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ePistle Reflection 2025-02-13: Un mundo que cambia y sigue cambiándo
I’ve been asked several times to teach more. To describe the theology behind my work. To preach the work of music.
The last time I preached here at CSL was 12 January, a date that George and I agreed to 8 weeks in advance. I’m always crafting mini-sermons… when I study scriptures for worship-planning, in real time while listening to others’ sermons and for hours—sometimes days—thereafter. But once I have a date and the requisite texts, my mind is suddenly switched on like the Vacuum Muppet in Muppet*Vision 3D, the sadly-soon-to-be-shuttered, beloved attraction at Walt Disney World (notably Jim Henson’s last Muppet project before his untimely death)—sucking up everything I see and hear and read and experience in search of connections, relevancies, illuminations to carry the message of the gospel to contemporary seekers. If there’s one thing that never stops, it’s the turning of wheels, the grinding of gears in my noggin, the processing, the connecting, the rationalizing, the inspiring, of words, of music, of the world.
Last night, as I drove home from Singing Meeting with the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake, I listened to the soundtrack of Disney’s Encanto, having had enough of the news of the day, and of the week, and of the month, and of the Regime. It’s head-spinning to think that the Encanto story, which is so beautifully, so lovingly set in Colombia, could become a cultural phenomenon in America, the same country in which today Colombians and people from dozens of other s***hole countries are now so afraid. Although never perfectly, America used to embrace the sentiment in Emma Lazarus’s poem so long ago displayed at the feet of The New Colossus, professed to offer “world-wide welcome”. Encanto was embraced by countless millions of Americans, even some who would otherwise demean, exile, threaten this family for its brown skin or its Latin-inflected accent or its casual dropping of an occasional Spanish word or phrase. We have a friend who, a score of years ago, fled to the United States from Colombia after his father drove him out when he came out as gay. Even twenty-odd years ago in America, there was relative safety and acceptance. But what would happen to him today?
We live in a world that changes and continues changing, un mundo que cambia y sigue cambiándo, as Lin-Manuel Miranda—the brilliant and beloved Puerto Rican-Mexican-English-African American-American creator of and contributor to almost universally-beloved masterpieces as Hamilton, In the Heights, Moana, and Encanto—says in the Encanto song “Dos oruguitas”. Some of that change comes through discovery (the result of scientific experimentation and exploration), some of it comes from evolution, some of it comes from the work of the Holy Spirit. But some of it also comes from greed, corruption, and thirst for power.
Part of my work is to show the Church that the world changes, we change, but that the love of God is universal and unchangeable. It may be the one constant in the universe. In our worship, if we practice change, we learn to have figurative sea legs, allowing us to stay upright in our little boat as it sails on the currents of change. None of us can manage alone all the change that surrounds us, but let’s face it—we are part of the change. Every day, our bodies change: they grow or they shrink, they strengthen or they weaken; no matter what else, they age. And our thoughts change. We can embrace healthy change, nurture healthy change, grow through healthy change. Or, we can build walls around our fixed thoughts, our rote practices, our outdated theology. But the walls are like the chrysalis in the song “Dos oruguitas”: we continue to change inside, and the world changes and never stops changing around us. “Oh butterflies, don’t hold on anymore. You have to grow apart and come back. Forward you will continue. They are already miracles, breaking chrysalids. You have to fly, you have to find your own future.” Our change can only be healthy when it is in dialogue with the changes in the world around us. The eruptions we are witnessing now in our world are the expression of a brittleness that comes from keeping the walls up, refusing to change, refusing to accept change, refusing to accept that God’s love is all-encompassing… the love that is meant to be the model for our lives.
One of the greatest gifts I received in my professional growth was the lesson from Michael Ray, my Rector at St. Thomas, New Haven, that change, introduced gently and gradually yet constantly, makes the Church a vital, open, inclusive, relevant place. To be open and creative, to take chances, to learn from mistakes—these are gifts of wisdom the Church can give to a world that, even right outside our chrysalis, right outside our doors, never stops changing.
We have been gifted a compelling gospel to guide our route on the sea. As Pope Francis recently wrote in response to some corrupt theology from the U.S. Vice President, “The true ordo amoris [order of love] that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ (cf. Lk 10.25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.” You might recall that I preached a similar message on 12 January, recalling the same parable. As the world becomes ever smaller, ever more interconnected, our neighbor is no longer just the person on our street, or in our homogeneous town, or our falsely white, Christian nation. Our neighbor is everyone.
And so, I prayerfully seek to guide our liturgy, and our music particularly, to shape our believing and our living. A new hymn we’ll sing this Sunday is an ideal example of saying, singing, what we are called to profess and practice. We need to be constantly, repeatedly reminded of the world outside our chrysalides, and our calling to be a part of it, to respond to it, to heal it.
1
Your ways are not our own,
O gracious God most high,
yet we would follow in your paths
and on your love rely.
2
Christ teaches us to bless
the ones who curse and harm,
to turn the other cheek when struck,
attackers to disarm.
3
Yet, we cannot excuse
abuse in any form,
for all are children of your care,
and love must be our norm.
4
How shall we show your love,
your pardon to believe?
You bid us share as we are blessed
and give as we receive.
5
Forgiveness is our joy,
receiving, giving, too.
Keep us from judgments hard and cruel,
that we may dwell with you.
Words: Lavon Bayler (b. 1933), Copyright © 1988 The Pilgrim Press
May it be ever so.
—Christian M. Clough, Canon for Liturgy & Music, the Feast of Theodora, Empress, c. 867 (Wednesday 12 February 2025)
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