Sermon text

Faith that Sounds like . . . Jazz

I Corinthians 9:19-23, 2 Peter 3:9, Matthew 5:21-28, Mark 7:15, Mark 9:35  Psalm 139:8-10, John 3:7,8, 15-18

by John Roy

 Jazz has been called the purest expression of American democracy. A musical form built on individualism, cooperation, and compromise. Jazz has been defined as  “a style of music, native to America, characterized by a strong but flexible rhythmic understructure with solo and ensemble improvisations on basic tunes and chord patterns.” Art Blakey, Louie Armstrong, and The Dave Brabeck Quartet are only a few of innovators in what we call Jazz.

Jazz has always been, however, more than its instruments, or arrangements, it is about the jazz way. The jazz way is a way of moving musically in both a structured and improv fashion. Improv is spontaneous but it has purpose, it is more about spirit than the letter of the musical law. A pianist can do improve, a drummer can do improve, anyone can do it. Yet it does not mean doing your own thing, it means leading others to a new place, for in jazz others follow your improv. When a drummer goes off on a rift, soon you will find the upright bass or a saxophone chasing him down and joining the party.

Good Jazz leads to the ability to improv. Improv is bending the conventional thinking about music. As one musician put it, jazz is not written it is played.

Jesus like a good Jazz musician took what was already available an improvised. He took an old chord and made it new. Listen to Jesus’ words from the gospel of Matthew

²¹    You have heard that the ancients were told,  YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.'
²²   "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before  the supreme court; and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
²³   "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
²⁴   leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be⁾ reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
²⁵   " Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.
²⁶   "Truly I say to you,  you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.
²⁷   " You have heard that it was said, ' YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY';
²⁸   but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Conventional wisdom promoted a civil society Jesus promoted a righteous society. Jesus, took the old chord and gave it a new sound. He improvised, he created something new and fresh.

A proverb is a summary of a community's wisdom and as such summarizes a common story “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is an example of conventional thinking. It presupposes a story of common human experience of which it is a distillation. It "is a statement about a particular kind of occurrence or situation, an orderly tract of experience which can be repeated." [Beardslee, "Uses of Proverbs," 65]. The Presupposed story is that tract of experience from which a "cluster of insights" is drawn. The function of the proverbial insight is, in William Beardless's words, to create a "continuous whole out of one's existence." In this sense, proverb belongs to language's mythological dimension, since it seeks to totalize in summary our experience. Like myths, proverbs seek to "think for us," to relieve us of the responsibility for thought. (Hear Then the Parable, pp. 303-304)

Jesus' teaching, is out to do the opposite. Rather than allowing people to continue to think in fixed patterns and along conventional lines, he forces people to think. He turns their ideas upside down and makes people look at life and God's kingdom from a very different perspective.

"If anyone would be first, he must be the last of all and the servant of all." Mark 9:35

Jesus' wisdom is not a natural ethic; it is not something that one can construct out of daily experience even though Jesus uses aspects of daily experience to explain the nature of the kingdom.

"Nothing that goes into a man from outside can defile him but [only] what comes out of a man [speech] defiles him." Mark 7:15. This stands in tension with ritual law. We all know germs come from the outside-in, so how can I be defiled from the inside? Jesus improves, he goes a different direction.

The gospel sounds like Jazz means it cuts against conventional wisdom. It moves in unexpected ways.

The typical chords of this world say, only the strong survive, Jesus says only the faithful survive. We’ve heard it said, we must save ourselves, Jesus says we cannot. The usual notes say we are hopeless, we are on our own. Yet we read “I will be with you always.” We are told:

If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
          If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, ⁽²⁾ You are there.
⁹
       If I take the wings of the dawn,
          If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
¹⁰
       Even there Your hand will ⁽³⁾ lead me,
          And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

Psalm 139:8-10

So the “good news” there is help. God has improvd. He saw our brokenness and so he sent his son. He saw we could not save ourselves so he played a new chord.

Don't be surprised when I say that you must be born from above. ⁸Only God's Spirit gives new life. The Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to.[this is God’s nature to do improv]. . . ¹⁵Then everyone who has faith in the Son of Man will have eternal life. ¹⁶God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die. ¹⁷God did not send his Son into the world to condemn its people. He sent him to save them! ¹⁸No one who has faith in God's Son will be condemned.

                                                                   John 3:7,8, 15-18

I would consider this “good news.” Conventional wisdom says you are only loved for what you do, Jesus loves us for who we are. Conventional wisdom says we are without hold, Jesus love has saved us. Jesus did not stick to the sheet music, he wrote a new piece, and this new piece, saves us from ourselves and our sin, now that’s good news worth singing about.