Hit This Cymbal Too

Read through your Bible every year. All of it. This is a drum I bang every chance I get. The point is to capture your imagination not burden your conscience. We meet Jesus in the word for he is the word. How would that change you? How would that change us?

When I practice what I preach by reading the Bible, I have noticed something. There are over 20 passages in the Bible that call us to sing a new song. I keep bumping into them. It is like a cymbal crash. “The word of the Lord is life, forgiveness, hope, joy, promise all in Jesus Christ crucified and raised. CRASH—Sing a new song!” While I bang the drum about reading the Bible, I keep hearing this cymbal.

At the same time I have noticed something else. There is a rising aversion to new songs in the Church, at least in some corners of it. Tradition and, unfortunately, traditionalism are on the ascendency. Is it that the Church in its alarm and fearfulness about societal trends retreats into the tried and true, the safety of how things were once done? Is it that because we are not sure how to combat “what’s going on”, we take solace in ancient customs, the traditions of Man? While such an ascendency clearly exists, the reasons behind that are not so, at least not to me.

Let me be clear, I like tradition. In the Church, in the congregation and in our home I have fostered it. Tradition can keep life on track. One of my favorite G.K. Chesterton quotes is about tradition.

Tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record… Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom [butler]; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. ― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

But as I read the scriptures I hear this cymbal crash, “Sing to the LORD a new song.” “Crash,” Psalm 96:1. “Crash,” Psalm 98:1. “Crash,” Psalm 149:1.

Certainly, traditions in worship have their place; let us not be so arrogant as to think that we can learn nothing from the Christians who have preceded us. We believe in and are part of the Communion of Saints. At the same time let us guard against elevating the traditions of Man (Jesus warned about this often.) over the word of God, including those words that invite us to sing new songs.

This is on my mind because I recently attended a high school youth event with about 800 people. Music of course was at the center of it. And what does every generation of kids like? Music that is new. They sang hymns, old ones. They sang “contemporary” Christian music from the 1990’s. But it was the newest music that got them excited. The “new song” of Christian rap energized the kids the most.

It was a mix. Old and new. Cutting edge and traditional. But there was something about the new.

What does it mean to “sing a new song to the LORD”? How does that relate to ancient, traditional liturgy? Does “the democracy of the dead” ever trump the crash of the cymbal that calls us sing a new song?

I am not sure of all the answers. Nor am I suggesting we trade Gregorian chant for liturgical rap. But from what I read in the Bible, this topic is important to YHWH. In the midst of the ascendency of traditional, liturgical worship, the Church must not ignore this CRASH of the cymbal, “Sing to the LORD a new song.”