Author Archives: Rob Harrison

Musings on worship, illustrated by the Songs of the Week

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The last week or so has been really rough; but God is good, and rough weeks end, the sun still shines after the rain, and that’s as worthy a reason to give praise as any.

As I write this, I have “Thinking of You,” a cut from the new/old band Future of Forestry, playing through my computer speakers, and that’s a good reason to give praise, too. I say “new/old band” because this is the same group as the worship band Something Like Silas—they reinvented themselves and went off in a new musical direction, under a new name. Fortunately, from the first listen (I’m now on to “Sanctitatis”), they brought their musical and songwriting gifts with them.

Anyway, if you’ll pardon the right turn—I’ll come back to Something Like Silas in a minute—I’ve been thinking about a conversation I had with a friend of mine a week or two ago about worship. This friend is one of the worship leaders for a big-city megachurch/satellite church/pocket denomination/whatever you want to call it; they seem to be doing great work for the kingdom, but from some of the comments my friend has made, I’m wondering when the folks leading that congregation will hit their Dave Johnson moment. Right now, they seem to be on top of the elephant; but they’re making some decisions that, from the outside (and a considerable distance—no churches that size up here), I wonder about.

For one, I understand they recently issued the dictum that in worship (which is to say, in the singing part of worship), 3/4 of the songs need to be songs addressed to God, not songs about God. Which, OK, I can see the reasoning on this, but (as my friend pointed out), there are a couple of problems here. First, if you’re trying to lead a church across multiple campuses, you need to accept that those are in truth different congregations, different gatherings of people, with different needs, which thus must be led differently. Trying to centralize decision-making in worship planning really isn’t a good idea—there needs to be some degree of freedom for the folks with leadership responsibilities at the individual sites to do what is appropriate and fitting for them, not just what someone halfway across the metro area thinks is a good idea.

And second, songs addressed to God are, logically, songs in the first person; and unfortunately, given the way folks write, they tend to be in the first person singular—”I” songs. Looking at the landscape of what is generally called contemporary worship music, the great majority of “I” songs tend to be focused on me and my experience and what I’m doing for God. As such, the dictum to give most of the time to songs addressed to God will likely tend to produce a shift toward songs that are actually more about me and myself—not about who God is, not about who we are as the body of Christ, but about what I’m doing and feeling. Doing and feeling about God, yes, but . . . well, just think of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14) if you don’t see what I’m talking about.

That said, this shift is far from inevitable, even if it is the course of least resistance; and here’s where Something Like Silas comes in. I only have their last album, Divine Invitation—as yet, I haven’t picked up any of their indie releases—but while their songs are very personal expressions of worship, mostly “I” songs, they’re also songs which are unquestionably focused on God; some are expressions of praise, while others are heartfelt prayers for God to act. So, since I missed posting a song for last week, I thought I’d post an example of each, two tracks off Divine Invitation.

Words That You SaySpeak in this close communion,
Though this hour seems timeless still,
I wait for your words that bid me come.
Breathe in me, Holy Spirit,
The will when my tomorrow comes
To follow when this song is gone.So I await the words that you say—
I open my life;
I am longing just to hear these words
That you say, that you say.Shape me with words of wisdom,
Free my torn heart from this world;
Renew my mind and form my will.
Teach me to wholly offer
More than words that I can sing,
So I become the song I bring.ChorusCan I be an instrument of praise
And here pursue your heart,
So my life will tell of who you are?
Can I be a channel of your love,
A reflection of your light,
And live to bring you praise and serve you, Lord?ChorusWords and music: Eric Owyoung
©2004 Birdwing Music
From the album Divine Invitation, by Something Like Silas

