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Revelation 5:1-14 · The Scroll and the Lamb
The iPod Vs. The Larynx
Revelation 5:11-14
Sermon
by Steven E. Albertin
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The book of Revelation is a vision that occurs on the Lord's day. When you read the book, it feels like a worship service. In fact, in the historic liturgies and worship services of the church (regardless of one's denomination or tradition), more passages from the book of Revelation are used than from any other book in the Bible. The book is filled with hymns, sections of hymns, colorful and vivid images, and metaphors that simply beg to be used in a service of Christian worship.

Today's reading is one such passage. When reading it, one image just jumps out and slaps you in the face. Worship is ultimately not intended to be a solitary activity. It is foremost an activity in which the people of God gather together and as a corporate group (not just as the sum total of solitary individuals) to offer their praise to God. John in his visionary book repeatedly pictures the people of God, the saints, the angels, the elders, and all the company of heaven and earth, literally the whole creation gathered together to thank God for what God has done in Jesus Christ.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing! (Revelation 5:12b)

I suspect that this was an important point for John to make as he penned his message to the embattled and persecuted Christians of the late first century. One of the most cynical and vicious strategies that persecutors like to inflict on their victims is "divide and conquer." Isolate your victims from their community, from the support of their friends and fellow believers, and the more likely you are to get them to capitulate. Many of those first-century Christians refused to capitulate and joyfully went to their martyrdom. There were even more who did cave in. Many of them probably did it because they were afraid to be alone. They were cut off from their fellow believers. Their enemies even convinced them that they were cut off from their God who could no longer help them in their hour of need. So, they gave in. They caved in. They burned their incense to Caesar rather than burn at the stake or be lunch for the lions. They fell for the lie that God had abandoned them. There is nothing worse than being alone.

That is why corporate worship is such an essential part of being the church. The community nourished and fed by "the blood of the Lamb" (a favorite image of Revelation) together gathers to pray, to read and hear scripture, to eat and drink around the table, to bathe its initiates in the font, and ... as Revelation portrays so vividly ... to sing together.

Recently a pastor friend of mine and I visited another congregation. The experience got me thinking about this passage from Revelation and the importance of corporate worship and a congregation singing together.

We visited the congregation with my friend's musician to check out their digital organ for possible purchase for their new sanctuary. While there I discovered that the congregation has had the organ mothballed and unused for about five years.

Why would they have done that to such a fine musical instrument? Because, as their pastor told us, they had made the commitment to "contemporary praise music" in all their worship services. While we were there, the pastor was proud to show us their "new" worship space, which was their "old" gymnasium.

When we walked into the space, something struck me as being very odd. As we talked to one another, it sounded as if we were talking in a clothing closet. We could hear each other, but we sounded very muffled. I noticed that there were panels of baffling hung all over the ceiling and the walls were covered with fabric. As a result, there was no echo in our voices whatsoever. Acoustically it was one of the most "dead" rooms I had ever been in.

When the pastor left us to answer a phone call, I turned to friends and asked, "How in the world can a congregation sing in a room like this?" My friend's musician smiled and said to me, "They don't. This entire space is designed for the electronically amplified praise band and the song leaders standing in the front of the congregation on the stage."

The musician's observation reminded me of a conversation I had with my friend about the interview process he and several members of the building committee held during their search for the sound engineers and consultants who would help them craft the acoustics of their new sanctuary. During the course of those interviews it became very obvious that some of those engineers did not understand what they were trying to do in their new worship space. Some were trying to sell them all kinds of electronic equipment with a huge mixing board because they assumed they were trying to support a praise band and song leaders. But that was not their goal. They wanted a sanctuary to support the natural acoustic sound of the human voice and unamplified musical instruments. They wanted a space that would not just electronically amplify the voices of a few song leaders but magnify the unamplified natural acoustics of the voices of an entire congregation.

My friend and I have a similar understanding of worship and church music. Therefore, it was not surprising that all three of us commented that for us church music and congregational song is not just a matter of personal taste. It is not just that we prefer the natural sound of unamplified voices over the sound of the electronically amplified voices. On the contrary, we want a worship space that reflects our understanding of the nature of the church. Congregational singing can greatly affect one's understanding of the church. In other words, there is a lot more at stake here than meets the eye. Or should I say the ear?

