The Worship Song that Divided My Staff

When I was a Lead Pastor, someone in our congregation emailed to ask us to consider dropping a worship song that we regularly did in our services. You may be wondering what type of progressive hippie worship song we'd introduced to warrant such a response. Something with a djembe, presumably. A number that opened with ninety seconds of ambient rainstick, rhymed 'patriarchy' with 'hierarchy,' and ended with the worship leader asking everyone to turn to their neighbor and honor the sacred feminine. (I think I would have remembered that one.)

Instead, the song in question was "White as Snow." Part of the lyrics go like this:

White as snow, white as snow, though my sins were as scarlet, Lord I know, Lord I know that I'm clean and forgiven.

If you've been in church over the years, you've likely sung a version of this in one way or another. The lyrics are grounded in Isaiah 1:18, "Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow." From what I can gather, Christians have sung versions of this song and idea since at least the 1800s. So why on earth would we entertain the idea of someone asking us not to do the song in our church services?

The answer to that question is found in a story Jesus told. In Luke 15, people are getting frustrated that Jesus hangs out with the wrong people. Think of these as the people you're not likely to find sitting by you in church. Depending on what kind of church you might attend, this could mean any number of things: someone from the LGBTQ+ community, or someone who is deconstructing their faith, or someone who has too many tattoos, or someone who cusses too much, or someone who doesn't support the "Christian candidate" in a red hat, or someone who keeps talking about the genocide happening in Palestine.

Jesus kept hanging out with people like these (the NLT translation even includes "notorious sinners"). And others don't like it. In fact, the majority of people don't like it. In response, Jesus doesn't stop associating with these people; instead, He tells them a story. This story has become so well known today that it rarely gets a reaction, but I think it's one of the more offensive things Jesus ever said. And He said a few.

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! (Luke 15:4-7)

It's not offensive if you think of yourself as the one person Jesus is leaving everyone else to be with. We like to make ourselves the hero of most Bible stories we read. But you might not be that person. More than likely, you'd be represented as one of the ninety-nine. Most people embracing this passage today have already decided to follow Jesus and are doing so in some type of church community. That's what makes you the ninety-nine.

Jesus is talking about vulnerable people who are at risk. In practice, that often means they're in the minority. It's not just that they don't believe the right things. They may also not fit in. That's the point of Jesus' story. The one sheep needs something the other ninety-nine do not.

Jesus is willing to leave you behind to reach someone who doesn't look, act, or believe like you. According to the parable, He plans to come back. But during that time, you'll lose your shepherd's attention. He's preoccupied with someone else. And all of this may be for someone you consider a notorious sinner.

In theory, we tend to assume we're fine with this. In reality, I've found that's rarely the case.

The email came from a family of color in our church. As they very kindly explained to me, as their white pastor, the lyrics of that song were problematic for them. They didn't think God wanted to make them white as part of their connection to Jesus. To be honest with you, I had never had a second thought about singing that song in all of the years I'd sung it. But thanks to this family's courage, I now had a choice.

Would I disappoint the ninety-nine for the one?

I ended up reading the email to some of our creative arts staff. I would love to tell you it was universally agreed to honor this family and cut the song. Instead, I was told that this was an overreaction, that this song had been around for more than a hundred years, and that it was literally based on the words of the Bible.

I was told that this email didn't represent how most people in our church felt about the song. Which was a true observation. And that's exactly why the ninety-nine struggle so often to make these kinds of sacrifices for others.

Jesus' story doesn't make logical sense. Neglecting the majority for a minority looks like a bad trade. Why would Jesus, as shepherd, ever treat the majority of the flock in this way? And yet this is the logic of the Kingdom.

Jesus is moving toward the one, whether we follow His example or not.

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Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash