Calvin Hampton, if he had lived, would be an old man today, perhaps streaming a concert from his home in the Berkeley hills, playing new variations on his now-old melody, which we have sung today as Hymn 456. But he died 36 years ago.
What we have of him is his music, memories, and perhaps even a memory of how he asked us to play his music. Like this: he would say to the choir. What we have is a lingering memory and an always-refreshed appreciation and wonder.
What lingers in the air is the sound he made, though the musician is no longer in the room. We may make fresh variations on the theme, but sometimes we need a reminder, how does that go again? How did he say to shade that note, and not this other? How fast should we go with the thing, today?
What if Jesus had lived? He could not have sent the Spirit, the advocate and guide that teaches us even if he is not here.
And the themes he sounded, the notes he introduced, and the shadings in how to play the tunes, are in our memory but also need refreshing. How was it he said this? Are there notes for us, written down someplace, or pointers shared orally among the choir and passed down to us?
(I think of this partly because of the tune Merton, written by a member of the St. Mark's, Berkeley, choir, and for me as a member later joined, part of the joy was learning from those who'd heard her lead it, how it was to be sung, the shavings and augmentations that just don't fit in a written score.)
So we have the theme - and endless variations. But what if he had lived? What if he does live, in the Spirit, now, teaching us though he has left the room? How shall we sing his song in this strange land?
At a time of isolation, of compulsory quarantine, 'confined to quarters', it is easy to ask, how are we to continue to believe and to practice, as he would have us do it? And how, if we are not in the room together, are we to sense community? It is as if he had gone... and we had some living Spirit to guide us.
2020 May 17
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17:22-31
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
Psalm 66:7-18
https://hymnary.org/hymn/EH1982/456
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