Choir as Metaphor

I am writing this meditation at Music Week at Lutheridge. I'm in the back, writing on my computer, surrounded by the beautiful music of a choir rehearsing, and I've been thinking about that phrase that tells us we all have a space in God's choir. But which choir? And what do these choir experiences at camp have to do with life in church community?

At Music Week, we learn that there are many choirs. Yesterday I listened to the flute choir rehearse, and I thought about how many people experience church as flute choir: you have to have the right instrument, and you need to be able to read music. Many people feel as out of place at church as I would if I joined the flute choir, since I don't play flute. I would not even try to join the flute choir because I would assume I would not be welcome.

Well, then, what about a choir like handbells? Anyone can chime a bell, right? But I still need to have a sense of the music--I still need to count beats. And if I'm playing handbells, not handchimes, I need white gloves. It can be intimidating enough that many people wouldn't attempt handbells either. I was enchanted by handchimes for small children; they were made of plastic and metal and lightweight enough that I could ring them with my wounded wrist. But not all of us will have the good fortune of experiencing these instruments as children. How do we claim our place in the choir?

I'm intrigued by the Orcha-Band Choir--just bring the instrument you want to play. This year it's heavily brass and woodwinds: 3 flutes, 2 saxaphones, a french horn, a trumpet, and a violin, with a piccolo coming later in the week. In the past, it's been more strings. What will it be in future years? How do we plan for such a choir? How will it all come together? I don't know--and God's community (communities?) often feel the same way. Some people thrive in such a choir, while the possibility of uncontained chaos can drive others crazy.

What about a voice choir? We can all sing, right? And even if we can't, if we sit with others who are singing, our voices will sound better. And when the harmony works, it shows the beautiful physics of harmony in the most potent way, like the promise of the beloved community made incarnate, right here, right now. But some of us are so convinced that we can't sing that we won't even try.

I am partial to the drum choir. The leader keeps a persistent rhythm, and the rest of us can go with the rhythms that work, even if we've had no practice and no sense of music theory. We can make a percussion instrument out of the lowliest materials or the most elevated. People of all ages can play. People who have one hand out of commission can play. I find the drumming group most welcoming and inclusive, but I realize that the very openness I love would make it untenable for some musicians.

And all of it gets a bit too loud at times, if I'm truthful. Some hours at camp, the choir I crave is the one that holds silence. I'm lucky here--I can go for a walk. And if I'm perceptive, I hear other choirs during my walk, the ones usually drowned out by human music, like the tree frog choirs that sing through the night. And there are firefly choirs that need no music at all.

Jesus came to give us the good news that we have all sorts of communities we can create. There are many choirs for us, many ways to know God. We have spent centuries thinking that Jesus came to give us just one way to get closer to God. We have wasted precious time fighting as we tried to figure out what choirs would gain God's approval.

Jesus tells us there are many ways to know and understand God's love. The trick, of course, is finding the way that works best for us. We don't have to journey alone. Music Week reminds us that it is good to make music under any circumstance, but making music together can bring us joys we might not achieve by ourselves. Jesus, too, reminds us again and again that a loving community is worth the effort.