In a world of noise. . .

It is no secret that we live in a world of noise, constant noise that prevents silence or a single voice from intruding.  Some of it is beyond our control.  The sirens in the day and night, the sounds of engines roaring or brakes squealing, the ordinary background of work and pleasure that fills the neighborhood and the city happen without our consent or our desire.  Some of it is within our control.  The TV or radio or sound tracks that we turn on to prevent us from being alone or being forced to endure silence have become automatic.  Even Church is not without its noise.  Again, some is forced upon us with screaming babies and footsteps on the floor and conversations hushed or loud and phones that seem intent upon being noticed in the very place where they should not be.  

Sometimes it might seem downright rude to intrude upon the silence even further with so many words spoken, notes played, and words sung.  Why can't we simply live in silence at least, as Jesus said to Peter, for an hour or so?  But I would suggest that the songs of faith that we lift in liturgy, hymn, chant, and choral works are not noise at all.  They are, I would posit, the most glorious sound of all.  There is nothing that fills the ear and the spaces of our lives like the sound of voices in chant and song, hymn and choral voice.  Not everyone of us is into music like I am but even those who do not consider themselves singers can hardly label the sounds of sacred music in worship as noise.

As Lutherans, sacred music is not a competitor with the liturgy but an essential part of it all.  It is a formal component of liturgy and there is not much I can say about a completely spoken liturgy without benefit of hymn or chant or instrumental music.  In a world too filled with noise, sacred song has the power to lift our hearts and souls to heaven. The ministers of music are true stewards of the holy art of music and song in sacred form and they help all the people of God to “sing and make melody to the Lord with all of the heart” (Eph 5:19)  One of the really sad things that has taken place is the ‘downgrading’ of sacred music and the replacement of the sacred music with contemporary songs that form a playlist of preferences instead of the wonderful song that joined all voices into one before the Lord.

Microphones and canned music may be considered necessary to us today but they can be simply sources of noise in worship rather than enhancers of the sacred songs of liturgy and hymnody.  The architecture of the churches once worked to make such electronic agents unnecessary but I fear today they only make these artificial noisemakers more necessary.  I well remember moments in which the sounds of sacred song filled the spaces.  Miserere is a setting of Psalm 51 by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably in the 1630s.  It was supposed to be used exclusively in the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week.  Perhaps it would still be obscure would it not be for Mozart, who, as the story goes, committed its sound to memory and wrote it out so the rest of the world could enjoy.  The whole mystique was enhanced by this unwritten performance tradition. Written for three choirs, two of five and four voices respectively, with a third choir singing plainsong responses, it is probably the most recognized and enduring examples of polyphony.  I heard this sound rising up literally from the choir and compelling our souls to look with them to the heights of God';s mercy and grandeur.  That is not noise.  It is, along with the songs of the ordinary and hymns, the sounds that live in the presence of God.  Thanks be to God!