Two different incidents are
swirling around in my head right now. The first involves a killer whale and Josh
Groban. The second involves a discussion in my home group, where we are reading
Bonhoeffer’s “Life
Together”. The discussion centered around this quote concerning worship
through corporate singing:
“All devotion, all attention
should be concentrated upon the Word in the hymn…the music is completely the
servant of the Word {Scripture}. It elucidates the Word in its mystery.”
We
asked each other, is this true of church music today? Can we say of modern
worship songs that the music serves the words of Scripture? Or do the words of
our worship songs serve the music? Can we say that we, the worshippers love the
words more than the melodies? How can we tell?
Which brings me to that killer
whale incident. I’m going to confess something completely humiliating here: I
absolutely love “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban. On a trip to Sea World a few
years back, we watched a Shamu Show choreographed to that song. Every time Josh
hit the chorus, Shamu would erupt out of the water, launching his trainer thirty
feet into the air off the tip of his snout. Raising him up. To more than he
could be.
Tears. Streaming.
Down. My. Face.
So,
let’s just take a look at those gorgeous, impactful lyrics:
You raise me up, so I can
stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on
stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your
shoulders;
You raise me up... To more
than I can be.
I
mean, just revel in that. That’s some powerful stuff - powerfully cheesy. But
between the soaring instrumentation
and the velvet voice (and the orca) I sort of lost track of that. Do you think
I’m pathetic? Try it yourself - just Google the lyrics to your favorite song.
Try reading them without melody and instrumentation. Do they move you? Are they
memorable? Do they even make sense?
With a pop song, who cares?
There’s not a lot at stake if a music-less read-through of the lyrics reveals
that the message is a little ridiculous. But with worship music, the stakes are
higher. I believe this is what Bonhoeffer wants us to understand. Himself a
musician, he would have known what every musician, every writer of movie scores,
every marketer, every Shamu choreographer can tell you: Music has the power
to move us in and of itself.
the powerful pull of
music
Imagine the Harry Potter
movies with no themed score running behind the scenes. The musical score alone,
existing independently from words or images, would stir our emotions. Combined
with them, the effect magnifies. Even a movie as well-written as Harry Potter
would feel dull and flat without a soundtrack.
Bonhoeffer’s point is simple:
When the words serve the music, we gratify self. When the music serves the
words, we glorify God. In a culture that consumes music on an unprecedented
scale, the church faces an uphill battle to maintain the high ground that the
music must serve the words. Ten years ago, contemporary worship songs were
plagued with the “I-Me-My-Mines”, every line filled with the knowledge of man.
We have come some distance since then, praise God, with a shift back toward
lyrics that extol the character of God. But we have further still to go.
If
I supplied you with a copy of the lyrics to the 6500 hymns of Charles Wesley, two
things would happen to you as you read it. First, you would be deeply moved by
the truths the lyrics contained, whether you knew the melodies associated with
them or not. Second, you would know your Bible better. Could the same be said if
you read through the lyrics of our modern worship offerings?
Wesley composed his hymns
during a time in church history when the music served the words, or more
precisely, the Word. We live in a time when music, church or otherwise, serves
our personal taste, and where lyrics are often an afterthought. Combine this
with rampant Bible illiteracy, and we find congregational Shamu shows so glutted
on the wealth in their melodies that they ignore the poverty in their lyrics. A
worship song is “anointed” if it moves us deeply, whether the words communicate
anything coherent or not. Don’t make me give you a sloppy wet
example.
preparing heart and
head
What Bonhoeffer and Wesley
would say to us is that church music must do more than move the emotions: it
must feed the understanding. In doing so, it accomplishes its purpose of
preparing our hearts and minds for the pinnacle of the worship service, the
proclamation of the Word. We wrongly believe that the worship set should fill
our hearts and the sermon should fill our heads. Corporate worship should
enliven both heart and head, preparing us for a sermon which does both as
well.
So,
to my fellow worshippers, let's consider together whether our adoration is given
to music or through music. And to those worship leaders composing
church music today, God bless you – you endure enormous pressure to create
"worship experiences". Consider Bonhoeffer’s message: whether your gifting runs
toward hymnody or poetry, write lyrics that teach so much truth they can stand
on their own. And then set them to music that magnifies their beauty. We, your
congregants are slaves to our personal tastes. Teach us to crave corporately the
better thing - the Word rendered luminous by song, confessed by a thousand
tongues.
