St. Matthew Lutheran Church organist appreciation celebration

     Last year, due to coronavirus, I preached my Easter sermon to an empty sanctuary as Shelley recorded the service so we could post it on our church website. This year, we had a beautiful Easter worship service filled with people and filled with life. I can’t even begin to tell you how sad I felt, and how strange it was, to preach last year’s Easter sermon in an empty sanctuary. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I felt, and how joyful an occasion it was, to preach this year’s Easter sermon to a church full of people! After all, the church is not the building… it’s the people!

     One of the things that gives life and vitality to worship services is beautiful music. And – thanks be to God – we have that here at St. Matthew! We’re blessed to have both, an excellent sound system for projecting diverse genres of Christian music during worship, and two talented organists who play beautiful music for us on Sunday mornings. This year, during our Easter worship service, we took a few moments to thank our organists, Martha Scharff and Diane Tuetken, for their much-appreciated service to our church. Thank you, Marty and Diane!

     I know from personal experience just how important beautiful music is during worship. When I served at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Dubuque on Saturday night, as we were getting ready for worship, I noticed that our pianist wasn’t there yet. She played for us every Saturday night, so we not only counted on her, but truth be told, began to take her for granted.

     That all changed about five minutes before the start of our Saturday evening worship service because she wasn’t there yet, and we needed her! She was always so reliable (and so talented) that we took her for granted. But as worship started, with no pianist in sight, I quickly learned how important music is during worship. She never did make it to church that night, so we quickly changed the hymn playlist, switching from a few complicated hymns to the beautiful simplicity of “Amazing Grace” and “Jesus Loves Me,” which we sang acapella.

     The term “acapella” is of Italian origin and means “to sing in the manner of the chapel,” in other words, without instruments. The history of church music is rather interesting, in that musical instruments were not used during Christian worship services until 670 AD, when Pope Vitalian brought an organ to his cathedral. Can you imagine! There were no musical instruments used in Christian worship services until 640 years after Jesus died on the cross. And just imagine the consternation, conflict, and controversy that must have erupted the first time music was played during a worship service. I’m sure not everyone was happy with a change of that magnitude!

     Thankfully, one of the things we all agree on here at St. Matthew is that we appreciate Marty and Diane and the beautiful music they make for us!