Isaiah 43:18-25
II Corinthians 1:15-22
Five years ago there was an article in The Atlantic about the increasing use of jazz in Christian worship services. The author mentioned large congregations in New York and Chicago among others whose worship has been jazz-inflected since the turn of this century.
And while it might not be quite as frequent, we’ve been using jazz even longer here. Our jazz All Saints Sunday was well in place when I arrived here eleven years ago. And this is the second time that we’ve marked the Jazz Festival weekend by bringing in Dick Watson and his quartet.
On the surface it’s simply a good, upbeat way to follow the advice of the Psalmist and make a joyful noise unto our God.
When we go a little below the surface this music helps us recognize the jazz-like nature of our faith: We start with the basic theme—God’s love for us and for all creation shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—and then we go off on various riffs and improvisations on that theme. We expand and expound on God’s love, we explore our understanding of Jesus, we discover new variations in our own lives—and then we come back to that original theme. Each generation, each life adds its own beautiful interpretation.
And as we listen to the scripture along with the music this morning we begin to perceive the even deeper significance of jazz for the church and for our nation.
The prophet Isaiah imagines God speaking to the people: “I am about to do a new thing.”
What will this be like?
The unexpected will burst forth.
There will be a path in the wilderness.
There will be rivers in the desert.
There will be new possibilities for living that spring out of the wonder of forgiveness.
Through jazz we encounter something new in each performance.
A musician takes a theme and explores it in a different way each time.
As we listen, there are times when we are delightfully surprised.
There are times when we hear an old song in an entirely new way.
And, yes, there can be times when we are troubled because that the new thing seemed, well, too new, too strange, too unfamiliar. But even then, we are stretched and remember that the new is, by definition, unfamiliar; that like water in the desert, the new is unexpected, unexperienced, unknown until it is brought forth—and even as it is brought forth. The path that a saxophonist takes through the wilderness bring us into uncharted territory—just as God keeps pushing us, pulling us, and leading us in new directions.
At this time in churches in general—and in our congregation in particular—this jazz understanding is critical to our future. We are comfortable—and that’s OK. We are thriving in many ways—and that is good. But we can’t go on simply playing the same old tunes, merely repeating the same old refrains.
So it is that our church boards and our church council have been thinking together in recent months about the next five years or so: where are we going from here? What new thing is God about to do with us and among us and through us? What strange and unexpected callings might we hear if we listen with new ears?
They’re doing some good work with all of this—but I want to suggest a few ways to enhance the new music that they are playing.
First—to our church board members and to our council: play louder. More people need to hear you. My guess is that most of our congregation doesn’t even know that you’ve started playing this new song. Bang on the drums. Pound on the piano. Wail on the sax. No one can listen to the sound of silence. All the new music is meant to be shared. All the new vision is worthless if we don’t show it to others.
Second—this is a good time to increase the size of the ensemble, to go from a combo to a big band. This is to say, to get farther along the new path, to have a clear vision, it is vital that we hear not only voices of the boards and council but also the rest of the voices in the congregation, to listen to their music as well, to hear the music that stirs in each one of us.
And one final thing for all of us—respond with a “Yes.” This is an idea that comes from improvisational comedy, but it is important for improvisational jazz as well. “Yes, and…” thinking suggests that we hear and receive and accept what another person has stated and then expand on it. Yes…And…
You hear it happening in music. A musician takes a theme, expands on it, and passes it on to another musician. That second musician then takes the new theme and adds her own interpretation.
Yes…And…
We won’t always agree with each other—and that’s OK, too. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review reminds us that Miles Davis and John Coltrane revolutionized jazz, but they also had a volatile relationship that was marked by rivalry, tension, and mutual respect.
So as we look toward our future, as we open ourselves to the new, let’s have the openness that doesn’t say “No…But…”
Rather let us say: “Yes…And…”
It is, I think a jazz church way.
It is, indeed the way of Jesus Christ whom Paul proclaimed as the One in whom it is always “Yes.” For in the Christ we seek to follow every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.”
As is often the case, we try things out in small ways in this congregation so that we might live a new life more fully in the world. We love one another here so that we might love our neighbors as ourselves in the world. We welcome strangers here so that we might welcome strangers in the world. We are generous in our giving here so that we might live generously and abundantly in the world.
An improvisational, jazz church is just what our nation needs right now.
Jazz Church.
Jazz Nation.
The past week was the kind of week that we have unfortunately become used to—one filled with disruption and falsehood and incivility and increasing threats to basic human rights and human dignity. People stopping by the church wondered how I was going to choose from any of these issues as I developed a sermon.
In a sense I’m just going with all of the above.
These times that try our souls are also the times when we most need a jazz approach to our national life.
We need first to return to the original theme of our nation expressed in the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all 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 was, yes, a theme that not all could pick up and carry. To many, it was not self-evident that all were created equal or that they had an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—and so this new nation, our nation, emerged out of what has been called our “original sin”—the slave trade in which both the North and the South we complicit.
Nor was it self-evident that women, and poor people, and indentured servants were also endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, as they, too, were variously denied life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
At the time Abigail Adams warned: “Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.” Seventy-six years later Frederick Douglass famously asked: “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
Even with these fundamental sins of omission, we can hear a tune that inspired more and more people to join in and play it and to invite more and more people into the set. This is central vision for our nation—all are created equal. It gives us an identity as an American people to guide us in the way that we must, ultimately, go.
In time, slavery was abolished and women got to vote and civil rights were extended and new immigrants welcomed. Slowly we have realized and lived out the idea that the benefits of liberty must be extended to all if any are to be free.
We can celebrate the slow but certain spread of freedom in our nation and the people and the sacrifices that have made this possible.
In these days when national power is increasingly cut off from moral restraint, a common response is to shout “No!” to shout “Resist!” or to succumb to despair.
What might happen if we took an improvisational jazz approach and said “Yes…and…?”
Yes, you want to make America great and that greatness will only come as we respect each person and extend rights and opportunities to all.
Yes, you are concerned about immigrants and refugees coming to our country and as we welcome them we show the world a nation that is both strong and compassionate.
A jazz nation that finds ways to say “Yes…And…” is a nation that will not give in to despair, a nation that will lift every voice and include all in the great song of freedom.
One of the great champions of the rights of African-Americans—and indeed of all people—is Representative John Lewis, who bears on his body the wounds of the Civil Rights struggle.
This past week Lewis encouraged us and reminded us: “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”