Contributing a Verse--February 14, 2023

Contributing a Verse--February 14, 2023

"What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each." [1 Corinthians 3:5-8]

An awful lot of growing in Jesus' kind of love is actually learning to get over ourselves--or at least getting over our impulse to get more time alone in the limelight.  That's especially difficult for us in twenty-first century America, because we live in a culture that idolizes celebrity solo acts, but needs more symphony ensembles.

I don't mean that we only need more orchestras to play classical music (although I'm all for that), but more that our culture teaches us to long for the spotlight ourselves when we could really use more people willing to contribute their small part to a larger whole that brings a bigger beauty than any individual could have done alone. Our TVs run a seemingly endless parade of reality singing competitions where solo voices compete for one prize, but there's no primetime programming that shows the hard work and dedication of people working together to let each person's gifts improve the others. We teach our kids to want to be rock stars, TikTok sensations, or internet celebrities, when there is something so much more powerful, so much richer, that happens when my abilities can be directed to enhance yours, and yours can bring out the best of someone else's, in a great chain of collaboration. In short, we need an orchestra's worth of love, where violins are supported by violas, where flutes and clarinets each get their moments with the melody, and where cellos, basses, trombones, and timpani are glad to add their low notes underneath as well.

I say this with the recollection of years spent in the string bass section of the high school and college orchestra, and with the awareness that a lot of the time, my part didn't sound very good on its own, until it was combined with the rest of the orchestra. There was something almost miraculous about rehearsals where we would put things together for the first time, and I would discover how my little runs of low notes fit into the larger piece. I might have practiced my own part to play it as well as I could, but only when it was put together with all the other instruments could I experience the true beauty of the music.

If you ask a symphony musician what the point of their practicing is, they will gladly tell you that it's to create something bigger than any one musician can do alone. The best orchestra members aren't trying to grab the limelight for themselves, but see their work as contributing to something more than the sum of their parts. They find a joy and a purpose apart from how much attention they get for their own part, but for how the whole thing comes together. It's the same with the audience--nobody goes to the symphony and says, "Wait til you hear how the bassoon player plays a B-flat!" or "I only come for the third trumpet player on the right--he's gonna be a rock star!" You go to listen to the way each individual contribution becomes gathered up in real time to create something more moving and more powerful than one lone musician can create by him or herself. The music itself, and the opportunity to create something beautiful, is the reason to play--not the chance to become a diva or a star.

And if we can understand that same sense of the fullness that comes from each person contributing to the beauty of the whole without needing to make themselves the prima donna, we can understand Paul's sense of why we each offer our abilities and labor to the community called church.  And more importantly, we can understand how love works--because Jesus' kind of love isn't threatened or jealous of acknowledging what someone else contributes, or so insecure as to need to brag about its own importance, rather than just to play its own part. None of us is here to become a celebrity solo act. We are here for the sake of something we may each add that makes the whole more beautiful. Our individual abilities, talents, time, and work mean something, but the goal isn't to leverage them into status and to become a "star," but so that they can make something more beautiful that is worth creating, regardless of getting credit for it.

There's something truly freeing about that perspective, too--it means we aren't trying to do something big or important for the sake of getting noticed, or to earn someone else's approval. It's simply that we see the work of the Reign of God is so compellingly beautiful that it's worth each of us giving our lives to, without needing to be in the limelight for doing it. When you live your life aiming to get the credit, attention, or approval of others, you're bound to be forever unsatisfied, and every bit of effort has to be thought of in terms of what it "gets" you. But when you see yourself as a musician in an ensemble, you get a sense that it's a gift just to be allowed to participate and make your music. You get a sense that you are blessed to be able to get to give what you have to offer, and to see how your pieces make the whole better, while others' additions enrich what you bring. Rather like Walt Whitman offers in his poem, "O Me! O Life!" when he lays out the question, essentially, of why he (or anyone) should bother continuing on with life in the world despite its sorrows, toils, and weariness, the answer comes like this: "That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."

To be a Christian means learning to let go of the celebrity solo-act mentality, and instead to see that it is worth spending our lives building others up, strengthening one another's gifts, and playing our parts of the sheet music, regardless of getting credit or becoming a sensation. Each of us gets to contribute a verse, to be sure, and then we each get to share in listening to the verses that everyone else will contribute as well. That's how genuine love--the Christ-like kind--works. The music we create together is worth giving our energy and time for. Or, in Paul's gardening imagery, it's worth it, whether you're the one planting or watering, to spend yourself in growing something good and worthy and beautiful, even if you don't get to be the hero at harvest time. The goal isn't to point to ourselves, but to contribute a verse to the great play, to add our harmonies to the symphony God is conducting. And when we can ditch the tired culture of celebrity for that kind of life, we are not only free--we are more fully alive in Jesus' love.

Lord God, enable us to offer what we have and what we are to the new song you are bringing about while the watching world listens.