Some of you were aware that, for the last five weeks, I have served on the Grand Jury for Washington County.  I had never before been summoned to serve on any jury, so I figured it was my turn.  But, I have to tell you, it made for an interesting time, and an interesting juxtaposition of emotions, because my Grand Jury duty occurred during Advent.  Two days a week I heard between seven and eight cases of felony crimes each day, two days a week I spent in a windowless room in the basement of the Washington County courthouse, immersed in the reality of the stupid mistakes, the bad decisions and the bad deeds that some were committing.  Two days a week it was all about the darkness of the world, at a time when we in the church spoke of nothing more than the light of God’s love coming into this very same world.  It made for some interesting emotional swings for all of us serving on that jury, for the prosecutors and probably for the witnesses we heard.  It left me feeling more grateful than ever before for the presence of God, the light of God’s love and the promise of God’s peace that you and I can claim and proclaim.

Now, it looks like this could be an interesting week, at least according to the weather forecasters.  Will it be rain or freezing rain or snow?!  I don’t know… but I do know…

(And here, let me break into an old Girl Scout song)…

Whether the weather is fair, or whether the weather is not!

Whether the weather is cool, or whether the weather is hot!

Whatever the weather, well weather the weather,

Whether we like it or not!

It seems appropriate to begin this sermon on “Beating the Blues – Music as a Spiritual Practice to lighten the dreariness of winter”… with a song!  Countless scientific and psychological studies have shown that music has a profound impact on us.  Whether we are composing it, playing it, singing it, or just listening to it, music stimulates more parts of the brain than any other function.  It has been shown to lower blood pressure, ease pain, combat depression, even speed healing after surgery.  The late Dr. Oliver Sacks, former neurology professor at NYU called music “a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear… it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life itself.”

Matt Haig suggests its power resides in the fact that music is so integral to human experience. He writes:

Music doesn’t get in.  Music is already in. 

Music simply uncovers what is there, makes you feel emotions that you didn’t

necessarily know you had inside you, and runs around waking them up. 

Music provides a rebirth of sorts.

This is nothing new.  In ancient Israel, when Saul was being tormented by a harmful spirit, he asked his servant to find someone skillful in playing the lyre.  In came the boy David… and Scripture says:

David took the lyre and played it with his hand.  Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.

All told, the Bible contains over 400 references to singing and 50 direct commands to sing.  Choir – you are clearly onto something!

We’ve always known at some level that music has profound effects on us physically, cognitively, emotionally, and spiritually.  It is no wonder the Protestant Reformation took seriously Martin Luther’s position about the importance of music for Christians. 

Luther, who was never one to mince words, famously wrote this about music:

A person who does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed… and does not deserve to be called a human being;

He should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.

When the Psalmist exhorts us to   “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth;

Break forth into joyous song and sing praises”…and when the author of Colossians suggests we “Sing, sing your hearts out to God!”,  these are more than simple recommendations for faithfulness. They are very real prescriptions to help us “beat the blues” and to lighten the dark whenever it threatens to envelop us.

Music is a powerful tool for spirituality.  Someone else put it this way:

Music is, at its essence, the sound of spirit.  When created from the heart and with truth and pure intention, music is a spiritual expression of the most universal nature and the highest order.

As far back as Plato, wisdom tells us

Music is a moral law which gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.  When we sing – when we play music – when we listen to it – we can be transported beyond ourselves and even beyond our resistance to the movement of God in our lives.  When we are challenged to change; when we are invited to live in deeper connection with the Divine; when we are called to a life marked more by love than by fear, a life defined by forgiveness rather than resentment, it is easy to come up with reasons to not respond, to not rise to the challenge.  But when our attention is fixed on the music of the moment, God has a chance to show up and be seen.

Lightening the darkness, beating the blues is an act of hope, not just for someday, but for this day – for every day – and hope asks us to open ourselves up to what we do not know.  It asks us to imagine what is beyond our imagining, to see light in the dark, to keep breathing when life takes our breath away.

My favorite moment of my Grand Jury service came one morning when the prosecutor came in and gave us the expected overview of the case we were to hear next, including the indictments he hoped we would hand down.  As usual we were given a description of the charges, including their legal definitions, and an overview of what had happened, and who would be testifying.  This particular morning, he asked all of us assembled jurors “Have you ever had a DUII before?”  The woman sitting next to me rather sheepishly raised her hand and said, “I have”, whereupon the prosecutor burst out laughing and said, “I didn’t mean this to be a confessional moment; I just wondered if you had heard such a case as a Grand Jury before!”

My poor friend was mortified, so I leaned over and whispered to her, “The truth is, probably most of us sitting around this table could have gotten a DUI before, but we’ve just been lucky!”

When you sitting in the darkness, when you feel as if the mistakes you have made and the bad decisions you are suffering and the lousy circumstances you are having to endure are blocking out all the light in the world… it helps to be reminded that you are not alone.  All of us have those moments, all of us know the woundedness and the brokenness that comes with living.

I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases the passage from Colossians:

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

^15-17 Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

So may our hope be made not of wishes, but of substance, of sinew and muscle and bone, of melody and rhythm, and the truth that we are in this life together.  The question for us is not “Do you have a voice?”  The question is simply, “Do you have a song?”

And the answer for all who would follow Christ, is a resounding YES! 

(here, let me break into song again)…

Whatever the weather, we’ll weather the weather,

Whether we like it or not!  Amen.