Chapter One
setting the stage
When I was in college, I used to study for my Greek and Hebrew exams at a local jazz venue. I was fascinated as the ensemble played together, in concert with and for each other. As I watched the way the musicians supported one another, casting glances to communicate, and how each instrument complemented its neighbor - IT began to dawn on me.
One time, young and old, rich and poor, country and hip-hop, black, brown, and white, surrounded me. The band had a Latin saxophonist and a young dread-locked brother on stand-up bass. On piano and drums two middle-aged men, one black and the other white, played together.
As the groove began, the saxophone player motioned for someone in the crowd, an elderly black man, who slowly made his way to the stage. His voice was far from perfect, but as this man sang about love gained and love lost ...
IT was present he had IT we wept because of IT
For almost two decades now, I have wondered what it is about this thing called jazz that brings so many kinds of people together. Oftentimes I listen to a saxophonist solo, and I can''t help but think that there''s something in this for me. When I see an eclectic ensemble allowing for fresh takes on old standards, or as I look around the sometimes smoke-filled room and see that I am sitting with all hues of skin, I sense that there is something in this for the body of Christ.
As followers of Christ I think that we have something to learn from jazz. For as I watch the way Jesus interacted with people, healing one blind man with a word and using saliva on another, I see him improvising. As I ponder how he taught, drawing on old themes in fresh ways, I see IT in Jesus. I see Jesus in IT.
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A jazz-shaped faith is worth pursuing because it balances freedom with boundaries, the individual with the group, and traditions with the pursuit of what might be. I have discovered in jazz a way of thinking, living, communicating - a way of being ... a groove. Not a rut, but rather a set of factors that converge, creating a place to settle in and space to be.
Jazz is not the solution to all of the flaws of our faith. Rather it is a way for you and me to experience the gospel - the coming of the kingdom of God - in spite of and because of our deficiencies. The revolutionary movement of Jesus crosses racial, cultural, socioeconomic, denominational, and generational divides, and in the midst of our "franchise" approach to life and faith there is a crying need for something old and new, fresh and yet not novel - something that allows for our weaknesses and strengths. A groove that gives new life to the Scriptures, church, and the way we view community. I often wonder what it would look like if we composed a jazz-shaped Christianity.
What if there was a way for Christians to live with the tensions of our faith and to embrace their beauty?
What if you and I experienced church like a jazz ensemble (listening to the beat of the image of God in each of us) and community meant that you and I felt connected, not only to those we can see, but also with those who have followed (in past generations) and have yet (in future generations) to follow Jesus?
What if there is another way to know the Scriptures? What if we experienced the word of God as a song that sets us free to compose, a melody that has room for our voice to join in with the ancients?
What if every moment of life with Jesus is pregnant with promise, containing the potential to be a one-of-a-kind masterpiece?
What if so much of what has gone wrong with America has also produced something that is right and good, allowing for us to live and love with soul because we understand why caged birds sing?
What if we could find the groove and in the process live in IT?
These are the questions I have been asking in the hope of composing a jazz-shaped faith that will lead me closer to the kingdom of God in our midst.
Something Is Out of Sync
This whole issue is personal for me. At times my faith gets out of sync. I have moments when the Scriptures fail to intrigue or inspire. Times when I long for the desire of the psalmist to meditate on them day and night, for them to be food for my soul, for the word to be alive, piercing, and real. At times, it feels as if something is missing. I have an unshakable sense that something is off in the way we pray, read our Bibles, and worship. The barriers of race, class, generation, and denomination continue to keep us apart, and we are not sure of the last time we felt that those in the pew next to us were truly brothers and sisters, let alone those who attend other churches.
I love the church. I believe in it so much that I have given my life to it, but my eyes are wide open: "No institution has accomplished so much for good in this world; none has fallen so short of its calling!" We have to come to grips with the paradoxical truth that "eleven o''clock Sunday may be the most segregated hour of the week as far as any particular parish goes, but it is the most integrated hour of the week as far as the kingdom goes." Something is out of sync. Do you sense it? Do you feel the wobble in the wheel? How can it be that we are alive during one of the greatest moves of the Holy Spirit in history and yet most of us don''t even know? We marvel as we read that three thousand people came into the kingdom in Acts 2, yet many estimate that around the world today, some three thousand people an hour are coming to know this Jesus whom we serve! Just not here in America.
My undergraduate degree is in biblical studies, and at seminary I focused on missiology (the study of the mission of the church). My first degree was concerned with what the Scriptures say; the latter focused on how we communicate and live the faith in the various cultures of the world. I never felt called to go to "the mission field" but rather to live in my own country, among my own people, with "missionary eyes."
Contextualization is the process of taking the truths of Christianity in one hand and a given culture in the other, and then discerning what is compatible with the gospel and what needs redemption. For example, is drinking wine, wearing pants, or the practice of some tribes to initiate their boys into manhood by sending them on a lion hunt in line with the ways of Jesus? Many a missionary has struggled with this process because we are not neutral, unbiased observers. We bring our own culture to the faith and often end up trying to make people over in our image. However, there are "eureka moments" when one realizes that something exists in a culture that gives unique form to how the faith can be understood and lived out. Like when Paul was in Athens.
As the apostle walked the streets, he searched for a place of connection. He wondered how to explain the good news to these erudite philosophical people. He was Jewish, but the Athenians were Greek. He could have taught them to be Jewish first and then to follow Jesus, but God does not require that we shed our culture to know him. Therefore, Paul looked to see if there was something in their culture that would provide a starting point. He happened upon an altar ascribed to an "unknown God." This altar was unique to them, and Paul brilliantly utilized it as a means to deliver the gospel of the kingdom. This altar was not a Christian image, but it could be redeemed for Christ and his purposes.
What if we do what Paul did? What if we do the work of a missionary right here in our own backyard? When I look at our history and culture with "missionary eyes," I see something indigenous that we have yet to fully explore and apply to our faith. Embedded in our way of life is something that has shown the ability to produce creativity, diversity, community, innovation, and depth. Moreover, it originated in the church, though the church abandoned it, rejected it, and has all but forgotten that it exists. What is it? It''s jazz.
Discovering it caused me to rethink my beliefs. Not what I believe but how I believe what I believe. Seeking an understanding of jazz has led me to experience our mysterious God and the community to which he calls us in ways that have surprised me. Jazz has given me a new desire to truly know God''s word and Christ''s incarnation, life, death, and resurrection. A jazz-shaped faith has even led me to strive to embrace suffering for all it has to offer and to refuse to waste temptation. It has changed the way I see people, or shall I say, I have begun to not just see people but to hear them and the song of God in their lives.
Before all of that, though, I needed to understand what it was. Those late-night questions, with college books in my hands and a jazz ensemble grooving in the background, set the stage for my journey of composition. What I discovered is that Ralph Ellison was on to something when he said that all of American life is "jazz shaped." By that, he meant that jazz is more than music, and therein lies the hope of a composed and composing life with God - culminating in a jazz-shaped faith.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Finding the Grooveby Robert Gelinas Copyright © 2009 by Robert Gelinas. Excerpted by permission.
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