In the fall of 1973 I saw Duke Ellington and his orchestra perform; I was very fortunate, for he was to die the next year. The concert was held on the Wake Forest campus in Wait Chapel, which seats about 2200 people. Before the start, while the stage was still empty, they darkened all the lights. After a few moments the audience heard “Mood Indigo”, first with only the piano playing and then with the full orchestra. About the middle of the song, the lights were turned on, and the full orchestra was on stage.

After intermission Ellington announced that his cousin, who lived locally, was in the audience, and he dedicated “Satin Doll” to her. To me, it was a special, memorable night. Ellington’s music really belonged to my Dad’s generation some of whom were there, but most members of the audience were students a generation behind me. That night all realized that Ellington’s music was timeless. I’ve never seen an audience so engaged, emotionally and intellectually, with an artist as I did that evening.

Many years later I read a little article about Ellington and his music. It was very interesting, but one part struck me as special. It said that Ellington always asked the piano tuner to leave it slightly off. He said that a perfectly tuned piano loses some of its warmth and genuineness. Maybe that’s why Ellington was so able to connect with the audience the night I saw him, but I suspect his talent had a lot more to do with it.

I think this applies to our worship services as well. They should be warm, showing the love we have for God, for each other, and for the stranger among us. We should also strive for genuineness. In Mark 7:6 Jesus refers to Isaiah 29:13 and its warning against hypocrisy; it reads “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”   Now I’m not recommending that we not tune our piano or ask the choir to deliberately sing off key (I can just hear what Jim Grapes would say about that), but I do think that we should do all we can to avoid a service based merely on human rules or give an impression of hypocrisy in any form. Somehow we have to convey the wonderful, gracious unconditional love that God has for YOU and me.

Jim