A men's singing group comes to the Mission to do chapel service.
Their voices are mellow; their lyrics rhyme; their songs are so harmonious not a discord is heard. Syrupy sweet. I think of powdered sugar on pastries; soft pastel colors; and in my distant memory: Tennessee Ernie Ford's picture on a 33rpm record album, his eyes gazing up and away, as if towards glory.
They line up on stage in a row, mikes at the ready; pressed shirts and good will.
The men in the audience are hard and hardened. Some nod their heads and tap their feet. Others stare out into space. A few nod off.
Is this sappy music a balm to their bruised hearts?
Or should the tonalities be more jarring, more unresolved, squares in jagged holes, with clashing noises ...
... within which is nevertheless found The Message?
Logos2Go
Isaiah 53.12 ...he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Luke 7.34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!'
1 Corinthians 4.13 ... being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.
sappy Christian music
Posted by
David Wang
Apr 8, 2010
1 comments:
Sappy: Excessively sweet, emotional, nostalgic; cheesy; mushy (Wiktionary).
Music: an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner; any agreeable (pleasing and harmonious) sounds (wordnetweb.princeton.edu).
It seems to me that the incarnate Good News incorporates both harmony and dischord. The Spirit freely works outside our preferances.
(By the way, there is a sense in which all Christians are sappy: "You now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root" [Romans 11:17].)
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