6/14/23

One of the most traumatic experiences of my life was my college senior recital (I know, I know, I’ve written about this before, but it was to make a different point. Trust me . . . it was a fruitful trauma). The recital went well, everyone seemed to enjoy it, I didn’t have any major mishaps or memory slips, I was wearing all my clothes (unlike I was in my nightmares). . . but once it was over, I didn’t touch a piano for months! 

There was one piece in particular, a Beethoven Sonata in D Major, that just about killed me. I had listened to it and felt like I knew what it was supposed to sound like; however, I soon discovered that listening to it and then making my own music from that mass of notes were two different things! 

I got through it, but looking back on it, I feel like I was typing more than playing music. Sure, I was reproducing all the notes Beethoven had written down, but music is often found in the space between the notes, in the pedaling, in the shaping of phrases - in a thousand small, informed decisions made in the moment. 

About 20 years later, I decided to take the same Sonata up again with a different teacher. Now, understand me, this is no knock on my college piano teacher at all; Dr. Adams was a wonderful teacher, mentor, pianist, Christian woman. But my later teacher’s teacher’s teacher’s teacher’s teacher’s teacher was Beethoven, and he understood Beethoven’s music on an entirely different level. 

The second time I played the Sonata was a completely different performance. I understood the piece in ways I never could have when I was in college. When I played it in a recital, I could feel the audience moved - especially in the slow, dramatic second movement. It was one of the most fulfilling musical experiences I ever had.

But it really wasn’t me. It was Beethoven.  

Sure, I played all the right notes, shaped the phrases, pedaled sensitively, found music in the space between the notes . . . but it was all notes, phrasing, pedal marks, etc. that Beethoven had written down, and I was taught in a tradition that Beethoven had handed down.

It was me honoring the creation of the master.  

I think that’s similar to how we work with God in creation. We know that God is the ruler over all His works (see Psalm 95:3-6), but God has shared that rule with us. We learn from Psalm 8, “You have given them [humankind] dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet . . ..” God is a power-sharing God! 

We could say (here I’m borrowing from N.T. Wright) that God is like a great composer whose child is a brilliant pianist. The composer writes a beautiful sonata for his child, and the child plays it, producing beautiful music. The pianist-child owes the entire experience to the father-composer — without him conceiving of the ideas and writing down the notes (not to mention the genetics and diaper changes and all the other parental stuff),  neither the music nor the musician would exist to begin with. The Father-composer hands his creation to the pianist-child who shares in the creation process by bringing the composition to life, and together they delight in creating music.

The pianist doesn’t just make the music up, nor does the pianist just carelessly ignore the wishes of the composer (although some try). 

There are times when the child-pianist especially needs the help of the father-composer. Often there are difficult passages where the pianist needs help with the proper fingering.  There are complex passages where the melody is hidden in a maze of notes, and the pianist needs help knowing what notes to bring out and what notes to hold back (I’m thinking about a certain Rachmaninoff composition I was attempting to play . . . I knew there was music in there . . . somewhere . . . but couldn’t find it on my own). Sometimes the pianist needs help discerning the intent of the composer. 

No, the pianist doesn’t just make stuff up nor does he ignore the composer’s wishes. To make music,  there has to be a partnership (the Greek word is koinonia)  between composer and musician. 

And for me, that’s what prayer is like. There are treacherous passages we need help with. There are times when the melodies of life are hidden, and we have to ask God what we need to play and what we need to let go of. Part of exercising the dominion with which God has entrusted us is to take our little worlds and hold them up before God in prayer, asking him to take care of whatever needs we have. 

Our prayers are part of that power-sharing partnership we have with God. 

Could God rule this world more efficiently without us? Absolutely! But that’s not the way he has chosen to work. God works in us and through us, and in making us fellow participants in his redemptive work. God entrusts his creation to us. “Our little worlds” (to borrow from Bob Ross) begins with our own hearts and then stretches out in all directions around us to embrace our families, our friends and co-workers, our communities, our nation and out to the world beyond. 

As you pray this week, think about life as a power-sharing partnership with our Creator God, bringing your needs and the needs of this world to God as a co-worker with God in his redemptive work.

Blessings,
Pastor Terry