“Going Deeper: Doing God’s Mission Inspired by God’s Music”
By Rev. Dr. Carla A. Romarate-Knipel
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” – John 1:1, 14, NRSVUE
“Our mission as a church is to help people learn to be human again, to learn to be a community capable of going deep…The internet keeps us ever engaged and enraged. It keeps us from noticing the world around us and within us… The task of the church is to become a community that has been so formed by God that we can think deeply, read deeply, create deeply, and love deeply.” – Tish Harrison Warren, What Grows in Weary Lands, On Christian Resilience
As I write this message I am listening to “A Town with an Ocean View,” performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Joe Hisaishi, renowned Japanese composer and conductor. I have discovered his music and interpretations of classics and familiar songs in Spotify. Yes, I finally succumbed to Spotify’s seemingly endless offerings of music, podcasts and audio visual programs after years of resisting it. My café’s baristas were amused when I told them about my newfound “toy.”
I sat sipping my latte while handwriting my message (to be typed on my laptop later) for the October Spire, and continued to listen to Hisaishi’s music with great interest. Earlier I had been listening to his version of “The End of the World,” in which Ella Taylor, a soprano, sang it like an aria, with a back-up choir. The sound of crashing cymbals at the very end of the song made me feel like I was standing at the edge of a cliff (somewhere in Scotland or England), with gigantic waves below. The crescendo and the decrescendo of the music left me feeling desolate and exuberant at the same time. I was contemplating if my emotions were not just heightened by the music but by something simmering inside me for a while: the impact of a full-blown, “coming out of the closet” emergence of artificial intelligence, that even the creators are calling for a slowing down of their use. The world as we knew it before A.I. has come to an end. What is our response to this huge shift in our world, as Jesus’ disciples and as a church?
Tish Harrison Warren offers a response and an invitation for us to consider:
be more human and go deeper.
Somehow listening to “End of the World” from Joe Hisaishi’s point of view has strangely helped me to understand what becoming more human and going deeper mean. Perhaps it’s because Mr. Hisaishi is human, very human. And the other-worldly, transcendent quality of his musical vision was grounded in the tangible realities that we face, wrestle with and go through each day and not some impersonal A.I. music that has proliferated online.
I compare Hisaishi’s music to the liminal, transitional period we find ourselves in the here and the not-yet. When one season is about to end and another is about to begin. A very human experience of beginnings and endings.
In my own backyard, I can see it happen. The leaves are still green on my maple tree but soon I expect that they will slowly turn yellow and eventually GOLD! My very own burning bush at the back of the parsonage. It makes me wonder what God may be saying to me if I linger and listen long enough when this golden hour arrives. And with this glorious, majestic display of God’s creative work, the last dying breath of summer will give in to autumn’s crisp, chilly air.
Every year we go through the four seasons: winter, spring, summer and fall/autumn. Just like a song each has a beginning and an ending. To a certain extent, our lives and our church also goes through seasons. Each season, God has been present to us, with the music of God’s love playing. In John’s Gospel, you can hear this divine music start to play in verse one: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The music builds up all the way to verse 14 when John declares, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us…”
Unlike like music and the seasons, however, God’s love defies beginnings and endings. It endures over the passage of time and continues on in every season. In the sea of despair it buoys us up when we feel like drowning, confronted by our mortality and “the end of the world” scenarios conjured by both human and artificial intelligence. God’s love is the music that compels us to go deeper. By deeper I mean not remaining on the surface of “what is,” but “what can be,” of taking on what is familiar and letting God’s Spirit breathe new life into it. Be it worship, prayer, Bible study, or serving family members, or as a volunteer in church or in our community. Because ultimately all that we do is a response to God’s love, to God’s music.
God’s love is like music that has the power and beauty to shift our attention from the noise of the world. If we make time to listen we will find not just solace and comfort, but also strength and courage to carry on and do what God has called us to do. Not because we think we have figured it all out – but because we are God’s Beloved. And even if we feel like we are at “the end of the world,” we stay grounded in this love, this music.
My hope and prayer is that we will take the steps to keep our ears open to God’s loving music – to be energized by it through going deeper into God’s word in the Bible; God’s word made alive in Jesus through the Holy Spirit; God’s word that comes to us in our quiet moments of prayer as well as caring for one another in the fellowship of shared suffering and joys; and the breaking of bread as God’s family. In doing so I trust that by God’s grace we become the best humans that God intended us to be who are capable of going deeper in this life and in the life to come.
A Blessed Autumn to All!
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Carla
