Some of Y’all Have Never Been Part of a Choir and It Shows
“Some of y’all have never been part of a choir—and it shows.”
I first saw that line last week on Instagram. The timing couldn’t have been stranger. Just minutes after the President announced to the nation that Mr. Kirk had died from his wounds in the wake of the shooting in Utah, there it was on my feed. It was posted by one of the smartest and most faithful Episcopal priests I know, serving in suburban Nashville.
I remember staring at it, almost in disbelief. Who posts about church choirs in the midst of such demoralizing political violence? And then she doubled down—posting a picture of her TV tuned to CNN with that same line as the caption. Honestly, I wondered if she had lost her marbles in the chaos of the day. It would have been understandable if she had.
But about 3 a.m., as I lay awake ruminating on the grief and confusion of the day before, it hit me. Her marbles were intact. This was a prophetic word! Did I mention she is one of the smartest and most faithful priests I know?
No one in a choir gets everything their way. Nobody gets to sing over the others. Nobody gets to stomp their foot and say, “I’ll only sing if I’m on the melody line every time.” In a choir, the altos are just as essential as the sopranos, and the basses are just as necessary as the tenors. It is when all the parts sing their own lines—wandering in and out of melody and harmony in turn—that sublime beauty emerges. If you’ve ever heard a choir where one section tried to drown out the rest, you know exactly how ugly that gets.
And it’s not just choirs. That is the way all art works—whether orchestras, jazz bands, or dance ensembles—all of them depend on difference. Painters need complementary and contrasting colors. Sculptors need contrasting angles and shapes. One part alone isn’t art. Art is what happens when difference learns how to cooperate.
That’s what St. Paul was getting at when he wrote to the Corinthians: “Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many” (1 Corinthians 12:14). The hand cannot say to the foot, “I don’t need you.” The ear cannot tell the eye, “You don’t belong.” In God’s design, the many parts make the whole.
The truth is, we seem to have tragically forgotten this lesson in our common life. Our culture has gotten very good at dividing—into camps, into labels, into echo chambers. The conservatives glare at the liberals, the liberals roll their eyes at the conservatives. We have become so righteously indignant that we have made winning an idol, and the violence you see is the reaping of what we have sown—a desire to have our part or position be accepted as the only right and truly valid one, a desire to dehumanize in order to convince others. Yet we must have contrasting perspectives, viewpoints, and ideas to do the work of discernment. The Bible is clear on that. In this insistence that others agree with us or else, how are we ever to sort out what is “true, lovely, and commendable” (Philippians 4:8)?
Here’s the point: Scripture is the first to admit that diversity of voices and perspectives is essential. Proverbs 27:17 reminds us that “iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another.” It is in the plurality and diversity of opinions—not in their absence—that we hone in on what is essential to our faith and what is culturally insignificant. When we listen across difference, we are not watering down the gospel; we are allowing the continuous Word and creative activity of God to sharpen and shape us for the world in which we live.
Unity does not mean uniformity. Tolerance does not mean silence. It is an act of faith to sing your part boldly, and at the same time leave room for someone else to sing theirs. That is the only way harmony works.
Isn’t that what Jesus himself did? He drew together fishermen and tax collectors, zealots and skeptics. The very makeup of his disciples was proof that God’s choir needs more than one part. Even the earliest church was a mix of Jews and Gentiles, men and women, rich and poor. And what held them together was not sameness, but love. Love that is patient, kind, humble, honoring of others, and sacrificial. Love that is hopeful and persevering (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Maybe that’s the urgent and pressing lesson the church must model again for the world: the art of singing in harmony. Not a bland monotone of “agreeing to agree,” but the full-throated beauty of difference coming together in love.
Of course, harmony takes practice. Choir members rehearse week after week to blend their voices. Dancers spend hours learning how not to trip over one another. Christians, too, must practice—patience, humility, listening, forgiveness. That’s what Paul meant when he told the Colossians to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). These are the rehearsals of love.
The end result is not perfect uniformity, but something far better: a harmony that is larger and more beautiful than any of us could manage alone.
So the next time you get frustrated that someone else doesn’t see things your way, or sing things your way, or pray things your way—remember the choir. Remember the band. Remember the body. Remember the iron sharpening iron. And then remember this: in the kingdom of God, no one sings solo forever.
Pax et Bonum!
Fr. Ben +
