When Not to Listen

For the first time in decades, my husband and I are singing in the same choir, he in the bass section, me with the sopranos. It’s a small group, twenty in number, comprising staff and volunteers of the local hospital. This week we begin a series of thirty-minute concerts for the hospital’s seasonal events, corporate dinners, and convalescent facilities. Our director is getting very picky now, which is to be expected, demanding blend. The challenge is particularly acute for the sopranos, who make up almost half of the whole chorus. The exhortation is to “listen to one another and stay together,” which is particularly effective when we singers are attempting to match tone quality. However, it is not an effective approach when the whole section is sinking in pitch as much as a half step within sixteen bars of music!

Without the aid of accompanying piano, the chorus is required to stay on pitch. Given the propensity of the whole to go flat, how can this be achieved? It turns out, in our chorus, one or two of the sopranos has perfect pitch—a functional musical memory that allows them to “hear” the correct notes and sing them regardless of what else is being sung around them. Of all the people in our section, they are the ones who should not listen to the others, but rather stay on pitch and let the others match them, trusting that they will keep the whole section from sliding into musical oblivion.

The parallel to the church these days is obvious, to me, at least. Many on the other side of the aisle in the PCUSA are saying, “We need to listen to each other as a way of listening for the Spirit.” I’m all for listening to each other, and I’m all for listening for (and to) the Spirit, but it is questionable whether listening to mere human beings can guarantee we stay in tune with the Holy Spirit. What I see happening instead, among Presbyterians, is too much listening to the cacophony of voices that are dragging us all down, out of tune with our Savior and out of unison with each other.

Ah, but you say, that is fine and good that we should listen to the ones with perfect pitch and match our tone to theirs. But who among us is worthy, or how can we tell who will not lead us astray? There are certainly many contenders for leadership in the church, and many claim the sort of perfect pitch others should have confidence to follow. But where is the equivalent to the tuning fork, that gives accurate pitch or the A=440 kind of standard by which all other tones are judged? Uh, that would be God. Do not receive this news with cynicism or contempt, which I have seen unfold during our debates of ordination issues.

You know what I am going to say: God has invested quite a lot of effort and care in making his will and way known to us. To say this is unavailable, clouded, or ineffective is to diminish God’s power to reach anybody with the message he desires to give. God’s Word is the reliable, sufficient, understandable, and trustworthy pitchpipe, and notes not in tune with it are going to throw the music off. In other words, if every Presbyterian believer were to tune his or her life to God as revealed in the Scriptures, the church would be experiencing harmony and a common direction. The precepts, commandments, and teachings of Scripture will not only shape personal behavior but also shape the church for its mission. The church and its detractors can no longer hide behind the claim that there are many interpretations of particular Scriptures, insisting, then, that they cannot offer any norm that would keep us all aright. It is time to affirm that there have been reliable witnesses and practitioners through the ages of a godly way of life, of spiritual transformation, of sacrificial obedience, and prophetic bravery. We should follow those who follow Christ and obey what he has commanded. Only then, in a spirit of humility and repentance will we find our voices blending and the Presbyterian Church making compelling music for the world to hear.