Why Have a Worship Service Centered on John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme?

This Sunday at First Christian we will do something different.  A jazz quartet will accompany our singing and perform some renditions of the great jazz saxophonist John Coltrane’s masterpiece A Love Supreme.  Why?

One reason is that our gifted accompanist and exceptional jazz pianist Jeremy Gregoire and I wanted to do something a little different in worship.  We decided a jazz service sounded like fun and like a different medium to experience the worship of God.  Then we looked for an approach; jazz is a pretty big ocean to swim in after all.  At what point do you jump in?  Jeremy suggested we consider Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. 

Being a jazz ignoramus, I asked Jeremy to educate me.  He showed me Coltrane’s liner notes, and right there in black and white Coltrane declares this four-song album is “a humble offering to God.”  It’s not a shallow shout out to the divine as musicians do now at awards shows but rather a deep meditation on the “supreme” love of God.  The fourth song is entitled “Psalm” and is a musical accompaniment to a poem of praise to God that Coltrane wrote (also included in the liner notes).  Here are Coltrane’s own words about the album:

ALL PRAISE BE TO GOD TO WHOM ALL PRAISE IS DUE.

Let us pursue Him in the righteous path. Yes it is true; “seek and ye shall

find”. Only through Him can we know the most wondrous bequeathal.

During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening

which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time,

in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make

others happy through music. I feel this has been granted through His grace.

ALL PRAISE TO GOD.

As time and events moved on, a period of irresolution did prevail. I entered

into a phase which was contradictory to the pledge and away from the

esteemed path; but thankfully, now and again through the unerring and

merciful hand of God, I do perceive and have been duly re-informed of His

OMNIPOTENCE, and of our need for, and dependence on Him. At this time I

would like to tell you that NO MATTER WHAT . . . IT IS WITH GOD. HE IS GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL. HIS WAY IS IN LOVE, THROUGH WHICH WE ALL ARE. IT IS TRULY —A LOVE SUPREME —.

This album is a humble offering to Him. An attempt to say “THANK YOU

GOD” through our work, even as we do in our hearts and with our tongues.

May He help and strengthen all men in every good endeavor. . .

May we never forget that in the sunshine of our lives, through the storm

and after the rain — it is all with God — in all ways and forever.

ALL PRAISE TO GOD.

With love to all, I thank you,

John Coltrane

A “love supreme” indeed!  That sounds like church to me!  See you Sunday!

Grace and Peace,

Chase

What I will be preaching about on 9-11-11

I was one of a number of clergy asked by our local religion reporter what I would be preaching on 9-11. Here’s what I gave her:

I began work at a church in a Wall Street bedroom community on Long Island two weeks after September 11, 2001. In the pews each week sat women and children whose husbands and fathers had died in the World Trade Center. Others sat nearby who had made it out alive. The small town in which our church sat included over 60 people who had perished that day. Everyone knew someone well who had died on 9-11. As I came to love these people, I also came to understand the desire by many for revenge. I too wanted to bomb the hell out of those who had hurt us so badly.

Yet in the recesses of my soul, I also remembered the command of Jesus to “love your enemies” and the teaching of the Apostle Paul, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Despite my desire for revenge, I heard the difficult call of Jesus to choose the path of sacrificial love. Yet, that call was largely ignored by our nation. In the aftermath of our nation’s trauma, I believe we saw the best and the worst of our nation’s soul. We saw the best in the sacrificial work of rescuers and first responders along with the desire of many to serve a greater good by enlisting in the military. Yet, we also saw the worst in our collective howls for revenge, decisions to go to war based upon falsehoods, acts of xenophobia and intolerance, and our inability to reflect as a people upon what kind of world do we truly wish for our children.

Over the past ten years we have chosen the path of war rather than peace. We have asked the few in our military to suffer and die in our name while the vast majority of us have refused to be inconvenienced in the slightest. Unlike earlier generations who collectively sacrificed in a time of war, we have chosen wars we can ignore and refused even to pay the bill for trillions of dollars spent on the wars. We have used the deaths of our people who died on 9-11 as an excuse to visit death upon thousands of noncombatants whom we viewed as collateral damage in our “war on terror.” We have not asked the difficult questions of what the seeds of our violence will produce for generations to come. We missed the call of Jesus to make a different, better world and chose instead to continue the cycle of violence that claims “an eye for an eye.”

As we approach the ten year anniversary of 9-11, Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem echoes to us once again, “If you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!”

Grace and Peace,

Chase