Making music is much more than turning what is on the page into something audible.  What is on the page is just a code for getting the intentions of the composer into someone else's ear.  There are notes to indicate the pitch, dynamics to indicate softer or louder, rhythm to indicate longer or shorter sounds, articulation to indicate connections between sounds, and more.  Beyond these marked indications on the page, how does a musician make the music tell a story?  How does a musician get away from the markings and technical aspects of playing an instrument, and learn to help the listener feel something, be taken somewhere emotionally by what they hear?

Some of my students learn this by learning techniques and then applying them much like one would make a choice from a chart.  Other students just do it.  They don't care about the explanation about how to get louder or softer, or take a part a little slower, or any of the technical ideas.  They can express more than what is on the page naturally.  You just say to be expressive and they add something perfect.

One student I have is a dancer so we've been experimenting with her dancing to one of her songs, and then asking her to show me that dance with her flute.  Her creative and artistic right-brain gets a great work out as a dancer and in the art classes she takes, and as a writer.  So far playing the flute has been an analytical and methodical left-brain exercise as she learns facts and instructions and descriptions of getting the written language of music off of the page.  Trying to move her right-brain skills and intuitions into the realm of flute requires a combination of right and left brain activities.

This is the kind of discussion I have regularly in my flute teaching world.  I don't have these discussions so much when I'm talking about the Bible.  Using the creative right side of our brain when studying scripture isn't the first thing that comes to mind because we think of scripture as something we have to get right.  Each text means something and we need to discover what it is.  We read someone else's words to discover context and history, maybe we try to get the language exactly right.  In the Christian world alone, entire denominations have been built around what people have decided is right.  

Today's text is the second half of a long section of the gospel of John where Jesus is confronted by people doubting his identity, his power, and his origins. In this particular long section Jesus uses the analogy of a shepherd to explain himself.  Even so, Jesus is not very clear in his explanations to those questioning him.  Finally in exasperation the men in the temple say, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

Such a left-brained thing to say.

Our left brain also doesn't make sense of the shepherd language right away either.  If we've been around the church for a while we have had it explained to us by way of pageants, coloring books, children's sermons, pictures and sermons.  If we're not familiar with the stories from church, and we're not shepherds, we have to use our imagination.  That's where the right side of the brain comes in.

The Jewish people in the text for today, including Jesus, were at the temple for the feast of the Dedication, which is the early name for what we know as Hanukkah.  The festival celebrated the events of the dedication of the second Temple as narrated in 1 and 2 Maccabee's, where miraculously the oil for the candles lasted a full eight days instead of running out after seven days.  While the original event was miraculous, it was factual.  The Jewish people of Jesus' day would have known the story, where it took place, what book of the Torah it was in, which temple was being dedicated, and even why the dedication took eight days.  Facts, facts, facts.  

For Jesus to use language from the poetry and songs of the Torah like Psalm 23 was a different kind of language.  The festival of Dedication was honoring the power and miracle of God, not the care and belonging of a shepherd.  A shepherd who knows his sheep, who will not let anything snatch them away, and who will keep them forever.

While we read two scripture texts this morning, all four of the texts from the revised common lectionary for this week have something to do with shepherds.  Diana Butler Bass writes about the role of the shepherd in each of the four texts.  Notice how it's the relationship of the shepherd to the sheep that is highlighted.  She writes, “In Acts, the shepherd is also one who restores wholeness; in the Psalm, the shepherd provides all we need; in Revelation, the shepherd is also the lamb, one who is vulnerable like us; and in John, the shepherd guides and protects. These readings speak beautifully for themselves — reminding us that biblical images are rich in diversity and multivalent meanings.”1

Biblical images that are rich in diversity and meanings require our imagination to find ourselves under the care of the shepherd.  When have we needed to be made whole?  When have we worried about having our needs met?  When have we been vulnerable?  When have we needed guidance and protection?

We can't just go to a chart or go look up facts in an old journal to find these answers.  We have to remember these times.  We need to remember how we felt.  Or we may be there right now and don't have to go back at all to feel the need for guidance; to feel vulnerable in our circumstances and future; to feel broken and wish to be made whole.  Lord in your mercy.  (Hear our prayers)

These memories, or these times in our lives are what give us even the smallest insight into the feelings and lives of others.  We build empathy by going through the struggles that life brings to us.  Empathy makes our hearts big enough to expand the boundaries of who we care for.  

This week I found myself really angry.  The kind of anger that comes from fear.  Not for myself but for others in the future, others living in other places.  There were three things in particular.

One was the leaked opinion from the Supreme Court.  I can't tell you how many times I stopped myself from “sharing” or “commenting” on facebook posts.  I remind myself that facebook words are not conversations, and facebook is just a place to keep the vengeful fires burning.  

Secondly, in a piece on NPR, students from Paradise, CA who have been relocated because the entire town was burned, are learning about climate change.  The teacher doesn't tell them what to think, he just helps them find their own data, asks them questions that will help them voice their thoughts about global warming and/or the relation to the wild fire that devastated their lives.  Not all the kids make the association between the two.  In the piece, they visited the parents of one child who aren't convinced that humans are warming the planet.  They had a very sensible conversation without trying to convince one another, but the child listening said “I don't know who to believe right now.”  Denying the data he had found on his own didn't seem like a good idea, and neither did he know how he felt about his parent's opinion.  At age 13, he will live in the world that is right in front of him, and will need to live his life accordingly.  Listening to his parents skepticism despite evidence made me exhausted.  It was a perfect example of Jesus' response to the questions from the Jewish men, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me; but you do not believe,…”

And thirdly, there are two shelters in Tijuana Mexico for immigrants coming to the United States.  One, run by a church, is extremely crowded, people sleep on the floor, cook for themselves with propane tanks under a plastic tarp, and stay there for months on end with no resources.  The second one, is for Ukrainian refugees who have made it to Tijuana on their way into the United States.  They have mounds of donated items – blankets, toys, art supplies, clothing, much of which has never even been opened.  They sleep in beds, have food brought to them, have a kitchen and exercise area.  The police are there round the clock to protect the Ukrainians in the shelter.  The shelter run by the church is for refugees from Latin countries fleeing violence from cartels, and it can take months to years for the people to get processed into the US.  The Ukrainian refugees get processed in less than 24 hours, mostly within 8 hours.  The refugees aren't there long enough to need the donated supplies.  The Mexican police never come to the shelter where the Latin refugees are even though those same cartels come looking for the families that are hiding from them.  The dramatic difference between what we can do when we want to mobilize and what we choose not to do was hard to hear.  No one at the church run shelter begrudged any of the items for the Ukrainian shelter families.  Everyone understands terror.  

These are just three examples of situations that affect real people, actual individuals with emotions and needs and tragic circumstances; actual communities affected dramatically by clear evidence of human participation in the changes in our world climate; actual life altering choices for women in need of health care.  None of these things are hypothetical.  

Life is not analytical and methodical.  Life is not without patterns and truths.  We are all human beings with physical and emotional needs.  How we use our own struggles and solutions to build resilience adds to our own resources when we look to help others who are struggling find their solutions.  

If Jesus spoke plainly, we might not understand the depth of God's gift to us.  If Jesus spoke plainly we might not hear that in our vulnerability we will be seen and loved and held; in our brokenness we will be made whole; and in our lost and anxious times we will be guided and protected.   These are gifts from God.  These gifts are for everyone.  You and me, those we love and those we struggle to love.  May God spread blessings to all.

Amen.

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1 Diana Butler Bass Sunday Musings

Reverend Debra McGuire

May 8, 2022

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