Music Sunday                                     

Psalm 92:1-4

It is good to give thanks to God, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O God, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands, I sing for joy!

Psalm 81:1-10

Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.

Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp.

Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day.

For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.

God made it a decree in Joseph, when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known:

I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.

In distress you called, and I rescued you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you; O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god.

I am your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

May God bless us with understanding for these readings of our sacred text.

The Sound of Bagpipes

I never learned how to read music. I can’t play any instruments. I can’t even identify songs by their names. I can sing okay, if the song is within my vocal range, which is pretty narrow. Music is definitely not one of my gifts.

I like music. I appreciate music. I think music is an important part of the human experience, and I participate in my own way. But, music is definitely one of those areas where I am happy to let others take the lead. Of course, now that I’m thinking about all of this, it might be of some interest for you to know that I was in the youth choir at my church, when I was in elementary school. And, when I was in seminary, for a short time, I was for all intents and purposes the lead singer of the praise band; which is really weird to think about, and I have no idea how that happened.

If I had to guess, it was at least partly because I actually really like praise music. My taste for it is kind of stuck in the 90s, though, because that was when I was first exposed to it, and I haven’t really kept up with the world of praise music. Even though I was raised in the church, I was raised Presbyterian, so it was pretty much all hymns all the time, so I never heard praise music until the first time I went to church camp when I was a sophomore in high school.

Have you ever heard the term “The frozen chosen”? Presbyterians like to think that term refers to them, but I’ve recently discovered that there are several groups of people who, tongue in cheek, like to claim that title. The Presbyterians like it because they tend to sit very quietly and properly in their pews during worship; there was almost never any clapping in church when I was a kid. There’s a phrase for how Presbyterians like to do things, and it’s said quite often when describing various Presbyterian activities: “Decently and in order.” That might be the closest thing the Presbyterians have to a motto. So, there was no clapping in church, and there was certainly never any dancing, except when it came to our Scottish heritage. In case any of you didn’t know, John Knox, the founder of the Presbyterian church, was Scottish.

I’m probably one of only a handful of Filipino people who gets emotional over the sound of the bagpipes – the good kind of emotional. I grew up hearing bagpipe music and watching Scottish dancing in church, so it is very much a part of who I am, as strange as that may seem.

I remember, the day my brother died, I was at Lake Tahoe, and I was sitting by the water, trying to process what happened. I was sitting there, listening to the rhythmic sounds of the waves splashing against the rocks, and the wind rushing through the trees, when the trilling and droning sounds of a bagpipe started to play. It was such an incongruous sound for where I was, so I stood up to investigate, and I saw a man in full Scottish garb, wearing a kilt and everything, playing the bagpipes on a small grassy terrace, looking out over the water. To this day, I have no idea why there was a man playing the bagpipes at that exact spot, at that exact moment. Bagpipe music is incredibly important to me, and at that moment, in the middle of a forest, sitting by a lake, having received the worst news of my life, I truly felt like God was reaching out to me, letting me know that I was not alone, and that I was loved.

I don’t think it’s possible to fully express how powerful music is. Music connects us to our past, to our ancestors, to our traditions. It connects us to each other. It helps us to express ourselves, to celebrate, to mourn. There are so many parts of the Bible, some of which we read today, in which we are instructed to create music. Music one of the ways that we connect with to God, and it’s one of the ways that God connects with us.

I don’t have to tell you all that music is important, you already know that. My invitation to you is to be in awe in the knowing. Let yourself be swept away by it, let it course through you so that you feel the presence of God with you. Be in awe of God, and let God transform you. Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei