A Pentecost Gathering: From Cacophony to Fugue

A sermon by Peter Rogness delivered at the synod assembly on June 1, 2007. Portions of this sermon have been changed slightly from the original to reflect the omission of the sound clips that were used when it was presented at the opening worship service.

Dear Friends in Christ: Forgive me if I seem to be drawing more on the theme than the lessons this morning, but I have preached on the tower of Babel before. I have preached on speaking in many languages at Pentecost before. And I have preached on the promised coming of the Holy Spirit before. But I have never in 34 years of ordained ministry attended or preached at an event with the word cacophony in the title! I can’t resist. But never fear, I’m Lutheran enough that the lessons will find their way into this!

Webster defines cacophony as a harsh or discordant sound, stemming from the Greek kakophonia—kakos (bad) and phoni (voice, sound). So cacophony is the clash of sounds. A bad sound. Conflicting. Discordant.

I’ve been living with the notion of cacophony for weeks now, and I’ve seen cacophony everywhere—in the stream of violence, hatred, and melodrama on television; in the attacks politicians make on each other; in the deep pain of family members on different wave lengths; and in religious fanatics of all stripes using God to batter each other. You can find it all over. Cacophony is everywhere.

I love classical music and it occurred to me that the piece of music I hear at every concert I have ever attended—in fact, pay big money to hear as I settle into the Ordway or Orchestra Hall and the lights dim—is the sound of the orchestra tuning. Different instruments. Different notes. Different timing. Harsh and discordant. Disconnected. Cacophony.

So that’s the word. Now the theme of the assembly: “Cacophony of the Generations: A Pentecost Gathering.”

The theme emerged nearly a year ago, when the assembly planning committee decided that we needed to pay attention to the challenges and opportunities brought about by the convergence of very different generational cultures in our churches—the strength that comes from traditions that have been with the church for generations; the challenge from Gen X, Gen Y, millenialists, and post-moderns—our youth!—who yearn to express their faith in wholly new ways. A cacophony—discord, dissonance, at times harsh, but holding promise that the gospel spoken in different languages at Pentecost may in fact be just what God is doing in our midst today.

And then, as if that didn’t flesh out this cacophony theme well enough, more came along! We had long planned to welcome Padre Horacio Castillo to join us in assembly for the first time, highlighting our new companion synod relationship with Guatemala. In February we learned that Bishop Mdegella from the Iringa Diocese would be with us as well. Then we learned we would be able to symbolize this Guatemalan relationship with an ordination of an ELCA seminary graduate—Amanda Olson de Castillo—into the ministry of the Guatemalan church and commissioned by us for her work there. And throw in the annual overlay of resolutions that are sometimes occasions for different perspectives coming at each other and you have what seems a little like cacophony!

Cacophony! That’s simply the way church is. Maybe it will never be the case that the church makes its music in unison, with the same instruments and the same notes. If that’s church, it’s a picture of it I’ve never seen.

It certainly wasn’t there in the Book of Acts—not at Pentecost, where to burst forth with the proclamation of Christ crucified and risen, God had to provide a whole mess of different languages. It wasn’t there in Genesis, where back when they did have one language, they went so far wrong that God confused their language and sent them in different directions. Perfect harmony and unison weren’t there in the early church or at the Reformation. And it’s certainly not today, not even in a given denomination, synod, congregation, and certainly not in the cacophony of generations. Perfect unison, same notes, same instruments, same time isn’t the way we do church. The church has always been cacophony, discordant notes.

We have always had the traditionalists, those who hold the strength of the learned wisdom and practice of the church through the ages, who are not going to simply flit around with every gust of changing wind.

We have had the thoughtful reformers, those who value identity and the past but are drawn to finding new forms that proclaim and live the gospel of a loving God in each new age.

We have always had the ones who push the edges prophetically, who to traditionalists seem like malcontents and rebels. These are the people and movements on the edges, so dismayed by the disarray and unbelief and injustice in the world, so filled with urgency to share the gospel in a deeply troubled world that they push hard against the inherited patterns of church life, to unleash the renewing power of the Spirit in a new age.

And through it all, there are always the Lydias and Dorcases and Stephens, the servants, the worker bees, who aren’t swept up in the discord but simply serve people, serve the church, and serve the world.

Then add to this mix, the body of Christ we find in other lands, the church living differently in Tanzania, in Guatemala, both viewing the world in other ways.

The church has always seemed like cacophony, playing different notes with different instruments at different times. It never has been otherwise. The church of Christ will never on this earth be a church that sings in perfect unison. But we are still promised there will be one body of Christ. And that unity is not of our own crafting, but is a work of the Spirit.

When the Pentecost gathering heard the preaching in different languages, it was the one Lord Jesus Christ who was being proclaimed. When the Spirit poured out different gifts upon the believers, it was for the sake of building up the one body of Christ.

But cacophony is not our only option.

In the world of music, in the hands of a gifted composer, the clash of sounds of the tuning of the orchestra becomes something else. Not unison, because each person in the orchestra is playing different instruments. Not even a round, where each plays the same notes at different times.

But when different instruments play different notes at different times, but always wind around the same theme, it is a fugue. All different sounds, finding each other, woven together around the same theme. All different voices, woven around the same God by the power of the Spirit. The church. A fugue. A Pentecost fugue.

*The basses begin. The cellos join. The violins soar. The violas make it full and rich! And so it is in the church.

The traditionalists give the foundation. The reformers begin to explore. The prophets push the edges. The servants care for them all!

And they come together, winding their different voices and different sounds, fused by the Spirit around the one God. The church—not cacophony—fugue! All of us together—a Pentecost fugue!

* The sermon concludes in this portion with voice over Bach’s fuguette from Goldberg Variation #10, arranged for orchestra.