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By David Wright My Sunday evening sermon, “The Music Issue,” briefly reviewed a couple of the arguments for and against instrumental music in church worship and then explained how introducing the instrument inevitably causes division. Forcing a meatball into the mouth of a Christian who abstains from meat for his own spiritual reasons would give great offense and drive him away. Similarly, forcing a piano chord into the ear of a brother whose conscience is violated by mechanical music in the assembly offends and estranges him. After the service Michael Hawkins told me that the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman provides a strong argument supporting a cappella singing. This is true. Jesus was traveling from Judea to Galilee. Tired, hungry, and thirsty, he and the disciples arrived in Sychar, a Samaritan village in the shadow of Mount Gerizim. While the disciples went to buy something to eat, the Lord sat alone by the well. When a woman came to draw water, Jesus asked for a drink. Astonished, she said, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (John 4:9). This woman, who was painfully familiar with broken relationships, expected Jewish men to ignore her. Racial and gender prejudices were strong. But this stranger was willing to drink after her, to put his mouth where hers had been! Intrigued, first by Jesus' openness and then by his uncanny knowledge of her personal history, the Samaritan woman posed a religious question important to her: “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain [Gerizim]; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship” (John 4:20). Were her people right, or were the Jews right? Where did God expect the temple to be? Jesus' answer startled the Samaritan. “Woman,” he said, “the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. […] The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:21, 23). Sadly, many churches never seem to grasp what Jesus said. With their mechanical instruments, choirs, robed clergy, and splendid houses of worship, they attempt to recreate the temple system. But the appeal of true Christian worship is its simplicity. Free of instrumental music and all the other trappings of temple worship, the church can gather in any setting--no matter how humble--and offer up pleasing worship to the Father. All that matters is that our assemblies be characterized by sincere devotion (in spirit) and obedience to God's will (in truth). |