Love and Community - a jazz sermon

Yesterday was the Jazz Mass at Lincoln Cathedral - as part of the Lincolnshire Jazz Week, we invited a quartet who were playing various concerts during the week to accompany our worship. We had Bob Chilcott's A Little Jazz Mass, we had songs rather than hymns and finished up with singing O I Wish I Knew How it would Feel to be Free. And in his wisdom, the Chancellor thought I could cope with preaching.

Obviously, it had to be on the theme of jazz. Various people, including Richard Holloway, have written on jazz theology or jazz and theology - usually with some link between improvisation and ethics. I wanted to do something slightly different - something that worked with the readings, with their Eastertide emphasis on love and on the early Church in Acts. And my husband wisely suggested that if I was thinking about love, there was a pretty important jazz album that I might do well to listen to.

So this is what I preached.

Acts 10:44-end

1 John 5: 1-6

John 15: 9-17

In 1964, John Coltrane recorded what became one of the best selling jazz albums of all time – A Love Supreme.* Coltrane’s music, and the text that accompanied it,** were a response to a spiritual experience – an experience of God which changed the direction of his life, which enabled him to give up alcohol and drugs, and which convinced him that his vocation to play and compose was God-given.

And if you know that album, you’ll remember the insistent four-note motif in the first movement, repeating “a love supreme” in every key of the Western musical tradition, without and finally with words. And you might have found something similar in the readings we have heard this morning. Like Coltrane, the two biblical Johns – the letter-writer and the Gospel-writer – are repeating “love:” insistently, repeatedly, as verb and noun, as past, present and future.

So let’s begin with love – with that love which John Coltrane calls a love supreme. In his liner notes to the album, Coltrane talks about God’s love as gracious and merciful, as creative and as the ground of human being. He talks of God’s love and grace bringing him to a spiritual awakening – an experience of God which changed him. And in that experience we might hear echoes of what happened in our Acts reading today: the Holy Spirit fell upon those listening to Peter and gave them a new experience of God. For those new Christians, just as for Coltrane, the experience of God came as God’s initiative and as a gift. And for both, it led to astounding creativity. The Gentiles in Acts were speaking in tongues and extolling God – and John Coltrane was inspired to use his music not simply for entertainment, but for worship and as a prophetic witness to God’s work in him. The poem which he wrote to be read alongside the final movement of A Love Supreme bears witness to Coltrane’s new sense of self: rooted in God, in God’s creativity and in God’s love – and called to emulate creativity as an expression of love. He begins “I will do all I can to be worthy of thee, O Lord. It all has to do with it. Thank you Lord.”

The love which Coltrane called “a love supreme” is God’s love, not human love – God’s love for him, and for all creation; God’s love shown in the whole of creation, and in the grace experienced by individuals. But this supreme love calls for a response. God’s love supreme calls, invites and sometimes compels human beings to respond with human love and human effort – doing all we can to be worthy of God.

That’s the process which our Biblical Johns are talking about: human response to God’s love, which means loving God and obeying his commandments. And what is God’s commandment? To love one another. Love for God overflows into love for one another. If it doesn’t, it isn’t really love for God. But if it  does, it creates a new community – a community of love.

Love, in these texts, is not romantic. It’s not idealistic. It’s not abstract. We couldn’t translate it as “getting on with one another” or “feeling vaguely positive about one another” or even “liking one another.” It’s a love that commits to one another; that puts the other before the self; that is willing to give up things for the sake of the other. It’s a love that recognises in other people a real human being, made in the image of God and held in God’s love, and recognises in God’s love for us a call to respond by loving those whom God loves.

It’s a love that takes as its model the love supreme that God has for all people; the love supremely shown in the love that sent Jesus willingly to the cross. It’s love that calls us to love, like Jesus, limitlessly and sacrificially – not just loving God, but allowing that love to form us into a community of love.

The community of love defined in John’s Gospel is a community where love means laying down your life for your friends. And the community of love we see in the book of Acts, as it grows and develops and explores what God’s love and human love really mean, is a community which redefines friends. We heard today Peter’s realisation that the friends for whom he is called to lay down his life are not just Jews, but Gentiles – not just those who are like him, but those who are completely outside his experience. That crucial insight means that the community of love to which God calls us is a community into which all are welcome... and more importantly, a community that has to look outside itself. A community of love where love reaches outside the community, bearing witness to God’s limitless love for all the world.

