I had the opportunity to talk to the music ministry volunteers at Eastview this Friday.  Below is the manuscript and slides from my talk about the multi-layered worship experience of music.

CS Lewis in an Essay called “Meditation in a Toolshed” talks about two different ways to look at things.  He tells the story of walking into his toolshed, and the place is pitch-black except for this beam of light that cuts through the darkness of the shed.

He talks about looking at this light and seeing all kinds of things – the edge of the light beam, the specs of dust floating in the air.  But then he enters the shed and stands right in the middle of the beam and has a drastically different view – now he’s looking along the beam of light.  Now he sees tree leaves blowing in the wind and the hot glow of the sun in the distance.  The distinction between beam and darkness ceases to be the focus of his gaze and he gets a different perspective on the light beam.

Music, in general, and music in worship specifically, is a lot like that beam of light.  There are a few different ways to look at it, and how you look at it determines what you see.  I know it’s a bit risky to use a visual metaphor to talk about music, but I hope it will help us explore the deep richness God’s built into our music-making activities and help us appreciate His goodness that much more when we sing and play.

This is a really old concept (most things are if you believe Ecclesiastes), so I want to tell you right off the bat who I stole it from.  Augustine is a pastor/theologian from the 4th century who’s considered one of the greatest thinkers and lovers of God throughout history.  He’s often credited with this line “One who offers a song to God in worship prays twice.”  As a knee-jerk skeptic and snooty academic pooh-pooher, my first question is “how are we even praying once, let alone twice?”  But Augustine’s truth about music in worship isn’t so easily dismissed.  In one sense, we pray with the words of our songs – this is obvious, even to skeptics like me.  When words are directed to God, they are prayer – whether they’re sung, said, whispered, cried, shouted, or thought.  We’ll take a look at this kind of prayer in music first – it’s our kind of CS Lewis “looking at” the beam.  And then we’ll move on to Augustine’s second kind of prayer, the musical sounds themselves – these noises that seem theologically ambiguous at best and unhelpful in prayer at their worst – this will be our “looking along” the beam.

There’s little argument that the music we sing in worship is one of the most formational influences on our understanding of God.  It forms us theologically in deep and almost subconscious ways. I like to think of it this way: lyrics set to music are incredibly sticky.  Growing up, my sister was a jingle writer’s dream – she sang every gum commercial line from Big Red to Wrigley’s to Doublement at the top of her lungs – sticky was not good in this instance.  But this stickiness can be good in worship music.  This principle of stickiness can help form us into the likeness of Christ if done right – it can help us meditate and be formed into the people God’s called us to be.

But, the same principle that makes the words of worship music so helpful to our walk also gives them the greatest potential for our ruin.  Preaching isn’t as dangerous as the words of our songs are.  A sermon that might be a little off fades from our minds quickly, but a song with some iffy theology has a way sticking around in our brains much longer than a bad sermon does.  And that song works on us and plants itself in our minds for a long time. The ancient church called this phenomenon *“Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi” which means *“the rule of prayer is the rule of faith.”  Another way to say it is “what we pray or sing, is what we end up believing.”  It would be great to say it the other way around, “what we believe, we sing” but history just doesn’t show that as true.  Take, for instance, the whole devotion to Mary thing in Roman Catholicism.  It had its roots in songs first, then it made its way into an official theological position, not the other way around.

Looking along the beam at music can help form us theologically into the people of God.  Our first prayer, Augustine’s first prayer, is the text; we look along the text and see the distinctions between darkness and light, it helps us know the truth and make it part of our lives.  That would be great all by itself, but God’s done something wonderful in the His multi-layered creation of music.

When we look along the beam, when we get right up in it and let it wash over us, we discover some unexpected grace through the act of music itself – even apart from the text.  I want to talk about singing first, and I want us to think about the mechanics of it from a Biblical perspective.  The first and second chapters of Genesis tell us that we’re made in God’s image and that he “Breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life.”  The Hebrew language is a little funny with that word breathed or breath, they have two main words for it *“Ruach and Nephesh.”  They both have connections to life or a life force that’s centered in drawing breath in and out.  Listen to Genesis 2:7 again “God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life.”  For the Hebrew people, life was centered in two places, the blood and the breath.  Lose your blood, you’re dead; lose your breath, you’re dead – pretty simple heath care plan.  But here’s what happens with Israel, they sacrifice to God with the blood of animals AND with their voices – sacrifices of praise.  Life’s in the blood, yes; but the act of singing for ancient Israel was the giving of their breath, their life, back to God as an act of sacrifice.  Think about pushing out every last bit of air – unless you draw back in, you’re on your way down.  For the Hebrews, and for us, singing becomes a sacrificial act, regardless of the words.  I listened to a voice recital last night where the only word in a 5 minute song was “Oh,” but it was one of the most sacrificial acts of worship I’ve seen in a long time.

Well, I don’t want to leave out the non-singing folks among us (I’m one of them), and neither does Scripture for that matter.  Let’s look at Psalm 150:

“Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power;

praise him for his surpassing greatness.

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

praise him with the harp and lyre,

praise him with timbrel and dancing,

praise him with the strings and pipe,

praise him with the clash of cymbals,

praise him with resounding cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.”

Most people point to Psalm 150 when they talk about instruments in worship and use it as kind of a “see, they have cymbals, we can use drums.”  And while it works on that level and I’m not sure we need a Psalm to tell us whether or not to use drums, the best part about Psalm 150 is the picture it paints of humanity and the rest of creation uniting in praise to God.  Biblical Scholars like N.T. Wright call it the consummation of creation – the time when everything reflects God’s glory and intention for it – the restoration of all things.  When we take raw materials from the world around us and carefully craft them into guitars, brass and woodwind instruments, pianos, drums, even circuit boards – we give created things a voice to praise God with, we animate them to worship.  It’s not in a fully realized way, but it anticipates the world that is to come – a world where everything that God has made rises up and praises him for his goodness.  In some ways, Psalm 150 helps us look toward the day when “the trees of the fields will clap their hands” and when the “mountains and hills will burst out with song.”  We partner with God’s creation for God’s glory, it really is a reflection of the original Garden of Eden.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m horrible at conclusions.  So I’ll end with the question that tends to trump most questions: so what?  What does this mean for a person who sings in choir or on a vocal team or plays in the orchestra or in the band?  I couldn’t answer that for everyone, your applications will vary as much as we differ from each other.  But let me offer my own application as a reference point.  For a lot of years I walked into CS Lewis’ toolshed of music and kept looking for things in the dark – I liked music and I banged around in the shed trying to find some meaning in it apart from a Biblical perspective.  Later, I began to look at the beam of light and music in worship began to make more sense to me, I could see the differentiation between light and darkness and I began to take responsibility for the text of my prayer.  But lately, I find myself looking along the beam of music and soaking in God’s partnership with the things He’s given us – our breath and life, and the things of creation – and letting music be a sacrifice of praise and a partnership with creation to praise God as well.  Maybe you’re in one, two, or all three of those places; maybe you’re discovering some of them for the first time; maybe you need to revisit some you’ve neglected; or maybe you, like me, just need a reminder that music is a sacred act through and through, we just need to stop and look.