Saturday

Psalm 63:1-8
Isaiah 5:1-7
Luke 6:43-45
During Lent I inevitably hear a variation of the following comment: “I can’t wait for the end of Lent so we can stop singing these sad and depressing songs and sing happy music again.” That sentiment reflects a modern notion that worship should leave participants feeling uplifted at the end of a service. Similar notions have caused churches to issue guidelines prohibiting the music in minor keys, lest anyone catch a tinge of melancholy. Certainly, in the context of a society continually bombarded by scandal, violence, and suffering, people do need psychological tools to buttress themselves against crushing walls of sadness. “Happy” music does serves as an excellent tool for uplifting spirits but too often only glosses over hidden pain and sadness.
Consider today’s reading from Isaiah. It opens “Let me sing for my beloved my love song,” language resonant with the Song of Songs and the joy of those deeply in love. However, Isaiah’s tone quickly shifts and in Verse 7 the allegorical curtain lifts revealing God as the beloved and God’s people as the vineyard. How quickly Isaiah turns joy to sorrow as he establishes the crushing weight of God’s profound anger and sadness with the failure of God’s chosen people.
A sharp contrast exists between the prejudicial destruction of the vineyard in verses 5 and 6 and the tender care shown in verse 2. The song might have achieved greater popularity had Isaiah simply ended it in the middle of verse 2. But Isaiah had answered a prophetic call to bring God’s word to Judah and Israel. This word would both condemn the people’s actions and recall the loving actions God had invested in these chosen people. Isaiah’s prophetic charge required the proclamation of the entirety of God’s word, good and bad, joy and sadness.
If we believe, as Martin Luther believed, that “the gift of language combined with the gift of song was only given to man to let him know that he should praise God with both word and music, namely by proclaiming the Word of God through music …”1 and we accept the entirety of God’s word, then we can no more sing only songs praising God’s marvelous acts than we can sing only songs lamenting the sinful ways with which we continually fracture our relationship with God.
Sing a song of great gladness. Sing a song of great sadness.
Sing a song proclaiming the Word of the Lord.
1Luther’s Works, vol. 53, p.323