The other day at "worship practice" (I'll speak about the oxymoron in that phrase another time), the sound in the monitors was "messed up" (a highly technical term used only in amateur musician circles). After an extensive search for the electronic or human culprits, it was discovered that someone had removed the small stack of hymnbooks that were used to prop up the floor monitor that feeds sound to the platform. Once the hymnbook stack was replaced, the monitor again gave to us (rather than to the ceiling) our sense of "how we were sounding" and all was again well (on an amateur level!). Evidently, someone new had come along and cleaned the platform and thought a stack of old hymnbooks did not belong under a monitor, but oh, how they did!
The obvious admission from the above report is that the hymnbooks, which were a gift to us when we started the church years ago, don't get used for their originally intended purpose. Every now and again when a Vineyard-type acoustic recording of a hymn comes out, we glady grab it and give it a whirl, but even then, we type the words into the power-point and electrically project them large for all to see! We don't say, "Now turn to page 313..." As I glanced down at the hymnbooks supporting the monitor, it occured to me, however, that nothing was actually wrong with that picture!
New expressions really always rest upon what has preceeded them. Nothing arises from a vacuum. We are all a part of the river through time that is the church of Jesus Christ. We actually are singing the new hymns of the day (I'm sure Charles Wesley would enjoy Tim Hughes and maybe even Bono???) and every true hymn-writer that I have encountered seems to feel a true respect for those who have gone before, serving their generation.
Recently in an interview on "Inside the Actor's Studio," Russell Crowe referred to his acting as a manifestation of the gypsy blood within him. He said that gypsies are storytellers and if he had been born in medieval times, he would have been a storyteller still. He would have done from the back of a travelling wagon what he gets to do now on film. In those comments, he revealed a great respect and understanding for the craft in which he participates--AND for its heritage. The form may change, but even Led Zepellin knew, "the song remains the same."
If you want to take the metaphor too far (and I always do), if there was a lack of respect in my little hymnbook incident, it was not in the propping of the monitor with the books, but the removal of them! Someone thought they didn't belong in the current scene. But I say, they belonged just where they were. We could have propped that monitor with a block of wood, but now every time I look at it, I am conscious of the reformers that have gone before, writing hymns of challenge and change, like,
"Rise up O men of God...have done with lesser things...give heart and soul and mind and strength to serve the King of Kings..."
Now, Martin Smith, resting on that heritage can write, "I want be a history-maker in this land...I want to be a speaker of truth to all mankind...I want to stand...I want to run into your arms..."
I don't de-value the hymnal because I stick it under a monitor. I honor it by singing words worthy of the warriors who have gone before.
Again I direct you to Matthew 13:52
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