NOTES for Ch1 25:1-31
Twenty-four divisions of singers are assigned to Temple worship, once again by lot. The singers themselves cast lots, with teachers casting alongside their pupils and the young on equal terms with the great. To us this looks strange. Can one imagine a conservatory professor or a soloist from the Bolshoi Theatre drawing lots on equal terms with a pupil in a similar situation? But where singing expresses a prayerful standing before God, more than a high professional standard is required. Sacred art must not become an end in itself. Of course, in its most brilliant manifestations church art is beautiful in its own right, but what will happen if it is severed from its source? At first, a withered form will remain, beautiful though it may remain for a long time; later, the art itself will run dry, as a broken branch withers. Masterpieces of icon painting, church architecture, and sacred music live for centuries precisely because they were born in unity with a living faith.
The One from whom gifts come bestows them generously on anyone. Yet how often we do not know how to receive them! Or, having received them, we squander them...