March 9, 2025
I mentioned in a children’s message a couple of weeks ago how much longer my phone battery lasted since TikTok had been banned. To be honest with you, it’s not just battery life; productivity has increased since the TikTok ban. But then this week somebody texted me with a link to a TikTok video.“What’s this?” I said. “TikTok’s been banned.”
“It was banned for less than a day,” they told me. (Like I said, this happened in a text, but I could just feel their eyes rolling nonetheless.) And so I checked out the link. Indeed Tiktok was available and the same as it ever was.
So much for my productivity and battery life.
But in my defense, TikTok is not (always) horrible. A lot of what I see there is either wholesome or educational, or both—especially since the app seems to have forgotten my love for videos of people getting arrested.
For example, just this week, I happened upon a creator named Philip Marten. He’s a violinist and very knowledgeable about music in general. And in this video, he was talking about the finale of Antonin Dvořák’s New World Symphony and another piece. I hope you would recognize the movement I’m talking about. It’s as bombastic as it is memorable. And the other piece this TikTok creator compared it to was one I’d never heard of. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of the composer—a woman named Amy Beach.
Beach was perhaps America’s greatest woman composer—maybe even the world’s greatest woman composer. She started composing toward the end of the 19th century, just around the time that Dvořák was saying that, maybe it’s okay for women to play instruments, but they should leave composing to the men.
And a few years later, Amy Beach came out with her Piano Concerto in C-Sharp Minor. And it began with a very obvious variation of Dvořák’s New World Symphony. But whereas Dvořák’s piece was loud and bombas-tic and came through mostly with the brass, Beach’s was thoughtful and quiet and played on the strings.
Lest you think that this was Beach’s point—feminine beauty over masculine pomposity—suddenly the piano comes in, easily as loud and strong as Dvořák ever thought of being, totally overwhelming the theme that Dvořák had originally written. The point she was making was punctuated by the fact that the pianist in the premier—the pianist who was totally dominating Dvořák—was Amy Beach herself, not just a composer, but one of the most accomplished musicians of the era.
The whole first movement of Beach’s concerto returns to this same theme with ever more variations. And variations on a theme is something that’s common in music. Think of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn, or Elgar’s Enigma Variations. [1]
But variations on a theme aren’t strictly a musical phenomenon. We also find them in theology—especially in the Bible. And this morning’s scripture lesson is a great example. I would say it fits the category of “variations” in two ways.
First of all, what Paul is saying here is a variation on an important theme found toward the end of the Book of Deuteronomy. I talked about part of this passage a few weeks ago when I preached a sermon on blessing. [2] It talks about how, if Israel obeys God’s commandment, it will be blessed and all kinds of good things will happen. But if Israel is disobedient, it will be cursed, and all kinds of bad things will happen.
Among the bad things it predicts are famine and war and exile—all things, of course, that happened to Israel… and—according to the interpretation of many in the first century—were still happening, since Israel was occupied territory. Judea and Galilee had puppet rulers who obeyed a Gentile Emperor, and Roman soldiers were everywhere, enforcing not God’s law, but the laws of a pagan empire.
But it wasn’t not too late. No matter where God’s people find themselves, there was still an open invitation to love and obey God, so that the curse of exile and foreign occupation could be transformed into blessing. Moreover—and we heard Paul quote this in today’s passage (although not literally)—the commandment of God is not that difficult. It’s not in heaven, so that somebody has to go up there and haul it down. And it’s not on the other side of the sea, so that somebody has to cross the ocean and bring it back. No, it’s found right here, on your lips and in your heart. [3]
I feel like I need to address something here, and that is the Christian characterization of Jewish obedience to the Law. Based on what we read in our New Testament, we often (usually?) think and talk about Jewish religious practice as tedious and unpleasant—following rules that are burdensome. But if you actually know practicing Jews, you probably realize this isn’t the case. Acts of righteousness and justice are deeply satisfying, celebrating holidays gives shape to the year, and sabbath observance is a source of deep joy, giving meaning to time itself.
