For Wilshire Baptist Church
I often stream our local classical music radio station as I work at the computer, especially in the afternoon. But I got impatient with the station recently because they were having their first-ever public-radio-style pledge drive. That makes perfect sense for them since they merged with our local NPR station and are now part of that world. But they were talking more than playing music and it was cramping my style.
So I went on the internet and found a portal for classical music stations worldwide. I went to New York City first because I thought a station in Manhattan would be smart and sophisticated, but they were talking too much too, in this case about local city government issues. Apparently the Big Apple is as wormy as Big D. So, I scrolled the list of stations and landed on Radio Swiss Classic, and voila, I found what I was looking for: A station that plays the music with minimal DJ commentary. And the beauty of that is that other than the name of the composer and the mention of “adagio” or “allegro” or “minuet,” I’m not distracted by their words because they’re in French or German or a blend. Still, I know what they’re saying.
As I’ve listened, I’ve been struck by the universality of the music. No matter the language or the culture, Brahms is Brahms, Mozart is Mozart, Chopin is Chopin. All are universally understood and appreciated by the audience listening. And listening to the music that way without our American English commentary, it makes the world seem smaller, more connected and more congenial. That’s something I’ve needed lately with so much turmoil in the news. It’s good to know that through timeless music, there’s still a vein of civility that can unite us if we’re listening for it.
It’s the same feeling I had a few years back when we visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. We walked through during a daily mass and couldn’t help but slow down and listen to catch fragments of the liturgy: the prayers, scriptures, responses. But it all came together in that historic sacred space when the priest, speaking in French and then English, invited everyone — local parishioners and foreign tourists alike — to recite the Lord’s Prayer in their own language. There were dozens of tongues being spoken and yet all heard and understood each other. It was a Pentecost moment.
It’s helpful in these times of turmoil to remember that our faith is universal because we worship a universal God; a God that does not belong to one country or culture any more than Mozart belongs to Austria, Debussy to France or Copland to the United States. Likewise, God doesn’t bless one nation or culture more than another. All are created equally and equally loved by God. We don’t follow suit, however, and for a species said to be created in God’s very image, that is troubling. Actually, it is the worst possible failure. Jesus narrowed all the laws and the commandments down to just two: Love God and love one another. We do poorly on the second half of that, which means we’re failing on the first.
We need Pentecost more than ever, but we don’t know how to do it. We talk too much and don’t listen enough. It’s fine to have different languages, different ideas, different opinions, but unless we stop talking and start listening, we’ll never know what still unites us. At that first Pentecost, the people only understood each other because they listened. Most important, they listened with their hearts as well as their heads. Which, by the way, is the best way to listen to music.