passers-by

The violinist Joshua Bell stood with a 1713 Stradivarius in his hands, lifted his bow, and started to play the Chaconne by Johann Sebastian Bach; composed just seven years after Antonio Stradivari made the particular violin he was holding.  The composer Brahms was so in awe of this piece of music that he once wrote that if he had written it the ‘excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven him out of his mind.’ But for this performance Joshua Bell wasn’t at the Boston Symphony Hall, where two days earlier tickets to hear him went for $100, he was busking at L’Enfant Plaza metro station in Washington DC, to see if commuters bustling by on their way to work would stop. They did, to buy their Washington Post and their daily lottery ticket as usual, but would the beauty and grace of Messrs JS Bach and J Bell cause them to break their routine for a moment, would a crowd gather, would Joshua Bell make enough money to get his cab back to the hotel?  Just a handful of over 1,000 passers-by stopped to listen; the virtuoso made $32.17.

The Old Testament prophet Jonah is not known to have played the violin, but something he said while in the (joshua) belly of a fish came to mind as I read the Joshua Bell story: 

those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. (Jonah 2:8) 

A secular version of Jonah’s words might be, ‘those who get their priorities utterly wrong miss out on the life they were born to live.’ A preacher’s version of this would be ‘worship the wrong god and you’ll live the wrong life’ - try it in a Deep South accent. Joshua Bell’s version would probably be ‘if you haven’t got time to stop and listen to the music that JS Bach wrote you’ve probably lost touch with the God he worshipped.’

So this is advance notice. March 5th, Lent is coming. No doubt there will be intense chocolate avoidance, and I am currently conflicted over whether I could actually function without fresh coffee (answer, no.) But Lent is actually an audit, a hearing, we stop and listen to our lives, and ask if there is any time in there for us to stop and listen to God. Think about this; from March 5th the violin case is open.