Singing Our Faith: Tambourine Theology

Scripture: Exodus 15:1–21 (CEB)

This week at Central UMC, Rev. Sarah Harrison-McQueen invited us to stand on the shores of the Red Sea with the Israelites, who had just witnessed the impossible. Behind them, the waters closed over Pharaoh’s army. Ahead of them stretched wilderness, uncertainty, and freedom. In that liminal moment, the first sound was not a command or a quiet prayer, but music — tambourines and dancing led by Miriam the prophet.

Rev. Harrison-McQueen reminded us that throughout history, music has been the language of liberation. From the songs of enslaved Africans in America to the freedom anthems of the Civil Rights Movement, from the rubble of the Berlin Wall to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, rhythm and song have always carried the power to resist oppression and proclaim hope.

Miriam’s tambourine teaches us that celebration is not frivolous — it is prophetic. Her embodied praise declared that oppression did not have the final word and that God’s deliverance was real. Even in the wilderness, the people carried tambourines because they expected to celebrate. This is tambourine theology: a faith that insists on joy, even before the full story of freedom has been written.

We are invited to live this same way today. Our worship can be resistance, our joy can be a witness, and our embodied praise can become a proclamation that God is still making a way where there seems to be none.

🌀 Reflection Questions:

1. When has God helped you through something that felt really hard or impossible?
2. How can your praise become an act of witness or resistance?
3. What “tambourines” — symbols of joy or hope — are you carrying with you on your journey of faith?

Support the show