Day 057: Instruments

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal."  1 Corinthians 13:1

After reading this article, I have come to understand this verse a little differently.  Basically, the sounding brass and the clanging cymbal are both tools to help one's voice project in a hall.

Here are two more modern examples that might help to explain the metaphor a little further:

The grand piano is indeed quite grand.  It's a large wooden instrument that can look like an obscenely large table, especially if you put a tablecloth on it rather than an actual cover.  It makes no sound when it's all closed up.  However, when you look at it, you can think about all the different possibilities, from Bach and Beethoven to Thelonious Monk to Queen.  Still, it makes no sound without a player.  If you want to think even further about it, the instrument could be significantly lighter and smaller if you did not have a large resonating chamber built into the instrument.  Again, that whole chamber, the big black box holding all the keys and strings, can't make any sound on its own.  It needs the soul of music and of the musician to make it come alive.

Another example is of a church building.  You can design it with all the fancy windows, parallel walls, wood, marble, arches, or gold you want, but it's just a building.  It's something that can be used for any number of purposes besides being a worship space.  In Boston, there are many church buildings that were converted to apartments because they no longer had congregations.  Imagine that: a condo with a bell tower all for yourself, or play tennis in the sanctuary, or have your king sized bed where many a Eucharist were celebrated.  Closer to my house, there was a large grocery store that moved to another location before being bought out entirely by another company.  In the building left behind, half was converted to a gym, and the other half was converted into a church.  It's the congregation, the Holy Spirit moving, that makes the church.

When we understand that we can recite bible verses, recite prayers, keep our mouth shut for about five minutes with our eyes closed, or even sit in a church for about an hour and come out without having been transformed, we can see that we can become mere resonating chambers.  When we go about our lives without love, we are nothing more than vessels on the sides of the room, doing absolutely nothing but standing there.  It's when we start to spread the love, both to ourselves and to all those around us that we can begin to make the music, to resound with the Gospel.

Make this Lent count.  Make this Lent be the one where everything you do has a purpose: love.