But, by definition, it excludes Gentiles. And the message of both Jesus and Paul was about what they saw as God’s ultimate vision of embracing all people, building bridges, and tearing down the walls that divide. So for us Christians, it is the very person of Jesus Christ that does for all people what the law does for the Jews. Through faith in Christ, God’s righteousness and justice are made a part of us, and Christ’s presence in the beloved community blesses any time and any place where God’s people are found.
So the second way Paul’s writing fits into the category of “variations” is found in all the different ways he expresses this same idea—the idea that those who have been excluded are now being brought into the fold:
Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace. [4]
There are some who make a science of parsing the words of Jesus and Paul in order to prove themselves right and other people wrong. But I don’t think that’s something Jesus himself ever did, nor would he even approve. To Jesus, faith was as simple as trusting in God as a loving parent. He never gave a definition of trust, and he certainly never analyzed it. To Jesus’ way of thinking, you could see what faith was by what faith did. And because Jesus’ words and actions embodied faith, trust grew wherever Jesus went. To be in his presence was to discover how to trust God—it was the fruit of his work—who he was and what he did. [5]
It's funny how talking about musical variations finally led me to thinking about being “brought near by the blood of Christ” and to trusting in God. Because now I know just how to close this sermon.
There’s a British man named Gavin Bryars who once did some street recordings of a rough London neighborhood for a documentary. One of the recordings that wasn’t used in the film was of an old homeless man singing a song that nobody knew (probably because it was his own invention). He sang these words, “Jesus’ blood never failed me yet: This one thing I know, for he loves me so. Jesus’ blood never failed me yet.”
But though his song wasn’t used in the documentary, it wasn’t discarded. Mr. Bryars thought it was compelling enough to use for some other project. He was at the university in Leicester where he worked, recording it over and over so that it would be a continuous loop. Since he didn’t need to sit there while it was recording, he left to get a cup of coffee, thoughtlessly leaving the door to his studio partially open.
Now his studio was next to a studio filled with artists, and this studio was always very active and rather noisy. But when he returned after getting his coffee, he “found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.” [6] He quickly realized that he had left his door open, and the man’s song had transformed the space.
When he got home with the recording, he discovered that the old man’s singing was perfectly in tune with his piano. And so he began composing an accompaniment to the thirteen measures of the song that he had on loop. He premiered his piece in 1972 in London, and words can’t quite describe the composition. It begins with the recording of the man’s voice, completely unadorned, for four minutes. It’s both lovely and tragic. His old voice is right on key, but the tempo is erratic.
What is most striking, though, is that you can literally hear the man’s death in his song. Anybody who’s been around congestive heart failure can hear it in the man’s breathing. His own blood wasn’t pumping properly, which was effecting his lungs—but yet he trusted that the blood of Jesus wouldn’t fail him.
And as he sang the same thing over and over again, a couple of violins began to quietly accompany him. And they were joined by other violas, and with each repetition more strings would join in: more violins and violas, cellos, basses, even a harp. What began quietly became a lush and mighty chorus of strings. But just as the song grows gradually, it also slowly diminishes, until after more than twenty minutes, the music dies away, and the man is left alone again, singing, “Jesus’ blood never failed me yet,” just as before.
I could be wrong, but I doubt this man was ever a respected theologian. And yet in his body and in his song, he perfectly describes the nearness of God’s word—in his heart and on his lips—and how those who were once far away have been brought near to God by the peace-making blood of Jesus.
It is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. For “Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.”[7]
—©2025 Sam Greening
NOTES
- The “variations” idea comes from N.T. Wright, Romans for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), Kindle ed.
- Sam Greening, Opossum Screed, Blessing: Sermon for the 6th Sunday after Epiphany (February 16, 2025).
- Deuteronomy 30:11-14, paraphrase.
- Ephesians 2:12-14, New Living Translation.
- Edward M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer (1929), paraphrase.
- “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Jan. 2025 last updated.
- Romans 10:10-13, New Living Translation
