Dr. Dale Miller, October 15, 2006

Add the Grace Notes

Second in a five-part series on taking our church to the next level

John 1:14-16

"Jazz is not a respectable or acceptable musical art form!" That was the beginning of a lecture that I and a few other musicians received from the Dean of the Music School at Illinois Wesleyan University. But let me back up and start from the beginning of the story.

Every Thursday was an open concert date at the School of Music. Students signed up to perform in order to gain performance credits. Most of the musicians who signed up to sing or play an instrument were using this concert as a warm-up to their own personal recitals. Accepted musical styles included mainly anything written by dead white European males.

There were a few students, including myself, that felt this was a rather narrow door of musical acceptance, especially for jazz. So, we set out to buck the system. A few of us jazz aficionados got together and practiced a piece of music entitled, "The Pink Panther" by Henry Mancini. We then submitted our request to perform as an "instrumental ensemble." We translated "The Pink Panther" into French and listed Henry Mancini as Henri Mancini. The Music School Secretary didn't catch on to the joke. We were approved for performance.

Then came that fateful performance day, breaking all kinds of musical stereotypes at this prestigious School of Music. The curtain opened to the beginning opening bass notes from the stringed bass and the bass trombone. The student and faculty audience perked up their ears. The Dean of the School of Music turned three shades of red. We had fun! That is, we had fun until we were called into the Dean's office and heard the words, "Jazz is not a respectable or acceptable musical art form!"

Fortunately, times change and with it occasionally comes wisdom. Outside of the music of Native Americans, jazz is a truly American art form. Illinois Wesleyan University now has a Department of Jazz in its School of Music. Jazz was looked down upon because it was "demon music" that had its beginnings in an alley somewhere or Bourbon Street at best. Actually, jazz originated in the African American church as it brought a word of good news to a people who struggled with life. The music was rooted not only in the words but also in the rhythm of everyday living. Jazz was rooted in the hope of a different world, a world of freedom, mercy, justice and grace. Jazz is a musical sermon preached to a desperate and anxiety-ridden world.

There is a jazz scene in James Baldwin's novel Another Country.

The joint, as Fats Waller would have said, was jumping… And, during the last set…the saxophone player… took off on a terrific solo. He was a kid… from some insane place like Jersey City or Syracuse, but somewhere along the line he had discovered that he could say it with a saxophone… He stood there… filling his barrel chest, shivering in the rags of his twenty-odd years, and screaming through the horn Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? And again, Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?… the same phrase, unbearably, endlessly, and variously repeated, with all of the force the boy had.

The question was terrible and real; the boy was blowing with his lungs and guts out of his own short past; somewhere in that past he had received the blow from which he never would recover and this no one wanted to believe. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? The men on the stand stayed with him, cool and at a little distance, adding and questioning…but each man knew that the boy was blowing for every one of them.

In a thousand ways, jazz takes life and keeps asking that question of us, of life, of God: Do you love me?" When things get twisted out of shape for us, when pain hits, or loss, or failure, or illness, or the face in the mirror looks back with more sags and wrinkles than we remember gathering over the years, and we are overwhelmed, something in us cries out, Do you love me?"

Do we matter? Are we worth anything much beyond this moment, or to those close beside us who matters so much to us. Something in jazz blows this riff for all of us.

But the wonder runs even deeper than that. Something in jazz plays the answer, and the answer is "Yes." Jazz, like grace, pours out over the ache and agony of our human struggle. It began in the experience of slavery and it resonates to whatever our particular versions of the ache and agony of life are. "Do you love me? Do you love me?"

Then, around the edges, and in the midst of this wondrous mess, and out of it, comes the joy, the wild or quiet passion, the incredible creativity of hope and faith, the music of the "Yes, I love you."

When asked about jazz, Louis Armstrong answered simply, "What we play is life." Jazz takes the stuff of our common life, the miracles of the ordinary, and plays it with such imagination and love, that it reminds us that all of life is uncommon, extraordinary, and even sacred. It also reminds us of the God who gives life to us, over and over and over again, who is the source of all creativity and who keeps saying, "Yes" to us.

"For God so loved the world." God loves us. Why is it so hard to learn and to practice? Love, is what we long for most and yet we resist it. Why? I believe that we resist because love is always a gift. It is nothing we earn, nothing we deserve, or nothing we can force, control or win. Earning and deserving is what we are conditioned to do. Falling, failing and flaws are shameful. Gifts are hard for us. We are better at rewards. And yet, love is always a gift, whether it is from a person or from God. The only way to have it is to accept it. For me, it is as simple, and as hard, as that. The most difficult thing of all is learning to be loved. We find it is hard to accept unconditional grace.

