Earlier in the week, I was preparing a blog post about the juxtaposition of two hymns that we sang in chapel this week. Both of them were focused on the world, but each of them had a very different message. Here is the first one, from All Creation Sings:
Earth Is Full of Wit and Wisdom
Earth is full of wit and wisdom,
sounding God’s delighted laugh,
from the tiny roly-poly
to the treetop-tall giraffe.
All creation sings in wonder;
even rocks and trees rejoice
as they join the ringing chorus:
echoes of our Maker’s voice.
Earth is full of wit and wisdom,
woven into harmony.
Ev’ry creature has a purpose,
ev’ry flow’r and bumblebee.
Spider, human, redwood, gecko,
monkey, chicken, mouse, and snake
live within a single fabric:
cloth that only God could make.
3 Earth is full of wit and wisdom:
penguin, platypus, and snail,
cactus, sea slug, oak, and algae,
from the microbe to the whale.
In this great and strange creation,
with a breath God gives us birth:
born of soil to live as stewards,
called to love and serve the earth.
[Text: Adam M. L. Tice, b. 1979
Text © 2009 GIA Publications, Inc., giamusic.com. All rights reserved.]
Isn’t it fabulous? I mean, any hymn that mentions a sea slug, mouse and a platypus, I am all in on. How can you not be delighted with a hymn like this? How can you not be delighted to live in a world like this?
Then, just a few minutes later, we sang this hymn from ELW:
When Our Song Says Peace
When our song says peace and the world says war,
we will sing despite the world.
We will trust the song, for we sing of God,
who breaks the spear and sword
and stills the storm of war.
When our song says free and the world says bound,
we will sing despite the world.
We will trust the song, for we sing of God,
who opens prison doors
and sets the captives free.
When our song says home and the world says lost,
we will sing despite the world.
We will trust the song, for we sing of God,
who brings us home at last,
and gives a song to all.
[Text: Richard Leach, b. 1953
Text © 1997 Selah Publishing Co., Inc. http://www.selahpub.com. All rights reserved.]
A pretty different picture of the world, isn’t it? Here, we sang not to celebrate the world’s wonders, but we sang in spite of/in defiance of the world’s brokenness and captivity to sin.
I was struck by the paradox, and in my head, I noted how typical it is of Lutheran theology to hold two opposing things together in tension, like “saint” and “sinner,” like “wisdom” and “war.”
A Christian’s relationship to the world is complicated, and I think the both/and paradox that characterizes Lutheran theology is particularly helpful here. Like humanity itself, the world is dazzlingly beautiful, created inherently good by the God who has chosen to bind God’s very existence to it in love. And, it shares in and mirror’s humanity’s brokenness and sin. The animal kingdom is not perfect or idyllic: animals, just doing animal things, can be cruel and cause great suffering. Volcanos erupt, earthquakes destroy, and landslides, tsunamis, and flash flooding all cause terrible destruction.
The world is indeed full of wit and wisdom, and the world does indeed say “war.” And Christians are called to live in that messy paradox, speaking love, doing justice, and trusting that God is always at work, bringing life out of death, often in ways we cannot see and do not understand.
I was working on a draft of all of that–and then Charlie Kirk was killed.
And I wondered about the relevance of these observations, the relevance of these two hymns.
After reflecting further on this paradoxical theological interpretation of the world, it feels to me like his death is another more vivid, more tangible, up close and personal reminder of that very same paradox. Charlie Kirk, a human whom God loved, and for whom Jesus died, who made the choice to foster the kind of climate in which violence has a natural place, was killed in a violent act–and there is no shortage of strong views about it.
Plenty has been said about all of this by people with much more knowledge and skill than I, but it does seem to me to prove the point, and emphasize the importance of a Lutheran way of viewing–and living in–this very messy, very tragic, very lovely world. Lutheran theology does not ask us to choose if Kirk was a monster or a martyr, and it doesn’t ask us to tie up contradictions with a simple explanation. But it does acknowledge them, and it affirms that this messiness is an inherent part of human existence, and part of the web of creation of which we are a part.
Two things can be true at once, and often are.
As Lutherans, we know this intimately, because we know the paradox of our own existence, in which we do the very thing we know we ought not to do, in which we celebrate our forgiveness and beloved-ness even as we scorn and refuse to forgive others.
So, what to do?
Sing, of course. Sing, in spite of the world, in spite of ourselves. Sing, in wonder and joy, harmonizing with God’s voice.
We will trust the song, for we sing of God,
who brings us home at last,
and gives a song to all.
Happy Lutheran 