5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Over the last few weeks I have been gathering with a number of pastors from across our city to discuss and seek to positively and proactively respond to the events now afflicting our nation. We are both interdenominational and interracial in makeup, important characteristics for a group trying to model unity in a time of so much division.
"We need to be in harmony with one another," one of the pastors said. "We can all be singing the same words to the same hymn from the same hymn book, but unless we are in harmony with one another it's just not going to sound good."
In music, harmony is the mixing of varying, yet simultaneous pitches or chords. You need the sopranos, the altos, the tenors, and the basses all singing to reach harmony. Each voice has its place and it's pitch; and knowing just how and when to pipe in is the art of making harmonious music.
There's a debate going on right now across our country about the place of certain slogans like "Black Lives Matter", "Blue Lives Matter" and "All Lives Matter". Let me suggest that all these slogans belong. They make up our chorus and each is important in its own right, in its own place, and with its own volume. They each belong in their own right; but they also belong to and with and for one another. They each and all belong; but they belong together -- in harmony.
In his "I Have a Dream"speech, Dr. King used the metaphor of music when he encouraged us to "transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood." That's the dream. And even if we haven't heard it yet in chorus, we read it on paper and hear it in our heads. Harmony. It's music to our ears. And our hearts. And God's heart also.
Now, who wants to join the choir?
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