The world has changed dramatically during my lifetime. It always seems that when it comes to technology, I am the last one to figure out the changes. I still buy CDs for my music. But my children tell me that mode of sound reproduction is slowly dying. Now it is time to welcome the age of the iPod and the digital download. I am sure you have seen many people, not just necessarily teenagers, walking around with plugs in their ears attached with skinny long wires to a little box in their hands or in their pockets. Welcome to the iPod where anyone can digitally download their favorite music into their own personally customized musical "library." Now everyone can customize their own personal entertainment. Now you don't have to put up with someone else's bad taste in a noisy room. Now you can escape and hide in your own personal musical world.

As a result we are creating a world of musical consumers. Vocal music teachers have been complaining to me for years that people just don't seem to be able to sing or are interested in singing like they used to. In the age of the iPod, the larynx is losing out to electronics.

Years ago when I lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I made a discovery that dramatically portrayed to me this major change that has slowly taken place in our society over the last century. Some of the members of my congregation lived down the street from a quaint little city park called "PackardPark." One day I asked them if that park was named after the old Packard automobile. They said, "Oh, no! That was the location of the old Packard Piano Company." I had never heard of the Packard Piano Company before. So, I did a little research.

At the turn of the twentieth century, about 1900, America was filled with hundreds of piano manufacturers. Many, many homes had their own pianos. And the biggest, most widely produced printed matter in the country was not books or magazines but sheet music! Why? Because in the age before radio, television, computers, and iPods, families would actually get together in the evenings around the piano and sing. If you didn't have someone who could play the piano, you would buy a "player piano." It was then that I realized that as wonderful as our modern musical technology is, we have lost something in the process. Those must have been great days to experience family and community as everyone gathered around the piano to actually sing. That sense of "togetherness" and community is so difficult to create today as we race through our frantic weekly schedules. We are lucky if the whole family gets to sit around the table to eat together. Sitting together to sing ... that is unheard of! We might join in humming the melody of a popular song that we hear on the radio. We might be able to mouth a few words. Have you ever tried to get several people to join in "singing" the latest rap or hip-hop song? It is virtually impossible.

We live in a world dominated by "individualism." The days of the "Top 40" hits are long gone. The music market has been splintered into dozens of different styles and demographics. There are only a few piano manufacturers. Who buys sheet music besides choral directors? What do we sing together anymore? "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" or "The Star Spangled Banner"? It seems that there are fewer and fewer who can even sing those anymore. But everyone loves music and has their own, private and personal favorites downloaded onto their individual iPod so that they can go off in their corner and listen alone.

I am concerned that in this rush to speak to the world of the iPod, its language of electronically amplified and personalized music and its core entertainment values, we will abandon being the church. The church is a kind of community that ought to never totally "fit in" to the world because to do so would abandon who we are as the people of God.

The church in the New Testament is called the ekklesia, that is the "called-out ones." The church is not just a collection of individuals. We are called as individuals into a community by the voice of the gospel. The gospel holds us together into a community and collection of people that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. John's picture in the second reading of the whole creation worshiping God and the lamb reflects just this kind of community.

We come together not just as people of northern European ethnic extraction, not just as upper-middle-class suburbanites, or as people who prefer a given style of music or church architecture. We are called together because we have heard the good news of Jesus and Christ and have staked our lives on it. For as much as we might share common tastes and preferences or as much as we might like each other as friends, what ultimately holds together this diverse congregation is Christ and the message of his gospel.

That sense of being a community called together by a message is reflected in the most important thing we do as community every week: worship. We are gathered as a community to be a community. We come together not just as individuals, living in our own private space to have our own private needs met. We are a community that has been called together and remains glued together by the grace of God. Therefore, our worship ought to reflect that reality.

That means worship is not merely "entertainment." We come not to just sit in seats to watch and listen to a "show" that is taking place before us on a stage. Worship is not like going to a concert where we are entertained by performers on a stage. If it were, then we would want our churches to be modeled after a good concert venue, such as good sight lines, visually stimulating, good sound amplification that enables us to clearly hear the music of the performers and eliminates any distracting noise from the audience. The audience is welcome to sing along but clearly amplification of the sound of the performers is most important.

