Reflection This Week
ALL THAT JAZZ

   There are still those, I suspect, who wonder what “all that jazz” in our parish theme of “Matthew 25…and all that jazz” is all about. We know that the “Matthew 25” part refers to the three parables in that chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Those parables remind us that we are always to be prepared (like the five wise bridesmaids) to (like the first two people in the second parable) use whatever gifts and talents with which we have been blessed by God and (like the sheep in the third parable) to see and seek and serve Jesus in everyone we meet, especially those who are less blessed than we.

   “Matthew 25” reminds us of our individual Christian responsibilities. “All that jazz” reminds us that we do not live out our faith in a vacuum but rather in a community, that we need one another both to be fully alive and to be able to faithfully fulfill what those three parables are teaching and requiring of us. Perhaps the best explanation of this jazz metaphor comes from a jazz great, Wynton Marsalis, in a interview early this year in USA Today. Marsalis was asked, “Is thee a boss in a jazz band who takes charge?”

   His response: “In jazz hierarchy is determined by your ability to play, not your position in the band. This philosophy of jazz is antithetical to the commoditization of people. It is rooted in the elevation and enrichment of people. The reason that jazz is the most flexible art form in the history of the planet is because it believes in the food taste of individuals. It believes in the human power to create wonderful things, and it embraces that instead of attempting to administrate it away with senseless titles and useless hierarchies.”

   Thus, like a great jazz ensemble, in a Christian community each of uses the gifts we have been given when those gifts are needed and not just when someone, like the Rector or the Bishop, decide that we can or should. A jazz piece is never played the same way twice, not even by the same group of musicians. But because each person is gifted and uses his or her gifts when the time is right, there is never dissonance or discord. There is only great music.

   This does not mean that there are no leaders, no community gatherers. Someone has to call the community together in order for great music to be made. Yet that someone will never be able to control the music because the musicians are not certain when they sit down to play just exactly what will come forth from their instruments. The spirit will lead them as it always does.

   The Spirit leads us as well. We cannot control God’s Spirit. All we can do is be ready to use the gifts we have been given when it is our turn to make music. If we are not prepared, or if we don’t give it our best, everyone suffers, including us. However, when we use our gifts to the best of our ability, both individually and together, we will and we do, in Marsalis’ words, “create wonderful things”.

   Jazz musicians love to sit down and play because they never know what wonderful music they will create. They never get tried either. The joy and satisfaction of each doing his or her best is enough to keep calling them back for me. So it is, or should be for us.    WJP