Eternal God, pour out your spirit upon us, that we might be sensitive
to your presence, attentive to your Word, and faithful always in your way.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Do you remember when we used to talk about putting on our “Sunday best”? We
were talking about the clothing we wear to worship. I remember the first time I
saw a grown adult man wear shorts to worship. I was in a mild form of shock;
after all he was a physician in our community, a professional. The thought went
through my mind that he should have known how to dress. I did a wedding recently
outdoors at the Trump golf course in Palos Verdes. A little boy and his parents
were fellow passengers with us in the limo from the hotel to the wedding site.
This little guy was dressed! He wore a blue blazer, white slacks, white shirt
with a blue tie featuring small, white sailboats, and he wore sunglasses. He was
dressed. The wedding was delayed a bit, well, an hour and a half to be exact. I
saw him again just before the service. He had shed his blazer, tie, and
sunglasses. His shirt was un-tucked, his hair a mess, there were food and soft
drink stains all over, and he was obviously displeased. He looked like a number
of the adults around him!
Paul, in the passage from Colossians, and using the imagery of putting on
clothing, speaks of putting on our Christian best. He is talking about attitudes
and actions which reflect our gratitude for God’s love for us in Jesus.
According to Paul we clothe ourselves in compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness, patience, help for each other, forgiveness for each other, love for
each other, and grateful song. This, another one of Paul’s numerous lists in his
letters, builds to the point where we respond to God’s love with our grateful
singing.
On this Sunday when we recognize and honor our adult choirs, this image leads me
to share several observations about music and singing in worship.
First, we sing because music is a gift. We see music throughout
scripture. In the Old Testament Saul is in depression, and he had a right to be
because David is so good, but also David plays for him to relieve his
depression. The Psalms are the songbook of the Hebrew people and express all
kinds of feelings and experiences of the people. In the New Testament the angels
sing at Jesus’ birth. At the Last Supper Jesus and the disciples sing a hymn
before they go to the garden to pray. Paul and Silas in jail sing, and there is
a great earthquake. Sometimes when Bob plays the organ it feels like an
earthquake here in the sanctuary.
Music is built into our bodies. There is a rhythm to our heartbeats, our
breathing, our crying, our movements. Our Bishop, Mary Ann Swenson, writes in
her pastoral letter this month, that her father couldn’t carry a tune. However,
when Mary Ann was a baby and couldn’t sleep he would carry her and sing to her,
“In The Garden.” He couldn’t carry a tune but he went to school on a music
scholarship and played the saxophone. He taught her to love music and play the
clarinet. She said he had great rhythm and danced with her the “Arkansas stomp”
because he was from Arkansas. Young children delight in banging on pots and
pans. Children play chanting games jumping rope, clapping and rapping, and in
high school and college basketball, softball, and football games they sing,
clap, and beat out encouragement to their teams.
Singing draws us together, even when the words are in different languages, we
still recognize tunes and sing together. I will never forget an African choir
that came to our church when I was young. I had never seen people who looked and
acted so happy. They sang in a language I did not know, but when they began to
sing “Amazing Grace” though the words were unrecognizable, everyone knew the
tune and it touched our hearts. There were many tears of joy streaming down both
African and American faces.
St. Augustine once said, “The one who sings, prays twice.” Some of our songs are
thankful prayers, some are prayers of desperation, some are laments, some are
prayers of trust, and still others are proclamations of our commitment to God.
We United Methodists are a singing people. The early circuit riders carried
three books with them: a Bible, the Book of Discipline, and the hymnal. Our
strong history of singing is no doubt tied to the fact that Charles Wesley, the
prolific hymn writer, was one of the founders of our movement. Another factor is
that Wesley used his hymns to teach the basics of the faith based on the Bible.
Methodists have always sung their faith.
We in this congregation are blessed with one of the finest and most
comprehensive music programs of any church anywhere. But, let me tell you a
story that comes from my background. A pastor of a small backwoods church in
West Virginia was telling his congregation about going to church in the big
city. He told them that in the big church the people sang hymns but the choir
sang anthems. One of the members asked, “Preacher, what is an anthem?” He
answered, “Well, it is kinda like a hymn but not. In a hymn you might sing,
“Martha, the cows are in the corn.” In an anthem you would sing, “Martha,
Martha, O my dear Martha, the cows, the cows, the red cows, the black cows, the
black and white cows, are out standing in the corn, the tall corn, the beautiful
corn, the ripe and very yellow corn.” Music, however we sing it, is a gift. It
draws us to experience the wonder of the nature and presence of God.