InfiniteLord, a thousand years go by,
Just a moment in your eyes,
‘Cause you alone are far beyond the infinite, O Lord.Lord, all the heavens sing to you,
You’re full of grace and truth,
And you alone are far beyond the infinite . . .So I’ll trust you when I cannot see;
So I’ll trust you when the shadows hover over me
And I’ll love you when the distance leaves me cold.
So I’ll love you . . . I will still believe that you are sovereign, Lord.Lord, your promises are true,
Your mercies always new,
Your love for us is far beyond the infinite, O Lord.Though I fear I walk alone,
You reach into my soul;
Your love for me is far beyond the infinite . . .ChorusI’m learning to trust,
I’m learning to feel,
I’m learning to love you always . . .ChorusWords and music: Eric Owyoung and Steve Hindalong
©2004 Birdwing Music/New Spring Publishing, Inc./Never Say Never Songs
From the album Divine Invitation, by Something Like Silas

Robert E. Webber, RIP

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Last week, the church visible lost one of its great leaders; Robert E. Webber died last Friday, April 27, at the age of 73, eight months after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I can’t claim to have known him well, as some did; I did have the privilege of sitting under him for a session at the Symposium on Worship held by the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship, and of being on his e-mail list for a time after that. I learned a great deal from him, on that occasion and through many of his books (which are, I think, invaluable for anyone involved in any aspect of planning and/or leading worship); he was a wise and humble man whose focus was always on the God we worship, and who directed our attention to God as well.

Webber didn’t only write about worship—indeed, at the beginning of his career, teaching theology at Wheaton College, he focused on existentialism—but it’s as a theologian and teacher of worship that he’s best known, and for good reason. His influence on worship practices in the American church was great in every sense of the word; it’s overstating things, I think, to say that he “helped bring an end to the so-called ‘worship wars'” (in my experience, they aren’t over yet), but he certainly did a great deal to heal that wound in the American church, and to point many back to the critical truth that worship is about God, and for God, not us. He lived life to the glory of God, and helped many others of us do the same.

Requiescat in pace, Robert E. Webber; and to his wife Joanne, their four children, seven grandchildren, and all who knew and loved him, all the blessings and comfort of God in this time of mourning.

AI: Amnesty International, or Abortion International?

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Apparently, Amnesty International has adopted a new policy in favor of abortion. They’re trying to keep this change from the public’s attention—I assume because they’d rather avoid the controversy that’s bound to come—and they’re preparing to deny that they’ve taken the position that abortion is a human right, once the controversy does hit; but practically speaking, that’s exactly what they’ve done. They may say that they take no position on when life begins, but one thing is clear: an organization dedicated to the defense of human rights has decided that unborn children have no rights worth defending. And they don’t even have the guts to admit that’s what they’ve done. It’s not just sad, it’s pathetic.

Song of the Week

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The other day, my friend Debbie Berkley put up a post on her blog, Taking the Ring, which reminded me of this song, and it’s been stuck in my head since. So, since I wanted to get back to doing songs of the week anyway, here it is:

Small Graces

Sometimes they slip by without notice;
Sometimes they’re very hard to see.
Other times it’s all so clear
When they’re happening to me.

Bright penny on the sidewalk,
Can’t buy nothin’ by itself;
But when I hold it in my hand
It’s a tiny piece of priceless wealth.

These are the small graces,
Little moments when the miracles come.
These are the small graces,
Small graces leading me to the larger ones.

A smile that is not automatic,
That lingers on a little more
Than the time it takes to count my change,
The time it takes to close the drawer.

Chorus

Small graces surely have a meaning
Beyond their merely passing by;
They are a reminder to the heart
There’s more to life than meets the eye.

Cheerful greetings unexpected
Shared by strangers on the run,
For when the sky is clouded over
Still the promise of the sun

Is in the small graces,
The little moments when the miracles come.
These are the small graces,
Small graces pointing me to the larger ones.

Small graces,
Little glimpses of the Kingdom come
From unexpected places—
These are the small graces.

Words and music: Bob Bennett
©1997 Bright Avenue Songs
From the album Small Graces, by Bob Bennett

The coldest case of all

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I’m a fan of mystery stories, going back a very long way. I remember as a kid sitting in my grandparents’ home reading Grampa’s collection—he had an omnibus edition of Sherlock Holmes, scads of Agatha Christie novels, and probably everything Erle Stanley Gardner and Rex Stout ever wrote. He also had this big blue-dust-jacketed book of true crime stories—it seems to me it might have been a Reader’s Digest book; in retrospect, I’m not sure a child as young as I was should have known who Sam Sheppard was, but at least I turned out OK. (Mostly. I think.)

