Someone Cue the Baritone

I am not preaching this Sunday – The choir is offering Vivaldi’s Gloria, and we are building the rest of worship around that.

I am singing with them, but have only rehearsed with them in bits and pieces…And I haven’t even heard all of the pieces yet.

So, I was surprised, and quite honestly disappointed, when I saw the bulletin yesterday and noticed that our cantor does not have a solo (actually, there are no male solos in the Gloria. You probably already knew that. I didn’t.).

Jan (boy-Jan), our cantor, is an incredible musician…a very accomplished pianist and organist and an outstanding choir director. He also happens to have been the Baritone soloist for Opera Carolina as well as for the Charlotte Oratorio singers for a period of time. And, oh my word, I cannot describe how it is to hear him sing. In fact, I am holding my breath for the next couple weeks, until he sings “Some Children See Him” for the children’s Christmas Eve Service.

Anyhow – so I was quite disappointed when I realized that he wasn’t/isn’t singing a solo on Sunday…BUT I will get to hear him on Saturday. He will sing the Lord’s Prayer (Malotte’s version) at a wedding for which I am presiding and he is music-ing. When he gets to “…for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glo-ry…for-ever” someone will just have to pick me up off of the floor; because it is usually at that point (in whatever service I am blessed to hear him), that I come face to face with the reality that I haven’t been worshiping very well, at all – and have got all caught up in the choreography and “what not” of making the service “work.” But, when he sings – I have not one thing to do but listen. And, listening, my ears that had been “stopped” by the busy-ness of “running” the service, suddenly are un-stopped and I can hear. And oh my word, what a blessing as waves of beauty and comfort and peace wash over me.

 

Like I said, I am not preaching on Sunday – so, I haven’t done a lot of studying on the Isaiah text for this week (Isaiah 35.1-10). But, it talks about a remarkable home-coming, where the people who had been in exile (and, let’s be honest – that is an easy one to preach to folks today, right? I mean, we all are experiencing, or have experienced exile from time to time…Periods of disconnection – real or imagined, and hopelessness, barrenness and futility, anger and fear, and desperation, and too much choreography…All those things that keep our eyes blind and ears stopped-up)…And here, Isaiah talks about how the exiled-ones now rejoice and parade home strengthened and full of shalom-peace; that is, not just the absence of violence, but the presence of fullness and plenty and beauty and gentleness and comfort for ALL (kind of a Mandela-esque vision of peace). The kind of shalom-peace-parade where we are confronted with the ways that we stop our own ears from hearing the music that surrounds us – and then almost celebrate the confrontation, as our ears are un-stopped (sometimes by a tragedy…and sometimes by something so overwhelmingly beautiful that we cannot ignore it any longer, like the baritone soloist – as it were singing - “for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever”) and we are washed in the beauty of the sounds and sights and shalom of those parading near us…Make sense?

 

An interesting thing – the wedding that Jan and I are music-ing and presiding for this weekend, is for a deaf couple. A first for me…But one of the most enjoyable pre-marital counseling journeys that I have ever had as a pastor…Truth is, they have so much helped me hear better…Their physically “stopped” ears have helped open my perfectly good ears (“perfectly good” according to the audiologist, anyhow).

 

May we each be blessed with those moments when we can stop worrying about the busy-ness of the choreography, those times that we have absolutely not one thing to do but listen (with our perfectly good ears, or with the ears of our hearts)…And listening, may we be washed in shalom-peace, our ears un-stopped and our eyes opened as we peace-parade our way, side by side, through the world.