Daring a New Tune--December 8, 2021

Daring a New Tune--December 8, 2021

I've heard it said, "The four most terrifying words in Scripture are, 'Sing a new song'."  I think that's just about right.

That sentence could just be taken as a cheap shot, a criticism of how church folk don't like change, don't want to move out of familiar routines, and don't take too kindly to anybody trying to nudge them to learn a new hymn out of the hymnal.  I don't think it's meant that way.  I think it's more to say, we like our deity to be as predictable as a rhyme we've learned from memory.  We like to already know what God is going to do before God does it, or maybe even better, a God who has already done everything that God is going to do, leaving it just to us to report to others the list of God's accomplished deeds.  We like to think that God has to check with us before doing anything new... and therefore the same old songs we've "always sung" will do just fine.  They hold no surprises for us.  They cannot catch us off guard.

And yet, as the quotation reminds us, it's from the Scriptures themselves that we find the words of poets and prophets daring us to do the thing we are a little afraid of:  to sing a new song.  It is the Scriptures themselves that push us, not just to sing, but to learn, to write, and to share new words, new images, and new melodies to draw us into praise of the God who stubbornly insists on continuing to do new things.

So today, let's allow that dare to be our own way of embodying hope.  Let's make the attempt to sing a new song this Advent.  I mean that as literally as I can.  In Sunday worship, or in a midweek Advent service, or on your own in your own personal devotional and prayer time, or with a group of friends, learn a new song of praise.  It doesn't matter if you are a professional singer or can't carry a tune in a bucket--dare to learn and to sing a new song, and see what it does to your soul.

See, I have a hunch.  I think like so many things in life, our ability to see God moving in the world has a great deal to do with what are already looking for.  We will spot God more often than not in the places we expect to find God, and we'll recognize God's presence in the places we are prepared to see the divine.  But if that's a closed feedback loop where we only ever look for God in the times and locations we assume a respectable deity to be, we'll never be able to see God anywhere new.  And a god who cannot appear anywhere except in your list of pre-approved venues or settings is an idol for sure.

The God whose coming we look for at Christmas, however, is the sort of God who insists on surprise.  The story we retell each year at Christmas is all about overturned expectations, isn't it?  A God who operates, not in the seats of power (Rome) or respectable religion (Jerusalem and its temple), but on the margins in some tiny town that was easily overlookable.  A birth, not in a palace or even a private room, but in the basement with a house full of people upstairs while animals tried to eat out of the trough they were going to put the baby in (remember that there isn't really an "inn"--and definitely not an "innkeeper" in this story; the word that got mistranslated "inn" is better translated "guest room" and suggest that Mary and Joseph have indeed found relatives to stay with, but they don't have their own private accommodations in Bethlehem).  A flutter of angels appearing to night-shift shepherds.  None of these were the expectation. All these details we take for granted in the Christmas story were utter surprises when they first happened--and the only reason anybody dared to believe such things as a Messiah in a manger is that they were open to a God who would do the unexpected... a God for whom new songs would need to be sung.

When we dare to learn a new song, something happens in that place where our minds and our hearts meet.  We learn to see God from a new perspective, to recognize something true about God that we had never known before, but maybe which had always been there.  We come to recognize that God has never been obligated to stay inside the boxes we have created to contain the divine, and yet is also surprisingly willing to be located in the tiny, fragile body of a Middle Eastern baby boy.

And not only that, when we sing a new song, we start to dethrone the idol we've made of predictability, and we can be open to God doing surprising things in the world in front of us.  We can be open to the unexpected guest list of those God will include and invite to join with us in worship.  We'll be better able to spot God's movement drawing in the ones who were told they weren't good enough or are unacceptable.  We'll be equipped to recognize God rearranging what we thought was the "natural" order of things by promising a new creation where wolves and lambs are at peace. We'll be ready to see the expansiveness of God's reign, reaching beyond the boundaries of national borders or political parties or the other lines we draw.  We'll be ready, in short, to let ourselves be surprised by God, too.

I get it, though.  It takes some getting used to.  Singing a new song takes more than one try, and it requires a willingness to stumble through words and notes until the new becomes familiar enough to add our voice.  Fair enough--let's stumble through.  Let's take the time, let's risk the wrong notes, let's dare to be pushed out of our comfort zone, enough to let the practice of new songs do its work on our spirits.

There will be time for all the old favorites, too, in their own moment.  For today, let's dare to sing a new song.

Lord God, help us to be open to the surprising ways you move--and train the eyes of our hearts to recognize you in all the places we weren't looking for you, but where you have set up shop and gone to work.