Anyway, when it comes to reading mysteries, I tend to prefer the Great Detective sort of stories, authors like Christie, Dorothy Sayers, P. D. James, G. K. Chesterton, and (to name someone a bit more obscure these days) Melville Davisson Post; but on TV, I enjoy the current ascendancy of police procedurals quite a bit. (Though I would say that in my book, the CSI series are really more akin to R. Austin Freeman’s Dr. Thorndyke stories than to the classic procedural.) One of my favorites—though I don’t think it’s lived up to the promise of its first season—is Cold Case, in part because the show’s premise allows them to move throughout history, and in part because of a superb cast and generally good writing.

That said, I wasn’t all that pleased with last Sunday’s episode, “The Good Death.” It was an agenda episode, pretty much intended as a commercial for euthanasia, and that posed two problems for me. First, it was pretty unsubtle about its agenda; I don’t mind if a story tries to make a point, but I dislike being bludgeoned, even if I agree with the message. Second, in this case, I don’t agree with the message, since I consider euthanasia a barbaric and anti-human practice, even if many who support it do so out of compassionate motives.

In this particular instance, I especially disliked the episode’s subtext, which is that we should allow euthanasia because hospitals just let patients suffer. As a former hospital chaplain, that blindingly white TV hospital with nary a caregiver in sight (except for the nurse who’d been arrested for euthanizing patients, and the doctor whose only function was to give the diagnosis) doesn’t look anything like any of the hospitals I know. In point of fact, the depiction was a shameful libel on our nation’s caregivers. I don’t say all hospitals are perfect, and I would imagine there are those out there that do fall down on the job, but by and large, the doctors and nurses in this country put a great deal of effort into caring for their patients—and in cases of extreme pain, that doesn’t merely include pain control, it begins with it. Clearly, the writers of this episode know little or nothing about hospice care and comfort care—either that or they suppressed what they know in order to make the case for their agenda seem stronger.

The funny thing is, though, that they actually did a pretty good job of defeating their own argument—which is perhaps evidence of the grace of God working its way through the cracks in human intentions. There was, for instance, the closing song (Paul Westerberg’s “Good Day”), which declares, “A good day is any day that you’re alive”—a remarkable affirmation of the value of life in itself to conclude an episode which tried very hard to make a very different point. More significantly, though, the entire structure of the episode undermined its argument. The case for euthanasia rests, philosophically, on the assumption that suffering is an unmitigated evil, unrelievedly bad. Given that, if you aren’t going to be able to live without significant suffering, life isn’t worth living, and you should be allowed to kill yourself—or someone should be allowed to kill you. And yet, over the course of this episode, we were shown a very different reality, as the suffering of the deceased protagonist (whose death Lily Rush and the rest were investigating) proved in fact to be powerfully redemptive. The pain and other effects of a severe brain tumor transformed one of the most selfish and unpleasant characters I’ve ever run across—well, not to put too fine a point on it, back into a human being—bringing him to the point of reconciling with several people he’d hurt, most notably his wife.

It’s not too much to say, looking at this episode, that the cancer was the best thing that ever happened to this guy. His suffering was redemptive; his life was better for the pain he had endured; and yet, from the perspective of the episode, better to kill him (at his request, it must be noted) than to let him suffer any longer. Never mind that had he lived, he might have fully reconciled with his son, thereby allowing the son to heal much sooner from the damage his father had done him through their lives; never mind any of that. Pain hurts, hurting is bad, anything is justified to end it. Except that in that case, wouldn’t it have been better if he’d never gotten sick?

There are no Other People

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I’m a fan of much of Neil Gaiman’s work–for those of you not familiar with him, you could call him a science-fiction/fantasy/horror author/screenwriter/graphic novelist, if you don’t mind pigeonholing him too much–and have been ever since Neverwhere. His view of the world is very different from mine, but he’s a perceptive and thoughtful observer, a creative and powerful storyteller, and a gifted writer.

Anyway, it turns out Gaiman has a connection to the mass murder at Virginia Tech, which he noted in his blog last week, from which he drew one profoundly true and important point: “There are no Other People. It’s just us.”

Or, as the great poet/preacher John Donne put it in one of his sermons, “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

What a week; what a world

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This has been a week about violence and death. I believe it was D. L. Moody who declared that the world has never seen what God can do with one man wholly devoted to him; on Monday, we saw something rather more familiar–what the devil can do with one man who has given himself over to evil. Among the victims lie at least one hero, Dr. Liviu Lebrescu, and a good many people who were determined to do their part to make the world a better place. Most, I’m sure, imagined they had plenty of time to do so; and now, by the evil will of one cowardly human being, they have no more time. I appreciate those who have had something worthwhile to say about this; I particularly appreciate Blest with sons‘ call to us to appreciate the sheepdogs among us; for my part, all I’ve been able to do is say the Kyrie, over and over. Lord, have mercy upon us . . .

But he does. For all our evil, for all we do to mar the good he gives us, he shows us mercy, over and over; as broken and rebellious as we are, he loves us anyway. As obscene a thing as the VT massacre was–somehow worse, at least to me, for coming so close after Easter–yet death does not have the last word. God blesses us despite ourselves, and sometimes even despite our wishes.

In light of that, though I’m not drawing any parallels here, it seemed symbolic to me that two days later, the Supreme Court handed down a decision (Gonzales v. Carhart) upholding the federal Partial Birth Abortion Act. It was a much more limited decision than many (especially on the left) would have you believe–as Hadley Arkes expected, it upheld the law only against a facial challenge, with no repudiation of Roe v. Wade, leaving the door wide open for further challenges to the law as it’s actually applied–but as limited as it is, it is still a significant moment. As Joseph Bottum points out, this appears to mean that abortion law no longer enjoys special, protected status–the door is open to treat abortion legislation in the same way as legislation in other areas. Ultimately, we cannot know whether this step will lead to another step in the same direction or will prove but a momentary turn–barring another change in the Court’s membership, it will depend on Anthony Kennedy, who defies certain prediction–but as Fr. Richard John Neuhaus says, there is at least some reason for hope.

And if that comes through, if abortion on demand is no longer the law of the land by judicial fiat, then perhaps we can begin to build some sort of constructive consensus, along the lines Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg suggested a few years ago; even then, it would be a long way to legal recognition of the human rights of the unborn, but perhaps at least we can arrive at a general understanding that abortion is not a good choice, that there ought to be and are better choices, and that we all together need to do everything we can to make them available to and viable for women in need.

Hymn for Easter Sunday

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–posted on Easter Monday, of course, as I was busy yesterday.

Christ the Lord Is Risen TodayChrist the Lord is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing ye heavens, and earth reply, Alleluia!Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Dying once he all doth save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids Him rise, Alleluia!
Christ has opened Paradise, Alleluia!Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!Words: Charles Wesley
Music: from Lyra Davidica, London, 1708
EASTER HYMN, 7.7.7.7. with Alleluias

Hymn for Good Friday

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I did think of more modern songs for this day, but the one that really came to mind (“The Killing,” by The Violet Burning) depends as much on the music as on the lyrics; and in the end, what else for Good Friday but the other greatest hymn ever written? (The first being “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” of course.)

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded O sacred Head, now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded
With thorns Thine only crown:
How pale Thou art with anguish,
With sore abuse and scorn;
How does that visage languish,
Which once was bright as morn!What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior;
‘Tis I deserve Thy place.
Look on me with Thy favor,
Vouchsafe to me Thy grace.What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this, Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever,
And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
Outlive my love to Thee.Words: Paul Gerhardt, based on a Medieval Latin poem ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux; translated by James W. Alexander
Music: Hans Leo Hassler; harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach
PASSION CHORALE, 7.6.7.6.D

“In my end is my beginning. . . .”

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The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood–
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

–T. S. Eliot, from Four Quartets, “East Coker,” IV.