God is a Better Composer than Brahms, Beethoven, or Elton John!

written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski

“Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. ”

— Ephesians 5:19

Yesterday, I shared the parallels between music and Christian spirituality through the musical teaching of composer and director Aaron Copland. In Copland’s book What To Listen For In Music, Copland guides our listening experience. Copland begins the book by stating, “If you want to understand music better, you can do nothing more important than listen to it.” The same is true with the Christian faith. You cannot understand God and the faith without listening for the Spirit’s movement. You can study regularly and never know God. Faith is found in listening and living experientially with God.

Copland continues, “There is, however, one minimum requirement for the potentially intelligent listener. He must be able to recognize a melody when he hears it.” Recognition of music’s melody is central to appreciating music. Faith in God also requires recognizing the divine melody. The Christian faith becomes warped when they stop listening to God’s melody and begin playing the melody they want and claiming it is God’s. God’s melody includes such notes as love, kindness, compassion, prayer, worship, justice, etc. When those spiritual notes are missing, God is not the composer.

Copland teaches, “You must be able to relate what you hear at any given moment to what has just happened before and what is about to come afterward.” For music appreciation and worship of our Triune God, knowing how to relate to the past, present, and future, is vital to appreciation. We read the Bible and include Scripture in our worship, as a way of learning how God related to the past. Knowing how God related to people in the past, gives us the ability to relate to God’s care for us in the present and the future.

We find God in listening for God’s divine melody, so we are able know God well enough to appreciate God’s composition in the past, present, and into the future. We are called to listen to the divine symphony, in all its magnificent complexity. Experiencing God, requires our active participation. Learn and sing the divine melodies and God will sing along, bringing joy and happiness to your life, forevermore.