So, I went to a Dave Wilcox concert Sunday night at a jam packed but friendly Coachhouse in San Juan Capistrano. To tell you how good Wilcox is, I saw at least three other relatively well-known musicians at the show.
Twas a delightful evening. A good time listening to good music with good friends. But, the best moments of the night were in the middle of what would usually be called Wilcox’s mistakes. Twice, he forgot the words to his own songs. Now, this wasn’t some kind of drug-induced meltdown ala Jim Morrison and the Doors. He just simply forgot them.
Now, if that had been me, I would have been horrified and embarrassed. If nothing else, I would have faked it and let the audience think that I was just doing a cool “re-mix” of my won stuff. Not Wilcox. He just kept playing and asked the audience, “Anybody know how this goes here?” And sure enough someone did. Not once but twice. And both times, he reacted with such delight and genuine gratitude that it only endeared us to him all the more. Then, to cap it off, not once, but twice, he invited the fan who knew the words to come up on stage and duet with him.
Both times the audience roared approval. We were both taken by Wilcox’s humility, ease in his own skin and graciousness, as well as the honor and thrill it was for a tried and true fan—who knows the words so well—to sing a duet with the author.
For the last two days, I have thought about this scene as a metaphor for our spiritual lives in Christ. We are not called to sing perfect solos, to impress each other and the audience (the world?) with our precision and command, but instead to do our best and when we need it, ask others to join with us and help us sing the song of our lives.
The church as a community of friends who sing alongside each other, who invite each other to be duets and trios and choirs of faithfulness as we together sing the songs of praise, live lives of beauty and point to the God of grace and friendship.
Would that I could preach and live with such comfort in my own skin, such confidence in my friends’ abilities to know the words that I forget and to still accept me when I flounder. The Christian life is not meant to be a solo striving for sanctity and salvation, but a journey of humility, friendship, mutual dependence and good-natured ribbing, laughter and warmth that points to another way of living, by grace under the reign of the real Author and King of all.
I know, this post is a bit mushy. But it really was a sweet moment.
Next post. Back to Cyprian, Bono, and other more serious stuff on the same page.
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