Opera? I can take it or leave it, mostly leave it, my totally Italian genes notwithstanding. Rap? I don’t even consider that music, much to the disagreement of some of my daughters (who shall remain nameless) who used to drive me almost insane by blaring that noise from their rooms. Hip Hop? Please. Country, R&B and Jazz I can take on occasion. I love the music of the Forties, probably because I was truly weaned on it in my mother’s lap. I cut my eyeteeth on Rock and Roll and received the bulk of my education with Folk Music and its messages playing in the background. Classical music is great on a regular basis; Disco once a week and Heavy Metal never.
Imagine being in an auditorium with one huge orchestra playing all these types of music and playing all of them all at one time. It would be dissonance to the nth degree. Even if we could tune in to that part of the orchestra playing our kind of music, that which we did not like, or even consider music, would drown out what we did appreciate. No one would ever consider the music being played sweet music, if it were considered music at all. It would simply be noise, horrible noise!
Take that imagery in another direction and apply it to the church and we might come to the same conclusion. There would be those who would staunchly maintain that the music being played in the church today contains so much dissonance that all they want to do is simply distance themselves from it. If not that, they want to find a room where only their music of choice is being played. And, of course, there are those who don’t want any music at all.
The church, if it is anything, at least in the Anglican Tradition (and, I would maintain, in the very tradition of Jesus) is not a symphony orchestra playing one kind of music with reeds and horns and percussion instruments all on the same page. Rather the church has been and always was and will be more like a bunch of bands together on the same stage, each playing/doing its own thing and yet making not dissonance but truly very sweet music together.
That’s the Anglican Way, the Episcopal Way, Jesus’ Way. It’s not an easy way or the only way, but it is the best way – I believe. It is not a way that says anything goes. Rather it is a way that says that I may not like your music and you may detest mine, but we are all in the same band. What we each have to do is at least be willing to listen to the other’s music even if we will never, ever come to like it or maybe even understand how anyone could even dare call it music.
Of course this means we have to be willing to play in the same band or sit in the same auditorium/church pew with those whose taste in music is so contrary at times to ours. It means we have to take their music seriously just as we ask them to take ours. It is much more comfortable and much more tempting for me to simply play my Oldies station than to punch the roaming switch to see what comes up next. But that’s our church: playing dissonance to some but really making sweet music – if we are willing to let our ears hear it and our minds welcome it.
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