If the Music Isn't Right, No One Hears the Words

Many years ago, in the church I then served, the very talented choir was singing the Sunday morning anthem, a beautiful arrangement of “Tell Me the Story of Jesus.”  It was beautiful, until something happened.  The composer of that anthem had decided to change the key of the song not far from the end.  The choir would sing “love paid the ransom for me,” hold the last note of that phrase and carry it over as the first note of the final section, “Tell me the story of Jesus…”  Great idea, had it happened.  The instruments changed key.  The choir didn’t.  So, for the rest of the song, the instruments and the choir were at musical odds with each other.  It was ugly.  Our choir director, Jim Needham, tried to end everyone’s suffering by cutting the choir off.  He signaled a cutoff several times.  They wouldn’t stop.  It was a harmonic train wreck no one could prevent.  I think that was the moment Jim first heard  a call to the mission field.  No one went home talking about the words of the anthem that day.  They probably remembered nothing about my sermon. The story of Jesus was drowned out by the  terrible dissonance of that musical civil war.  

choir was singing the Sunday morning anthem, a beautiful arrangement of

If the music of your life and mine isn’t right, if our lives are not in harmony with the faith we profess, then, no matter how beautiful or powerful the words of witness we want to share, no one will hear them.  The conflict between what we preach all day and what we try to share in moments of witness will drown out the story of Jesus. 

Master the music of the life you live each day, then a lost world will be eager to hear the words that can guide them to the Giver of a life that really sings.