Saturday, June 1, 2002
Saturday, June 1, 2002
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
So Marian Anderson started taking lessons, and when she was 18 her high school teachers
arranged an audition with a world-famous singing instructor. Again the church folk raised
money for lessons. The future looked bright, success assured. And then she failed.
A group who believed in her sponsored a concert in New York City's famed Town Hall. But
Marian Anderson was not yet ready for Town Hall, either in experience or personal maturity,
and the critics flayed her. She felt she could not take it; she felt she had let down those who
believed in her.
For over a year she wallowed in self-pity, and would not go near her teachers. Then one day
her mother said to her, "Marian, grace must come before greatness. Why don't you think about
this failure a little and pray about it a lot?"
Later, Marian Anderson, who helped many another young singer survive the kind of despair
she tasted in that first bitter defeat, said, "Whatever is in my voice, faith has put it there. Faith
and my mother's words: grace must come before greatness."
Grace does come before greatness. Grace comes from the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
(John 1.16
NRSV)
Around the time of World War I there was a girl with a lovely voice who couldn't afford vocal
training. But she kept right on singing anyway, and gave such joy to the members of her little
Philadelphia church that they raised $126 in pennies, nickels and dimes and called it "The fund
for Marian Anderson's Future."
Dear God, thank you for all of the grace and forgiveness you have given to me in Jesus.
Amen.
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