The church that I visited with my friends was modeled exactly on that kind of experience. They no longer needed an instrument like this large organ that was designed for congregational singing. They needed a space that inhibited and even silenced congregational singing since everything is about the performance of the worship leaders who were positioned in front of the congregation on a stage. It is no accident that many such churches will call their worship not a "service" but an "experience." Personal, subjective, individual involvement is of paramount importance. Unless "I can feel it," the worship experience is of little value.

Worship portrayed by John in this passage from Revelation is very different. Yes, we want worship to be lively and not boring. We want music to be performed well, regardless of its style. (The so-called distinction between "contemporary" and "traditional" music is not very helpful. All music is "contemporary," performed and heard in the here and now. The question concerning music ought to be quality. Is it done well? Does it fit the occasion? Can the corporate group sing it?) Yes, we want it to be relevant to our daily lives and not simply an exercise in some unintelligible, mysterious cult. But the focus of worship first and foremost is not on us but on God and the good gifts God so graciously showers on us, beginning with God's love for the world in Jesus Christ. Therefore, our songs, prayers, words, drama, dance, and music are "served" (in a worship "service") to God. Our worship is to honor, praise, and glorify God. It is not about us and our "experience." It is not a "performance" that we put on for one another's benefit or entertainment. Our musicians and vocalists do not stand in front of us so that we can "watch" them.

Our attention is directed to God. If we applaud, it is not for a good performance done well but because we are thanking God for making possible such marvelous music. But I suspect that, when worship is done "well" and honors God, we will also find it pleasing to our sensibilities. It will have been something that was a pleasure to "experience."

Most of all weekly, corporate worship is something the "community" does. It is something that we do together as a group. That is certainly reflected in John's glorious picture of this massive community of all the creatures in heaven and on earth gathered in a community worshiping God as a community. Congregational song, singing where all join together raising their voices in a common melody, making a sound that is simply impossible to create as individuals, is essential and fundamental not only to Christian worship, but also it is a reflection of how we understand ourselves as the church of Jesus Christ.

Every congregation is an amazing collection of people. If you closely look at any Christian congregation regardless of its size, this particular group of people would probably never choose to associate with each other were it not for the voice of the gospel that has called them together. But since they have been "called out," since they are an ekklesia, expressing themselves as a community is important to them. When they raise up their voices in common song, when they actually can hear each other sing and reinforce and encourage one another in their singing, they give powerful testimony to the power of Christ and his Spirit that has created this amazing and marvelous community.

Perhaps some of you have walked into a worship space that is very conducive to making this happen. It is usually a space that has good height and has a lot of hard surfaces. Such a space is anything but "dead." It does not "muffle" sound. Instead, it makes sound come "alive."

A few years ago I had the privilege of worshiping in the chapel at ValparaisoUniversity, which is just this sort of acoustically friendly space with a high ceiling and lots of hard surfaces. The service began outside the chapel in the open air. We processed into the chapel singing a hymn. I distinctly remember what happened to our singing as we entered the new sanctuary. Outside our singing got "lost" in the open space. But when we entered that space, everything changed. Without the aid of any electronic amplification, the sound literally "exploded." It was as if someone had turned up the volume tenfold. The congregation's song literally took on a new form. It sounded much different as the sound reverberated around that glorious space. We were able to vividly hear each other sing in a way that did not happen when we were outside. Because we could hear each other, we encouraged one another to sing even louder and clearer. We created a unique sound that was more than just adding individual voices together. That day I literally experienced "auditory evidence" for this new reality called "the church."

Just think of it. There are very few places in our society where people gather together to sing as a group. The days of families gathering together to sing around the piano are long past. Our individualistic world has made us pay a great price and lose something that was truly precious. But not the church! Here we still gather together around the piano, the organ, the table, the font, and the sacred text to hear the good news and experience a sense of togetherness, family, and community that can be found no other place in this world.

In the church as we gather for worship we can literally leave behind our iPods, flex our larynx, and join the angels, archangels, seraphim, cherubim, all the company of heaven, and the myriads of creatures (as John reminds us).

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, "To the one seated on the throne and to he Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" (Revelation 5:13)

Amen.

CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Sermons for Sundays in Lent and Easter: But!, by Steven E. Albertin