Second, we sing to strengthen our faith. In church, we all come together
to help each other. To paraphrase St. Paul, if all the church were sopranos,
where would the tenors be, if all the church were the adult choir, where would
the children’s choirs be? Psalm 95 states, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord.”
The key ingredient is not perfect pitch but the attitude of the heart. There is
a place in the body of Christ for all: singers and wannabes, those who are
uncomfortable singing, those who prefer to listen, those who cannot sing on key,
those who cannot sing or speak at all, and those who offer their praise in sign
language.
On Sunday mornings as we sing together I look out on you the congregation and I
see parents pointing out the words in the hymnal for their children. I see
others with their eyes closed singing from memory; some with a far-away look in
their eyes, lost in wonder, love and praise, others just lost – probably
thinking about the Padres, or their shopping lists, or a painful task yet to be
done and some, so moved, tears are running down their cheeks. Some of our hymns
are poetic statements of the great ideas of the faith. Other hymns express what
we believe in the face of the world’s conflicting values. For instance, the
world teaches that wealth and power are important, but we sing, “Lord, you have
come to the lakeshore, looking neither for wealthy nor wise ones…” (U.M. Hymnal
#344) Mary’s Magnificat is so counter-cultural that in the 1980’s the Guatemalan
government banned its public singing or reading.
In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, the medical staff of a New Orleans
hospital struggled to care for their patients when they no longer had
electricity, water, food or medicine to offer. In that horrible situation they
gathered around a patient’s bed and sang songs of faith and trust in God. They
sang words that were in their hearts because they had sung them over and over
through the years. Those songs had become a part of their very beings, and gave
them strength in a time of devastation. Their singing strengthened the faith of
staff and patients alike. When we sing, we focus on and sing praise to God, such
as in “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” We confess our situation in life, as
in, “I Need Thee Every Hour.” We also proclaim the hope of our faith in the
working of God’s spirit in our lives, such as in “O Church of God, United.” In
our singing we strengthen our faith.
Third, we sing to invite others to a closer relationship with God in Jesus
Christ. In the Matthew passage today, Jesus is reminding us how we put our
faith into action. He uses active verbs throughout these verses. What he says is
if we do a particular act to another person, we do it to him and to God. His
implication is if we love God and want a deeper relationship with God we will be
more invitational, hospitable, and actively receptive to others. We will make
ourselves and our faith more accessible to others. We will sing songs that will
speak to people who are new to seeking faith, and as we invite them, we also
invite ourselves to a new, deeper relationship with God.
A woman was in a worship service and the congregation stood to sing a hymn
she utterly detested. Shrugging her shoulders, she decided to sing it anyway.
After the service the woman beside her confessed that she was very discouraged,
facing a lot of personal problems. She said, “When we sang that hymn I heard you
sing it so joyfully, I started thinking about the words of the hymn, and I felt
better.” We sing for ourselves, but also out of love for others.
A young mother in Morristown, Tennessee, had a five year-old boy named David.
He loved to sing, and his favorite song was, “You Are My Sunshine.” The mother
became pregnant again and while his soon to be baby sister was still in the
womb, David sang to her day after day. After the baby was born, she took a real
turn for the worse and was placed in ICU, her survival in doubt. David wanted to
visit her so he could sing to her, but the nurses kept saying no children are
allowed in ICU. Finally, they relented. David went to his baby sister’s side and
sang, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, please don’t take my sunshine
away.” She began to show some slight improvement. David sang every day for two
weeks, until she was released from the hospital. “Then sings my soul, my savior
God to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art.”
Our wonder at the gracious nature of God, our worship and praise of God, are
all naturally contagious. In our singing of our faith we proclaim that all life,
including our singing is a gift from God, we strengthen our faith individually,
and as the body of Christ, the church, and we invite others to share in faith as
well.
Charles Wesley took an opera song about the glories of England, “Fairest
Isle, all isles Excelling” and changed it into one of the greatest of his hymns,
“Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” We close our service today with this hymn.
It speaks of the power and contagious nature of the wonder of God’s love for us,
and how that love continually draws us to greater and greater experiences of
love, until we are lost in wonder, love and praise. As we sing may we know that
music is a gift, that as we sing we strengthen our faith, and we invite others
to faith in God as well.
Thanks be to God.
