Music and the Stories of God’s People

by Elsie Anne McKee, Archibald Alexander Professor of Reformation Studies and the History of Worship

"Bianza ne makasa, mesu ne matshu…" "Iyaku Mukelenge…" "Tudi ne tshilonda…." Tshiluba hymns and songs are among my earliest memories, African choirs swaying to the beat, Sunday school classmates letting me share their songs, our nurse's voice singing an accompaniment to her work, our play. Vocal music, daily life, and church were all interwoven, Tshiluba and English; for years I did not even recognize that these were different languages: all the words had meaning.

At boarding school, choir and piano came alongside my first church history lessons, daily chapel, and Sunday worship. Church, books, music were the constant threads when I was transplanted from the Democratic Republic of Congo to the United States: no Tshiluba, but still worship and song. The same three followed me to Europe where I began serious (graduate) studies in church history, back to North America, then Europe again, where French psalms and German chorales became my weekly worship experience. Singing to God together creates a powerful community, across the boundaries of culture, language, race… across the boundaries of time.

Changing historical periods is much like changing cultures: we must listen intently and look carefully to understand new patterns with respect and good will. Difference is enriching; the other is a gift. Sometimes bridges help, though, especially when we are trying to grasp what gives another people life, makes ordinary people do extraordinary things. Entering into their songs and prayers gives a glimpse of the community we share in faith: different ages and cultures, languages and races, all seeking to be faithful to one God. And so… I bring the music of as many different pray-ers as possible to share with those who come to learn the stories of God’s people. From across the world, across the centuries… "Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs."

You ask—what are some favorites? I ask: where to begin? But here is a sampling. Psalms and Gregorian chant. Folk tunes of many lands: Welsh, Latvian, Silesian, Hebrew, and more. Lilting calypso of the Caribbean and Latin America: Trinidad, Argentina, Brazil.… Haunting African American spirituals, plaintive Native American melodies. Appealing new rhythms of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean hymns. Drums and rich harmonies of African choirs, call and response. Bourgeois and Bach, Doreen Potter and Melva Wilson Costen, Isao Koizumi and Miguel Manzano, I-to Loh and Dong Hoon Lee, Tom Colvin, Bakajika Shabantu, Kasende Mukole. The words sing themselves into minds and hearts: Watts and Winkworth, Dorsey and Bonhoeffer, Crosby and Bernard of Clairvaux, Moises Andrade and Timothy T'ingfang Lew, Gracia Grindal and Joseph Gelineau, and unnamed pray-ers whose words are their witness and remembrance and voice to share with us across time and space… "O sing to the Lord!"