Freedom and Hope in the Spirit by The Rev. Donald L. Hamer
Posted on
Proper 11 – July 17, 2016
Greater Hartford Jazz Festival
Jazz Mass – Christ Church Cathedral
“Freedom and Hope in the Spirit”
Luke 10:38-42
Let us pray: Open our hearts and our minds, O Lord, so that we can understand the fullness of your Word. Fill us with the light of the Holy Spirit, and bless your servant chosen to share the Word proclaimed today. In the name of Jesus the Christ, your Living Word. AMEN.
What a joy and a privilege it is to be with you all today here at Christ Church Cathedral. We have the Greater Hartford Jazz Festival going on. We have the Hot Cat Jazz Band. It is a beautiful summer day in Hartford. And – in a first as far as I know – we have four Episcopal congregations, who normally worship in four separate buildings at this hour on Sunday mornings, coming together as one to praise God.
And even as we express our joy and celebrate the blessings of having the freedom and opportunity to worship together, we have occasion – yet again – to mourn an unthinkable loss of life in a previously unthinkable manner at the hands of a human being whom God created and human society has formed. This week we mourn the barbaric use of a commercial truck to kill over 80 innocent people and seriously injure scores of others who were celebrating French Independence Day. In recent weeks we have mourned the killing of two Black civilians at the hands of police officers, and the killing of five police officers while they were protecting the rights of citizens protesting those deaths. Before that, we mourned the killing of 49 people at an Orlando nightclub that served the LGBTQ c. It becomes almost mind-numbing, and the danger is that is can become soul-numbing. WHEN – we secretly wonder – will life go back to normal? We dare not consider the possibility that this may be the new normal.
So it is perhaps providential that this morning we celebrate Jazz Mass as part of a weekend celebrating the musical form of jazz. “Jazz evolved out of the blues,” writes Dean Nelson in a recent article in the Christian Century entitled, “Riffing on a Prayer.” The blues, in turn, “evolved out of spirituals, which evolved out of music sung in the fields by enslaved Africans, which evolved out of the cargo holds of slave ships. “Calls from family members separated from one another were early forms of what we know in the church as “call and response.”
Jazz was born of a people who had endured unfathomable loss – loss of homeland, loss of identity, loss of culture, loss of family, loss of control, loss of freedom – loss of virtually everything they had save for their dignity as children of God and, despite all evidence to the contrary, their unquenchable faith in that same God made known to them in the person of Jesus Christ and brought alive to them by the Holy Spirit. When colonial society had taken away everything else they had, the only freedom available to them was in their God and in their music. When we, in our privileged and relatively secure state, fear the loss of control and security in uncertain times, Jazz has a lot to teach us about ourselves and holding up the light of the Kingdom of God in a time of looming darkness.
You see, jazz music is in many ways so complicated, and yet there are no instruction books that can ever teach it. It is partly planned and partly spontaneous. Even as the musicians perform a pre-determined tune, they have the opportunity to create their own interpretations within that tune in response to the other musicians' performances and whatever else may occur "in the moment" -- this is called improvisation and is the defining element of jazz. In the church, we call it “The Holy Spirit.”
Jazz and R&B saxophonist and pianist Archie Thompson says that when combined with worship “jazz music is not just about the musicians and the congregation. When you’re improvising,” he says, “you’re not supposed to be thinking about it. You’re free in the moment. That’s the Holy Spirit. When you’re free, something’s guiding you.”
But we in North America aren’t too sure about this spirit thing. We love the idea of the Holy Spirit – we’re just not so sure we want to be guided by it unless we know the end game. We’re generally not comfortable – as a jazz artist must be – in reading the cues as we go along step by step. If we’re honest with ourselves, we will admit that we want to know in advance what’s going to happen – we find security in the repetition. Trusting in God and risking being surprised by the Spirit is not really in our repertoire. But that’s the way God works – that’s the way faith works. As we stand in awe of how the Spirit moves among our musicians this morning, the Spirit is inviting us to get over ourselves and our need to control and to manage and to see what good things can happen when we trust God to lead and we follow.
Which brings us to our Gospel passage this morning. We know the story so well that when I say the names “Mary” and “Martha” you probably have a mental image of the two sisters. The only other place they appear in the Christian Scriptures is in the Gospel of John, 11:1 – 12:8 with the raising of Lazarus. We really don’t know much else about Martha and Mary. Still, the name of Martha has become synonymous with the practical, efficient but overly-busy and dour housekeeper, and Mary synonymous with the dreamy, stars-in-her-eyes girl who is seems oblivious to her sister’s practical concerns.
Both women are devoted to Jesus. Martha shows her devotion through her hospitality and her calling Jesus “Lord.” Mary shows her devotion through her interest in Jesus’ teaching. Jesus’ remark seems to be less a rebuke of Martha than it is an affirmation of Mary’s desire to learn– her hunger to be a disciple. It is Martha’s frustration with Mary and her distraction with her own busy-ness that Jesus is addressing in his remark. Jesus is reminding her that when hospitality is anxious and troubled, its focus moves almost imperceptibly from the guest to the actual logistics of the hospitality itself. Jesus is reminding Martha that the hospitality is not only in the food and the dinner, but in the relationship with the Guest.
There is a lesson for us here that is certainly applicable to our lives in the church and just as applicable in other aspects of our lives. To be genuine, any act of discipleship – contemplative, active or otherwise – must be focused on Jesus. This was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s concept of church, with Christ at the center. Everything else is just a means to that end. In her single-minded focus on the tasks at hand, Martha has lost sight of the very thing that Jesus has to offer.
We need to recognize the importance of both the activist/doer Martha and the contemplative/thinker Mary to a healthy and lively faith. Likewise, it is important to be attentive to when one of those characteristics – either our Martha or our Mary side – is out of balance or alignment with the other. Both are important, and each suffers when the other is not in mutual conversation and harmony.
And this is where Jazz can be our inspiration. In his book, Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith, pastor and jazz theologian Robert Gelinas writes, “Call and response makes listening to jazz music an adventure as you begin to hear the instruments as voices calling to each other and engaging in conversation.”
It has been observed that there is no better example of democracy than a jazz ensemble: individual freedom but with responsibility to the group. The individual musicians have the freedom to express themselves on their instrument as long as they maintain their responsibility to the other musicians by adhering to the overall framework and structure of the tune.
This can also be a good model for the church and a good model for our lives as we find ourselves in a rapidly changing world. We can become such creatures of habit and become so comfortable in that which is certain, that which is routine, that which is expected that we can become like Martha – distracted by the routine itself and losing sight of when that routine doesn’t fit the present time or circumstances.
Jesus has given us the tune and he has set the tempo. He invites us to follow his lead by listening for the Holy Spirit in prayer, and by sharing freely what we discern with others. May the resulting harmonies be music to God’s ears, and signal to a troubled world that the Kingdom has drawn near.
Let us pray: Grant us this day, O God, not be overtaken by anxious thoughts that can make us feel that you are not near. Give us the chance to sit at your feet, to enjoy every word and every musical note that we may feel your real presence and in turn live out that presence within our families, our communities, our jobs, our schools and in your church. Prepare us as we journey as your people, in the perfect freedom, hope and assurance that you alone can provide. AMEN.