c. 1998 Religion News Service
(Tom Ehrich is a pastor, writer and software developer living in Winston-Salem, N.C.)
UNDATED _”How did you sing today?”my wife asks when I come home between services to pick up our 7-year-old son.”Not so good,”I reply.”We didn’t warm up. The director seemed distracted.” I could say more: kids were wild, the sound engineers hadn’t dialed the flute in, the conducted tempo was different from rehearsal, it all felt rushed. But I would just be finding excuses for my own feeling of flatness.
The world felt heavy as I walked to church, and I needed this singing to be ministry, not performance. I needed for us to stand in a circle, hold hands and pray for a troubled world, a divided nation, an economically devastated city, illness and stress in our own families.
I wanted to pray:”These are strange and strenuous times, Lord, and our hearts are troubled. May our song today be more than sweet and pleasing. Help us to touch the wounded soul.” But there wasn’t time for such a prayer. The moment came, and we just stood up to sing. We were cheerful, when we needed to be deep.
Our God-needs often seem to collide with reality. In a season of commercial frenzy, many yearn for peace and serenity, not for stuff. In a season of party-going, many yearn to sit quietly with loved ones; they miss spouses who are lost to them, parents who are distant or deceased, and children who no longer crawl onto laps.
Our needs run deep, and the world around us seems shallow. The symmetrical sweetness of”The Nutcracker”isn’t enough.
It’s more than the seasonal discontinuities that crop up every December. The world and its creator are rarely on the same page. Caesar was counting heads, while God was setting captives free. Quirinius was enjoying his brief stay on the throne, while God was conceiving life in a peasant girl. People were dutifully returning to their home towns to be counted, while God was sending angels to announce a new kingdom and a new citizenship. Religious leaders were polishing their historic festivals, while God was”bending near the earth”to speak words never spoken before and to end history as humanity knew it.
We count votes for and against a president, as if this were a morality epic that God watches breathlessly. God is more likely to be found standing outside factory gates to comfort low-wage workers who have just been laid off.
We chase short-term political gain, without any regard for long-term consequences, as if defeating the loathsome is purpose enough, while God stands outside the mall where tomorrow has just been mortgaged to monthly payments and speaks a peace that is grounded neither in tinsel nor in treasure.
The word”Christian”becomes wedded to a right-wing movement that once used anti-communism to stampede the fearful and now uses hyper-moralizing to rally the self-righteous, while the one who truly bears the name stands with the fearful and the judged and, with them, bears the wrath of those who confuse right-opinion with Godly love, self-interest with the sacred.
The greedy and the powerful encourage these faux-moral delusions, as they once egged on the Red chasers, because a fearful populace will buy guns _ maybe even rescue Boeing! _ and a distracted government won’t intrude on their single-minded pursuit of unregulated, untaxed wealth, while the true font of morality is born poor, amid the oppressed.
So I pray my out-of-synch, Sunday-in-December prayer on the walk back to church for second service. I hold my son’s hand as we cross a busy street. I hear the desperate yearning within”Silent Night.”I hear a soprano singing behind me, and I feel the anger of her job stress, the fatigue of her child-rearing, and more _ more than I will ever know _ all being turned into a song of praise.
And I realize that life will always be distracting, and the world around us shallower than we need, but that God is sending a savior to lead us home.
IR END EHRICH
