As one who has spent his entire career in the radio industry, thus never having been obliged to do a day of real work in his life, I was charmed by Karen Armstrong’s introduction to her book, The Bible: a Biography. She writes: “when we speak we also get something back: simply putting an idea into words can give it a lustre and appeal that it did not have before … Our speech makes us conscious of the transcendence that characterizes human experience.”
Ms. Armstrong goes on to point out that our Bible began as oral proclamation. “From the very beginning, people feared that a written scripture encouraged inflexibility and unrealistic, strident certainty.” Sounds about right, and perhaps it was why John Calvin, although publishing dozens of commentaries never wrote down any of the thousands of sermons he preached in Geneva. Those that survive were transcribed by students as they were delivered. A sermon, Calvin thought, was meant for those worshippers at that moment.
The challenge, the delight, of “doing radio” alone in a darkened studio is to make listeners of those who only hear. Dictionaries are a little ambiguous about my hair splitting, but when the reader proclaims: “Hear the word of God,” I think “listen to God’s word” might be more fruitful instruction.
My personal highlight in our Presbyterian services are the Prayers of Thanksgiving, Intercession and Commemoration. I listen to the roll of God’s blessings in the world and my heart is opened to His grace among us. If He has done all that, perhaps He will heed our pleas for the unemployed, the lonely and grieving, the hungry and war-stricken around the world, my sister-in-law suffering from cancer. And me, too, in my desperate confusion.
It has taken me a long time to understand that I should not feel guilt because I cannot personally tend to those the preacher mentions, the starving in Africa and the fearful, the wounded and the dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Back in the sixties, meteorologists developed the idea of the Butterfly Effect: if a butterfly happened to flap its wings in Beijing in March, hurricane patterns in the Atlantic would be completely different in August. Maybe if God provokes me to do something a little differently, like treating that obnoxious neighbour with something approaching Christian compassion and understanding, ripples will spread and another missionary will find his or her way to Darfur or another medical student will choose oncology or another widow will be comforted. God will intercede with and through me if I let Him.
Can I do it? The preacher reminds us of the countless generations who did it in the past. If those old guys could, maybe I can too.
In our church, those prayers are followed by a hymn and we hear and share the word of God in a different way. “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote Paul to the Ephesians. Music, to paraphrase Karen Armstrong, makes us conscious of the transcendence that characterizes our humanity.
“We choose music to underline the message of the service,” our Director of Music, Dr. Jonathan Oldengarm told me. “You’re not likely to hear guitars and bongo drums in St. Andrew and St. Paul. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But music written with reverence, that has moved generations, seems to call us back to something we’ve lost, forgotten, a timeless message. The organ, I think, yields gravitas, a firm foundation, to the voices of the choir. There are moments I think of angels. The music washes over us. We don’t hear it or listen to it—we feel it.”
Hear. Listen. Share. Feel. Know, in the deepest sense, the word of God aimed squarely at this wonderer silent in my pew. Will I just hear it or will I listen?
