Charles Kutz-Marks

All Children of Jubal

Garland Organ Dedication Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006

1 Samuel 10:1-9, Colossians 3:12-16

            You know by now that there is a special place in my heart for what we Christians too often call the Old Testament, better called the Hebrew Bible.  The Hebrew Bible has a wonderful way of trying to explain to us why certain things are the way that they are, by giving us the story of their beginning… In the creation stories, for example, we learn that Adam is so named, because he was made of the earth, in Hebrew, Adam.  Likewise, a few verses later, we learn that the reason why working for a living seems sometimes so hard for us, is that our ancestors refused to follow God’s simple rule not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil (a practice that all humans recapitulate – but that’s a different sermon).  Work is a chore because it is a punishment for disobedience.

          Likewise, the Hebrew Bible tries to teach why it is that it seems some people are more gifted in certain areas than others, something we do wonder about.  How many times have you asked yourself how in the world Pavarotti can sing with that incredible voice, or how Yo Yo Mah can make a cello sing in angels’ voices? And, why can’t I?

          The answer according to Gen. 4:21 is simple.  Genetics.  There we learn that Adam and Eve’s great, great, great, great, great grandson was named Jubal, and while Jubal’s father was ancestor of all nomad herders, while Jubal’s step brother was the ancestor of all who work with bronze and iron, Jubal’s claim to fame was that “he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe.”  The lyre was stringed instrument that was plucked and strummed like a banjo or guitar, and the pipe, of course a kind of flute.  Jubal was the musician in the family and the Bible tells us that it is the descendants of Jubal that are able to carry that gift into every generation.

          Well, while almost all of us can appreciate music, it is kind of comforting to think that my inability to play a musical instrument is some one else’s fault. I had always  thought that it was my unwillingness to spend those hours practicing at the piano.  But, no, it falls on  Mom and Dad!  I guess we aren’t in the ancestral line of Jubal.

          It is doubtless true that there are some who are incredibly gifted from birth musically.  If you know the story Amadeus Mozart’s life, though he was nurtured early in music, there was something more, some divine gift, that allowed the Spirit of Music to pour through him with great power from a very, very early age.  There is some aspect of musicianship that is pure gift.

          Music itself is a gift in so many ways. Sometimes it is a vehicle to carry us to a new way of being.  Did you notice the way in which music figured in to the story from 1 Samuel that Roslyn read for us?  A band of ecstatic prophets are coming down from worshipping God.  They’re playing there harp, tambourine, their lyre and it is their musical rapture which allows the mighty Spirit of God to fall upon Saul, who has just been anointed to become the first King of Israel.  Samuel tells Saul, “you shall prophesy with them and be turned into another man.”  Verse 9 says that “God gave him <Saul> another heart.”

          Do you know that Spirit?  Sometimes when Josh leads singing hymns like, “Take My Life and Let it Be,” or “God of Grace, and God of Glory,” can’t you just feel yourself what was coursing through Saul as the music empowers you and encourages to step forth, and to step forth boldly into those new duties, that new calling, that God has just made clear to you?

          Or a little later in this same story, the centrality of music, the power of music is shown us in another way.  By Chapter 16, King Saul has taken a turn for the worse.  Verse 14 says, “Now the spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him.”  We don’t talk so much about evil spirits.  But we can search through the symptoms that Saul was experiencing and see signs of what we today would call depression, of anxiety, and fits of uncontrolled rage.  What was the medicine of the day for such troubles?

          Saul brought a young fellow, a shepherd, named David who provided Saul a break from his torment. Vs. 23 says, “whenever the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand, and Saul would be relieved and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him.”

          The modern field of Music Therapy is based on the premise that sound, in the form of music, has the power to heal the whole person, involving body, mind, spirit, and emotion. Although the music therapist is a modern phenomenon, music as a curative agent for the affliction of soul and spirit most certainly is not. Throughout antiquity physicians, philosophers, priests, musicians, and Israelite Kings  have observed and used music as a healing agent.

          But we know that beyond that sort of healing, there is another kind of healing altogether that it seems Music is uniquely suited to provide.  Short of our deeper times of  prayer and short of those absorbing times of contemplation, it seems nothing in our Christian worship or our Christian practice seems to bring what I’ll call the “unitive power,” the uniting power of music. 

          When the power is ON, some very strange things happen….

1. The choir sings the music, but the music sings the choir, too. 
2. Josh masterfully plays the new Garland, but in a very tangible way, Josh’s years of practice and hours of practice every week essentially act to remove all performance and egoistic ambition, so that something magnificent, something grand just flows through him, drawing our spirits together, and spirits up.
3. And somewhere in the mix,

when the conditions are right, sometimes a mysterious,

but wonderful melting of separateness occurs. 

>Individual notes on a page,  become a score that soars. 

>Individual hand bell ringers become an unselfconscious unit that recreates the composer’s dream. 

>Individual singers mount voice on voice with the sum far exceeding its parts… the message of beauty conveys both oneness and praises it Source, to the glory of God.

          The familiar separateness that characterizes our everyday living- me inside my skin and inside my head, you inside yours -  melts back into something that is more basic, more real, and more true.

          Christ calls us out of this separateness— that is the wisdom in the passage from Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.”

          Christ calls us out of separateness – this is the experience that he yearns for us when at the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

          Christ calls us out of separateness- —into a reality where we are One…. One with each other…no longer separate but  REUNITED….  And aware of being REUNITED by the Power of the Holy Spirit…. With each other,

with the Universe,

the Loving God at the center of it… all together in rapturous moments of bliss…

          the joy, the completion, the peace the passes all understanding.

          Music brings us to the doorstep of this joy.

          And once we have been then there,

We know absolutely, unquestionably:

That broken hearts, And broken spirits,

Broken lives, And Broken communities, CAN BE HEALED.

          Because we experience the healing while we are there.

          Once we have been to the place of REUNION,  we know, that even a Broken World can be MADE WHOLE AGAIN…

                   And in the Unitive Moments that at times you musicians bring us, in voice, hand bell, and this new Garland organ, we can Experience that Unity.

          For you, who are especially blessed children of Jubal,

and for the commitments of time that you make to lead us,

and the sacrifices of self that you offer to inspire us….

To provide for  us this deep healing and reunion…. we give you thanks… and we give God praise.  Alleluia!!