Paul Reese: Reflections From the Pulpit

On Sunday, December 9, St. John’s Minister of Music Paul Reese stepped away from the organ for a few moments to deliver some “awesome” reflections from the pulpit. Read on, and contemplate Paul’s words as he explores why song is an essential part of the human experience and a valuable part of Christian worship.

Introduction

In my other life as a contractor, I visit hardware and building supply stores frequently. One of my favorite memories of Home Depot happened quite unexpectedly a few years back. I observed a grown man walking down the trim aisle singing, loud enough for me to hear, the theme song from the Lego Movie: “Everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of the team.” It’s not something you see, or hear, every day, and I was unexpectedly moved by it. Although he was pushing the bounds of normal behavior, I believe he was on to something.

Father Miller, with quite a bit more subtlety than the Home Depot guy, referenced song in his sermon for Christ the King Sunday. I quote: “As we gather in the holy seasons of Advent and Christmas, we will once again listen to the song of the prophets, proclaiming the coming reign of God, singing out that the ‘The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.’”

This morning we sang the song of a New Testament priest who prophesied, Zechariah. Why did he burst into song? Why was that guy in Home Depot singing? What are these people singing about, and for that matter, why do we do so much singing here at St John’s? I would like to spend the next few minutes reflecting with you on why song is an essential part of the human experience, and why it is such a necessary and valuable part of Christian worship.

First then, why do we sing?

Spontaneous singing breaks out when words alone cannot capture all we want to express and the need to express bubbles over. Song is the outpouring of a soul expressing the inexpressible. The guy in Home Depot was pumped about his project and just couldn’t help himself. Zechariah.

Well, what about Zechariah? Could he have sung the Lego song to describe his life? About nine months prior to his singing the Benedictus, he had been chosen to burn incense in temple–a great and terrifying honor. They literally tied a rope around your leg when you went in so they could pull out your corpse just in case you were struck down while in the presence of God. While he was in the temple, he was not struck dead, but he did have an unexpected and terrifying experience with a heavenly messenger. Due to his lack of faith, he was miraculously rendered unable to talk, while his aging wife miraculously became pregnant with a little boy.

Shortly thereafter, he would probably have heard the story of Mary’s divinely appointed pregnancy while she was staying at his house. Given his inability to speak, he would have had plenty of time for reflection. When his son was born, he was a very different man than when he entered the temple nine months before. He had suffered a crisis of faith, and had come through it believing, all at an advanced age. At the moment he acted on his belief by naming his son John, his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed! What would you do at that moment? I think I would too. He sang. HE SANG.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the physiological reasons that people in general and more specifically, the People of God, delight in singing. Consider for a moment that most of our singing in church is done in a standing posture. This means your skeletal and muscular systems are engaged and the central nervous system is keeping you balanced and coordinating how you hold the hymnal. Your respiratory system is particularly engaged as you inhale to provide breath for your vocal chords.

Did you know that the muscles controlling the vocal chords are among the most responsive in your body? They instantly shape your vocal chords in complex ways to produce articulate sounds. Your eyes, ears and sense of feel—sound is a vibration—are all engaged and functioning when you sing, not to mention your wonderfully complex brain working to make sense and meaning of the experience. Singing in fact, helps us in our quest to love Jesus with our heart, soul, mind and strength by the very fact that it so actively engages all of those parts!

That brings us to the question of what, exactly, is a song?

The obvious answer is that a song is word, usually poetry, set to music. Furthermore, a song both encompasses what we want to express, as well as being the means by which we more completely engage with what it is we want to express. Feeling dull or tired, not quite ready to experience the things of God this morning? A song can help us get there.

Put another way, a great song distills an idea down to its essence and lights it aflame with music. A diamond is a beautiful thing on its own, but it is made perfect when it is placed in a setting designed to show its qualities to many people. A good setting, musical or otherwise, enhances the inherent qualities of the object and displays them in ways impossible to see otherwise. The musical part of a song completes and enhances the textual part of a song in a way words alone can never do.

Let’s look at a specific song. What did Zechariah sing about? We might think he would sing about his immediate personal experience, but he did not sing about that, or at least St. Luke doesn’t record it. He sang about universal things, things universal to the experience of the people of God, things we too can, and do, sing about. He sings of a mighty Savior, foretold by the prophets, around whom all of history is organized. He sings of enemies from which we are being saved, namely, sin, death and the oblivion of the grave. He sings of the light of the gospel, which will be shed over all the earth, and in so doing, he sings of all those who have experienced the love of Christ.

These are ultimate realities which Zechariah is singing about, problems which theologians and philosophers have discussed for centuries. Most of us are not theologians and philosophers, and yet quite possibly we can achieve a wholesome and deep understanding of these ultimate realities through a lifetime of singing about them.

There is, of course, a difference between knowing a thing in your head and knowing it in your heart. Those of us who have grown up in the church have likely achieved a decent level of Bible and liturgical knowledge. But perhaps like me, you tend to develop immunity to the awesomeness of holy things.

We don’t tremble like Martin Luther when he took the chalice of wine to consecrate it the first time. We forget to tie ropes around our legs in case we should be overcome by the presence of God. We don’t tend to burst out into song for joy of the Lord.

The author Annie Dillard gets it right when she asks: “Why do people in church seem like cheerful tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? We should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”

For the Christian, singing songs in the context of the Eucharist is one of the gifts of God to help us feel, remember and treasure these ultimate realities. If the story of redemption is the story of Christ making everything whole again that was broken, singing a song is one way of bringing all of my parts together and taking me one step closer to being made whole. It helps make what I know in my head to be true in my heart.

So, the bottom line for us today is that we should Sing!

More than 25 percent of the Bible is poetry, much of it specifically designed to be sung. All of today’s lessons have been set to music, some famously so as with the Malachi text. Let us take particular delight this Christmastide in singing with the prophets of old as Father Miller encouraged us. What better way—as we prayed in the opening Collect—to greet the coming of the Savior with joy than to sing?

Take time to delight in singing Christmas carols on your way to work or around the house. Might I suggest, sit down a minute with the poetry of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and contemplate some of those big words and big realities to prepare for Christmas Eve. Maybe even break out into song in the Fruitville Pike Home Depot. The truth is, as we the People of God walk in light of the ultimate realities that are on display even here this morning. Everything is awesome. Yes, for the People of God, everything is awesome.

Amen.