Breathing through worship as Terry puts it takes on many dimensions in the life of a congregation. In scripture itself we have multiple ways that people rejoiced especially through music as a conduit for the work of the Holy Spirit. We have David’s song of thanksgiving for all that God has done through the history of creation. We have the formal choral music of the Levites as they brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. We have the father’s celebration at the reunion with the prodigal son. And we can read a letter from days long ago reminding us that if we’re joyful in Christ our Lord, an appropriate response is to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God. Music touches us in ways that words alone sometimes cannot. Music is one of the things that breathes life into our experiences of worship. It will have different settings, different contexts, and evoke different emotions in each of us, and yet it is one of the “BIG T” important life giving Traditions that so often gets bogged down in the “little t” expectations and ways of doing things that we call our traditions.

The story of the prodigal son and his elder brother is the perfect example of how something so beautiful, so life-enhancing to one person can look so very ugly in someone else’s eyes. Imagine, as I know you have imagined as many times as you’ve heard this story, what it must have been like for the prodigal son to return home. He has squandered the gifts given to him. He has lived a rough and tumble life. He is disgraced, demoralized, and destitute. He comes crawling back home, hoping for a little scrap of mercy so he can get some semblance of his life back. He’s not expecting much. He may even expect to be chastised for what he has done, and in an amazing twist of events the exact opposite happens.

The father pours out upon this son grace after grace. Before he even makes it through the front gate, he can’t stop kissing him. He brings out a new robe and fresh sandals. He sets his workers out to start a party, to kill the fatted calf, to pour the wine, to start the music and celebrate. “My son that was dead,” he says, “is now alive.”

The music, the feast, the welcome must have had this son in tears – weeping for joy. But then his older brother hears the music and sees the dancing, and is overwhelmed with anger and frustration. He can’t stand the party. He’s been good. He’s been there every day, helping his father, running the farm together, and where was his music? Where was his celebration? The notes turned sour in his ears.

But God, like the father in the story, knows that our worship, which is supposed to be a similar grace filled celebration, can cause either reaction in us as well. Sometimes we are struck with joy at how much God loves us, and sometimes a barrier keeps us from letting the music fill our ears and hearts with love. I think Jesus wants us to imagine what it might be like to be either brother, and Jesus wants us to know that wherever we find ourselves, the Father of the ultimate story is faithful, loving, and wants all his children to be treasured whether they’ve been there all along or have returned from the dead.

This presents a dilemma in today’s climate for worship. A moment of grace akin to the events of the “prodigal son” story is hard to plan and probably shouldn’t be manufactured, so we do our best to be faithful to scripture and seasons, to offer the very best we can give to God in as much of the diversity of creation we can muster. But no matter how well we try, the music that will fill one person’s heart with the knowledge of God’s amazing love may turn someone else away in anger and frustration of not being heard in their own rhythms and tones. It’s a risk – week after week – that is if our ultimate goal is to always make people feel good and go home happy.

The problem is that the story of our faith in scripture itself doesn’t always leave us on a happy note. We could try to market a low-stress, feel-good Bible, and some churches do, but that leaves out so much of what is there for us to bring us to a greater understanding of ourselves in relation to our Creator. Sometimes, we need to experience the frustration of seeing God love someone or something we find unlovable to stretch our own sense of belonging. Sometimes we need to hear the discordant tune, or the style that grates on our nerves, or be challenged by a perspective that points out that we can’t always be given every choice available to us under God’s green earth. Sometimes we have to be OK with not getting our own way so that someone else is free to hear.

The truth that we know about God’s grace and love for us is broken, fractured, and incomplete to us in our human existence. That’s why one brother can experience the overwhelming joy of unconditional acceptance, and the other brother can turn away in disgust. That’s why one person can hear a formal concert like the “Messiah” and be moved; and another in the same room hearing the same music can be bored – and you can substitute any form or style of music in there and reverse the roles. We all have our own ears and eyes and thoughts, and the challenge to us is to be open enough to turn that diamond of the truth that all in our community may experience a facet of it and be transformed.

After all this, how frightening is it that our culture fights about worship styles! But then again, the pipe organ was seen as a radical instrument when it was first introduced and Luther and Wesley were scandalized for writing hymns to the tunes of the world. We get attached to the forms and styles that bring us to that place where we can meet God. We get formed by our parents and grandparents, by the churches in which we grow up, and by those experiences that take us deeper in our faith. We learn to sing those tunes and it grows familiar. The elder brother knew familiar. He had the sounds of the workmen listening to him every day. He had food on the table and the love of his father all the time. But when that tune got played in a different key for someone else, he was hurt and afraid. It felt like abandonment. Fear can seize us up in places that could otherwise be opportunities for growth. We need both, the familiar well-rooted day to day reminders of how deeply we are loved, and we need to be blown away by the gift of love we could hardly anticipate or imagine would touch us.

Changes that are about marketing to and drawing a certain worship demographic are doomed to failure no matter how it looks from the outside in. However, opportunities that help us to breathe will allow us the freedom and flexibility to grow into new discoveries of God’s truth. Yes, we will all have elder brother moments. The old man who swears up and down that he’ll never, ever allow that rock music in his church may soften his approach when his beloved granddaughter says, “Papaw, wasn’t that a beautiful Jesus song we heard today?” God’s grace is familiar, and God’s grace is unexpected. Let all of us who have ears hear the wonder of God’s great love.

Amen.