Musicians know a lot about community. Making music together forms us into a community – sometimes a brief one-off community, like this congregation singing together today, sometimes a long-term community that makes music together over years and decades. But whether short or long term, whether a large or a small community, musicians who make music together know what it is to be a community. Perhaps particularly jazz musicians, who in improvising together rely on one another, trust one another, are completely aware of one another – and their mutual trust, reliance and understanding are rooted in a shared awareness of the rhythm, the chords and the melodies around which they improvise. They encourage one another. They learn together. Their solos as part of that community, that shared improvisation, are richer and more exciting than they could have been alone. And that community formed through music making does not just exist for its own benefit. Those within the community find joy in their music – but that music flows out of the community to bless those who listen.

I can’t think of a better picture for the community of Jesus’ friends, rooted in God’s love and through that love developing mutual trust and understanding and reliance. Improvising together on the theme of God’s love supreme. Encouraging one another to show love in more and more ways. And helping one another to hear the insistent rhythm of God’s love as a heartbeat underneath it all.

A love supreme. A love supreme. A love supreme. A Love supreme.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll3CMgiUPuU
** the liner notes, as reproduced in the 1995 reissue, are as follows:

DEAR LISTENER: 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.

The music herein is presented in four parts. The first is entitled "ACKNOWLEDGEMENT", the second, "RESOLUTION", the third, "PURSUANCE", and the fourth and last part is a musical narration of the theme, "A LOVE SUPREME" which is written in the context; it is entitled "PSALM".

In closing, I would like to thank the musicians who have contributed their much appreciated talents to the making of this album and all previous engagements.

To Elvin, James and McCoy, I would like to thank you for that which you give each time you perform on your instruments. Also, to Archie Shepp (tenor saxist) and to Art Davis (bassist) who both recorded on a track that regrettably will not be released at this time; my deepest appreciation for your work in music past and present. In the near future,
I hope that we will be able to further the work that was started here.

Thanks to producer Bob Thiele; to recording engineer, Rudy Van Gelder; and the staff of ABC-Paramount records. Our appreciation and thanks to all people of good will and good works the world over, for in the bank of life is not good that investment which surely pays the highest and most cherished dividends.

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, 

(Original liner notes from A Love Supreme AS-77) 

A Love Supreme

I will do all I can to be worthy of Thee O Lord.
It all has to do with it.
Thank you God.
Peace.
There is none other.
God is. It is so beautiful.
Thank you God. God is all.
Help us to resolve our fears and weaknesses.
Thank you God.
In You all things are possible.
We know. God made us so.
Keep your eye on God.
God is. He always was. He always will be.
No matter what...it is God.
He is gracious and merciful.
It is most important that I know Thee.
Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts,
fears and emotions – time – all related ...
all made from one ... all made in one.
Blessed be His name.
Thought waves – heat waves-all vibrations –
all paths lead to God. Thank you God.

His way ... it is so lovely ... it is gracious.
It is merciful – thank you God.
One thought can produce millions of vibrations
and they all go back to God ... everything does.
Thank you God.
Have no fear ... believe ... thank you God.
The universe has many wonders. God is all. His way ... it is so wonderful.
Thoughts – deeds – vibrations, etc.
They all go back to God and He cleanses all.
He is gracious and merciful...thank you God.
Glory to God ... God is so alive.
God is.
God loves.
May I be acceptable in Thy sight.
We are all one in His grace.
The fact that we do exist is acknowledgement of Thee O Lord.
Thank you God.
God will wash away all our tears ...
He always has ...
He always will.
Seek Him everyday. In all ways seek God everyday.
Let us sing all songs to God
To whom all praise is due ... praise God.
No road is an easy one, but they all
go back to God.
With all we share God.
It is all with God.
It is all with Thee.
Obey the Lord.
Blessed is He.
We are from one thing ... the will of God ... thank you God.
I have seen God – I have seen ungodly –
none can be greater – none can compare to God.
Thank you God.
He will remake us ... He always has and He always will.
It is true – blessed be His name – thank you God.
God breathes through us so completely ...
so gently we hardly feel it ... yet,
it is our everything.
Thank you God.
ELATION-ELEGANCE-EXALTATION
All from God.
Thank you God. Amen.

JOHN COLTRANE - December, 1964