From the Pastor's Pen, November, 2005:

March 2007 From the Pastor's Pen

“On Harmony and Lent… or Harmony IN Lent”

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to sing. I began to love it more at the point in my life when I realized that I could do it pretty well. Singing is a form of prayer for me. I recall an experience in 4th grade choir, when the director, Miss Kay, was trying to introduce the idea of singing in harmony. I announced to her that I would sing alto. I knew this already because my mother sang alto in the church choir, and I liked the whole idea of it. Somehow even that early in my life, the concept made sense to me that we don’t all have to sing the same notes to make beautiful music. That’s what harmony is. I have been told since, more than once, “you’re really a soprano;” but I love blending in with the lower notes of harmony. And I love it even more when there are basses and tenors to make the blending of voices even fuller and richer and deeper.

Garrison Keillor, the writer and radio personality behind “A Prairie Home Companion,” wrote a piece about Methodists. I understand that Peggy Carlson read it at the February gathering of our church’s 60 +/- group. Here’s part of what Keillor had to say about us:

Nobody sings like them. If you were to ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Methodist-less place, to sing along on the chorus of “Michael Row the Boat Ashore,” they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear. But if you do this among Methodists, they'd smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road!

Many Methodists are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony, a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage. It's natural for Methodists to sing in harmony. We are too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.

I do believe this: People, these Methodists, who love to sing in four-part harmony, are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you are dying, they will comfort you. If you are lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you are hungry, they'll give you tuna salad!

Notice what Keillor says, not only about singing, but about Christian nurture. Children learn by being part of the church community, by seeing and hearing the example of faith, singing, prayer, worship and Christian education from the adults who love them.

I also love the sentence that Keillor uses about harmony: “By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.” When we hear and sing and use our different voices, our different talents, to God’s glory, not our own, we are making a promise. Even when we are not singing the same notes, we are together, supporting each other, encouraging each other, making what we offer to God a richer, fuller, gift.

At the Lansing Area UMC Ash Wednesday service which First Church hosted, the harmony was a thing of wonder. Anne Knox led a choir of over sixty voices, with each part, soprano, alto, tenor and bass, well represented. As we sang the congregational hymns, the combination of voices in the choir and a full (!) sanctuary made the rafters ring and our spirits soar. But it wasn’t just the music that touched my spirit in that service.

Each year we enter the season of Lent, a time of preparation for the celebration of Easter. In the life of the early church, Lent became a time for confession, for self-discipline, for drawing near to God. The forty days (not counting Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday echo the forty days Jesus spent fasting, praying, and being tempted in the wilderness in preparation for his ministry. The season of Lent invites us to spend time considering what draws us nearer to God, reflecting on what might be keeping us apart from God.

In the “Invitation to Observance of Lenten Discipline,” a traditional part of the Ash Wednesday worship service, we are reminded that there are many paths to choose from in Lent. The invitation includes these words:

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to observe a holy Lent:
by self–examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self–denial;
and by reading and meditating on God's Holy Word.

It’s not just about “giving up” some habit or vice (though stopping to think why you want that chocolate bar or Coca-Cola, and what might be better in your life if you didn’t have it, and how God might see you through even this small sacrifice, can be a powerful experience of growth!). Lenten discipline can also be adding some practice—intentional devotional time, fifteen minutes of silence each day, or participating in a Bible study or prayer group. Lenten discipline can be almsgiving (charitable giving for a good cause), or choosing to work on a service project like a soup kitchen or food pantry.

Lenten discipline is not meant to be a heavy load, a burden. It’s meant to be an act of clearing away what it is in our lives that stands in the way of our relationship with God. The discipline we undergo helps us understand what’s important, and perhaps why we ourselves are blocking that relationship.

It’s kind of like harmony. On this journey toward God, revealed to us in the life of Jesus, we don’t all get there the same way. We sing on different notes. But the blend of voices, the blend of experiences, the variety of expressions of faith, creates an even more beautiful reality. Sometimes we think our notes are going to clash when they’re not the same; when we choose different paths, or when the things that we care most deeply about in faith seem to be in conflict with others’ understandings and passions. I believe we find those “intervals” (a musical term for the distance between different notes) that blend. Listen for the harmony. Sing your part boldly and faithfully. Listen for the way the notes blend. And give it to God.

On the Journey with you,

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