Pastors are often asked about their call story: how they discerned spiritually or otherwise that public ministry was for them. Some might focus on a couple influential individuals or events where they felt God was reeling them down the ordained route. For me, several people and seemingly holy instances had me wondering if something was going on there. The final straw might have been the college choir.
I had always been in choirs; well, since the 2nd grade, I think. For a while, it was the churchy thing to do if you liked the whole church thing. Come high school, I started to wonder if there was something truly inspirational that we were singing about: as if it might just affect those in the pews. But college was another level of depth and awe and…well, something was going on there.
I didn’t think I was ever going to make this choir, though. Even though I was putting on robes on a Sunday morning since elementary school, that didn’t mean I could carry a tune in a bucket as the ‘ole saying goes. Voice lessons in high school helped improve that ever so slightly, but I still didn’t think I was ever going to get a personal invitation to join the big choir on campus, and I certainly wasn’t going out of my way to try out for it. But for some reason beyond understanding, the director of the smaller, not quite as prominent, chapel choir that I had joined (since you didn’t need to audition for that one) was also the director of THE choir, and encouraged me to try it out. He probably just needed some basses to help in his fuller scale numbers, but on I went.
I don’t know if I helped musically all that much, but to be in the space in front of the altar in our campus chapel for Reformation Sunday and Advent Lessons & Carols and other concerts was some level of holy depth and awe and…well, something indeed was going on there. It carried over to the spring tours in these random Lutheran churches scattered across the southeast one year and the northeast the next. I started to notice the pew-occupiers being visibly moved by what we were singing. Something was going on there. It was as if the words combined with the music were somehow mixed with a dose of the Holy Spirit, and those sanctuaries became engulfed with love and hope and new life rejuvenation. It’s as if we weren’t there to show off talent (or not as much for me necessarily), but to, in our own way, proclaim the Gospel as if it really meant something.
Those holy evenings continue to stick with me in the depths of my soul. And I always assumed that that…whatever it was going on there, would constantly keep that group going: that group that meant so much not just to me, but hundreds of others for decades before. And then came a couple weeks ago: a Sunday afternoon, the day meant for a holy renewal of sorts because of the renewal of the entire universe ushered in by Jesus Christ with the Resurrection on the 1st day of the week and all. But on this Sunday afternoon, it was the end for THE choir. The economic realities of the world, including for the comparatively smaller liberal arts universities, meant the end of this one’s music department, which, in turn, meant the elimination of the choir.
It was the tradition for us to end our main spiritual music numbers with When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, a fitting theological reminder for us who struggle with all this change nonsense and having to make tough decisions nonsense and that what’s near and dear to our hearts evidently not always lasting forever…nonsense; a fitting reminder that Christ emphatically joins us in those heart-wrenching struggles, and will journey with us no matter how long it takes to even just take the next single step. The tradition would then continue onto to the choir venturing down surrounding the pews and singing the Benediction.
Supposedly when the current students joined by alumni’s words combined with the music with whatever dose left of the Holy Spirit drew to its finale, there was a deafening silence. It was as if there were no words to give then. No way to explain what had somehow transpired: a Lutheran-affiliated college, with a historic insistence on bringing the Gospel to life through music…gone. Or…maybe…the words were settling in to an even greater depth than ever considered before. Because before, it was just the churchy thing to do, to sing that Benediction. It was the last thing before life could just go on as usual. But maybe the Holy Spirit was still at work even in the bleakest of circumstances: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace…and give you peace. Amen.”
In Christ,
Pastor Brad