"Every year about this time we celebrate "Jazz Sunday" in our church.  Specifically, it takes place on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, that is, the Sunday before the start of Lent.  This year that date will be March 5.  Even  though  Congregationalism has no tradition of observing Lent -- no ashes on the forehead and no fasting -- we do like the celebration that comes just before it which in more sunny climes is called Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday.

On that day, in Rio or New Orleans, all the usual restraints on acceptable conduct fall away and anything goes and the wild music rolls on -- until the next day, Ash Wednesday, when the strictures of Lent apply with full force.

This is New England, of course, and King Creole doesn't reign here.  Foot tapping, clapping and smiling are perfectly acceptable behavior in church on Jazz  Sunday, though, and we all have a good time in our own traditional  Puritan Way.  I always enjoy  preaching on Jazz Sunday too- and not just because I love the music.  As it happens, jazz provides a wonderfully apt metaphor for life.  For one thing, jazz is social.  It is usually played by a group of people who must achieve a high order of empathy and cooperation in order for their joint endeavor to succeed.  There are great solo performers, mostly piano players like Dave McKenna and Marian McPartland, but they often play with other musicians as well.  Mostly jazz is played by bands.  It's something you do together. And, although there is usually some goal involved -- getting to the end of the piece together, or making it through a long evening of playing -- jazz is basically something you do for its own sake.   You play it because you like it.  Nobody goes into jazz to get rich.  Rock and roll, maybe!

That's the way life is, isn't it?  We live in groups -- families, work  units, athletic teams, social clubs -- and we live pretty much just for the sake of living.

Our goals are important, but the main thing is the experience of living itself.  It is something we do together and we have to live by rules."

We may think of jazz as being a totally free means of self-expression, but that is not so.  There is an agreed upon framework of tempo and chord structure that forms the basis for the freewheeling improvisation that distinguishes jazz as an art form.  Without the stability that rules provide, chaos reigns and true freedom is an impossibility. 

But, though you must have rules, improvisation is the real heart of jazz.  It means taking what you are given to work with -- the tune, the support of other musicians and your own abilities -- and blending it all together to create something in that fleeting moment that is uniquely your own.  There are jazz players whose style is so distinctive that a well-tuned ear can recognize their playing on the radio.  

Even though they may be playing an instrument that is identical to thousands of others, their own unique instrumental voice shines through, as recognizable as Louis Armstrong's singing.  Sometimes in jazz, the unexpected happens, sometimes it breaks down, sometimes it's flat dead.  But sometimes it really cooks, sometimes you get lost in the moment as everything comes together and the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.  What you are able to put into it largely determines what comes out. 

That's a lot like life too, isn't it?  You have to play by the rules to some extent, if you want it all to come out all right, but you do a lot of improvising along the way.   
 And what you wind up with is -- you, your voice, your solo, your own tune.

We play our lives like jazz tunes, improvising as we go, skillfully or ineptly, in tune or out and what we play is who we are.  Your life is your own personal work of art that you present to the world -- your magnum opus.