In an interview, Miles Davis said the secret of jazz musicians is they "don't play what's there, [they] play what's not there." Jazz is about playing what is not visible on the musical score. It's like love. It's a gift. It is beyond our control, deeper than can be measured, earned, more than a reward. It's just played. It's just heard. This is what we are experiencing with the wonderful Bradley Sowash Jazz Quartet.

There is the melody that we know, that is sing-able, a melody that has structure and direction. But there is also a lot of notes that are not on the page, notes that are played "in the cracks," "grace notes," if you will. These are the notes that jazz up our lives, notes that add spontaneity and spirit to our existence. God's grace is what fills up the cracks in our daily living. The spontaneous spirit of the living Christ invades the spaces and moments of every breath we take.

It is the grace notes that make us a bit homesick for something beyond our reach. The grace notes touch us, set our feet tapping, our bodies moving, our pulses beating faster, and our hearts singing. The grace notes bring out of us what our pride denies about us: our need, our hope, our longing for love. For a moment, maybe longer, we accept the gift. And for a moment, maybe longer, life is full, pressed down, shaken together, running over with the gift of grace. It is a divine gift for whoever will accept it, for what it is.

To add yet another grace note to this riff, allow me to share a story about jazz musician Wynton Marsalis. He was leading a Master Class. After the young musicians finished their first number, Marsalis asked them what the piano player had done during his trumpet solo. No one could answer. Marsalis said, "You know, jazz isn't just about playing your own instrument. It's about listening to others. You have to listen in order to know your place in the bigger picture."

Jazz, faith, life, the gospel is about listening. Listening to others, to our deepest longing, to our gifts, to our limits, our needs and even our mortality. We listen in order to know our amazing place in the bigger picture. We listen so we know where we can be a grace note in somebody else's life, a note of grace within our church community, and an entire symphony of grace in our community.

If we are going to take Nardin Park UMC to the next level of discipleship we are going to receive God's grace in our lives, acknowledge God's grace in each other's lives and then look for every opportunity, big or small, to fill up the lives of others and the life of this church with all the grace we can muster. Just as we have received God's grace, we then become God's grace. We then pile grace upon grace, note upon note, and acts of love upon acts of love.

One of the words of urban speech that has been used in recent years is "dissed." To "diss" someone is to put someone down, to ridicule or to debase them. For me, to "diss" someone is to "dis"-grace them and us. If we are the Body of Christ, if we are the People of the Way, if we are people who are providing the notes of God's grace in this world, then we need to eliminate all the "dis"-grace notes within our lives. When we place the "dis"-grace notes into the cracks of our lives, into the cracks of the life of our church, we destroy the foundation of the church, Jesus Christ our Lord. Instead, we are called to add God's grace in our lives, in our church, in our community and in our world.

A large stone cathedral in Europe was noted for its magnificent pipe organ. One Saturday afternoon, the church sexton (custodian) was making one final check of the choir and organ loft high in the balcony at the back of the church. The custodian was startled to hear footsteps echoing up the stone stairway because he thought the cathedral doors were all securely locked and no one was around. He turned to see a man in slightly tattered traveling clothes coming toward him. "Excuse me, sir," said the stranger. "I have come from quite a distance to see the great organ in this cathedral. Would you mind opening the consol so that I might get a closer look at it?" "Absolutely not!" answered the custodian. "Why, if the organist came in and found you sitting there, I would probably lose my job." But the stranger was persistent and the custodian gave in. Then the stranger said, "I've come so far just to see and experience this organ. I know what I'm doing, and I promise that no harm will be done. I will handle this organ with great care and love." Again, the sexton gave in, and he told the stranger he could play the instrument, but only a few notes, and then he would have to leave. Overjoyed, the stranger pulled out some stops and began to play. Suddenly the cathedral was filled with the most beautiful music the custodian had ever heard in all his years in that place. The music touched his heart like nothing before. The stranger stopped playing, slid off the organ bench, thanked the custodian, then turned and started down the stairs. "Wait!" cried the custodian. "That was absolutely incredible. Who are you, anyway?" The stranger smiled and said, "My name is Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn." The custodian almost fainted! Felix Mendelssohn was one of the greatest organist and composers of the 19th century." Just think," he said softly, "I almost kept the master from playing his music in my cathedral!"

We are so like that custodian. So often, we are tempted to say "no" to the Master. So often, we are anxious to hold Christ at arm's length. So often, we are fearful of letting Jesus come too close. Why? More often than not, it is because we want to control Jesus. We don't Jesus to control us. So often, we are afraid to let the Holy Spirit play God's grace notes in us.

Our challenge is to allow God to jazz up our lives, to jazz up the life of our community of faith! Let us seek to be a God-gifted, Christ-centered, Spirit-led, people-focused, open community of grace-filled disciples. Amen? Amen!