s brother kept it out of the reach of children and locked it in a cabinet. Bach was not to be stopped, however, so in the middle of the night, he would sneak downstairs and manage to use his little hands and arms to take the music out of the cabinet and then copy its notes by hand in the moonlight.
The difference between Bach’s late night mission and the one we did in the opening visualization is that Bach’s fingers wrapped themselves around music that did more than sooth, console, and comfort. His fingers wrapped themselves around music that fed his soul in yet another way. The common adage given to those deciding on a career or a calling is to do what makes your heart sing. At the age of ten, Bach was doing that in an almost literal way. In order to let his heart sing more fully, he needed more advanced music.
One can imagine how at an early age, music was becoming for Bach what could be described as a spiritual experience. He would later put this into words as an adult. Bach owned a copy of Martin Luther’s three volume translation of the Bible, and next to certain verses he wrote notes later discovered by scholars. In 2 Chronicles, there is a passage in which it talks about how when musicians praised God with music, the house of God became filled God’s glory. 2 Chronicles poetically describes the glory of God as being a cloud so thick with God’s presence that the “priests could not stand [up] to minister.” Next to this passage, Bach wrote, “At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence.”
Not everyone felt the same way about music during Bach’s time. The winds of the reformation movement were still fresh and some of their prominent leaders objected to certain forms of music. Calvin had prohibited instrumental music in worship, while Zwingli banned all music from worship. Zwingli was even a talented musician in his private life, but he feared that music in worship would distract attention from God. Because Catholicism was regarded as directing attention away from God toward that which was human, there was a preoccupation with keeping worship pure and holy. For this reason, Bach had to contend with criticisms that his music was too embellished and not simple enough. It was believed that simple music kept the attention on God. It kept human pride from getting in the way.
While we might laugh at the idea of not having music in worship due to fear of human pride, let’s remember that pride has long been considered the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. Dante defined pride as “love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one’s neighbor.” In the Divine Comedy, those guilty of pride must wear slabs of stone around their necks so that they are forced into the humble position of having their heads bowed. Yikes, maybe our fall stewardship theme shouldn’t be family pride. We could literally be sending our church to hell.
But this is where I think our scripture helps us. To fully understand this, we have to closely consider how our scripture uses of the image of light because it puts an interesting twist on this image. We often think of Jesus as being the light of the world, but in this passage Jesus is saying that we ourselves are the light of the world. Moreover, we are not supposed to be modest or self-effacing about our light. We are not supposed to hide it under a bushel basket. Rather, we are supposed to put it on a lamp stand. We are supposed to let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works. It sounds like Jesus is telling us that we should have thousand-watt egos. But there is a catch. Just after Jesus tells us to let our lights shine full blast, he then explains why: It is so that we can give glory to God. The word “glory” has fallen out of use in some circles. Some of us might associate it with Holy Joe piety, but the word “glory” in this context essentially conveys the act of giving credit with deep gratitude and deep humility. Giving glory to God says that one is giving credit where credit is due. One is giving credit to a divine love and a divine presence that makes the goodness of life possible. One is giving credit to a divine love and presence that allows one to survive and thrive.
For the artist and musician, this means giving credit to a presence that feeds and nourishes one’s passion, creativity, and joy. The famous dancer and choreographer Martha Graham helped me to understand how this idea applies to everyone and not just the artistically inclined. On a radio program in the 1950s, she talked about how all of life is like a performance. That’s why we so often hear the phrase “the dance of life.” Every day each of us is practicing for this larger dance. Every day each of us is putting our bodies to work. At times, we may feel fatigue as our bodies cry out in exhaustion. At times, we may feel frustrated as we struggle to persevere. Nevertheless, we continue to dance the dance of life relying upon the tenacity of our faith. In our own ways and with our different abilities, there is a sense in which we are all striving to be what Graham called athletes of God. We are putting our lives and our bodies in service to God. We are striving to do God’s will whether it is as parents or grandparents, nurses or teachers, friends or spouses, volunteers for the homeless or advocates for justice. In our own ways, we are all striving to give glory to God.
In this context, I believe pride takes on a different form than the one Dante had in mind. In this context, one isn’t saying, “Hey, look at me.” One is saying, “Wow, look at what the Holy Spirit is doing here.” At that point, one’s pride isn’t about narcissism. It’s about being a part of something special, something that brings a healthy sense of satisfaction and fulfillment. Just as one can take pride in one’s work without claiming to be better than anyone else, one can take pride in being a member of this church because one finds satisfaction and fulfillment in what happens here. You might have experienced it yesterday spreading bark chips on a trail at Columbia Springs. You might have experienced it bringing a casserole to someone in need of support. You might have experienced in being an usher or a greeter this morning. I believe one can take pride in what might seem like a humble offering. It can feel good to contribute to the larger body of Christ, even if one feels like one is just a hand or a foot doing a small job.
Bach provides a fitting example of how humility and pride can coexist side by side. When Bach would compose his music, he would scribble two notes on each composition. At the beginning, he would write the letters “J.J.” which stood for Jesu, Juva, Latin for “Jesus, help.” At the end of the composition, he would then write the letters “S.D.G.” which stood for Soli Deo Gloria, “glory to God alone.” If we think of each day of our lives as a composition, a composition in which we play the notes that make our hearts sing, then may we let each day be a day that merits the inscription S.D.G., glory to God alone. Amen.