St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, December 17, 2006

Singing Our Lives – Rev. Cathy Russell

Psalm 147 Colossians 3: 5-17

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m delighted to be able to share some thoughts with you on the practice of Singing our Lives as part of the Spiritual Practices series. Singing was the first topic I chose from the list on the Practicing our Faith website, which came as no surprise to David, or to many of you, no doubt, and the second was Dying Well, which... I’ll leave you to make of that what you will. By the way, I’m aware that talking about singing is a bit like dancing about architecture, but we’ll give it our best shot anyway.

Why Do We Sing?

Why do we sing- and by “we”-I mean human beings, why do “we” sing? What made our earliest ancestors decide to while away an evening around the fire with Fulsome Prison Blues or Kum-By-Yah for the first time? From an article in The Economist magazine, the scientific community seems to be split on this issue- offering a number of different answers #1) There are those who see an advantage in terms of natural selection-the best singers get all the pretty girls and a chance to pass on their genes. Others point to group singing and music making as a way to increase social cohesion- as grim as a cross Canada tour is in the dead of winter, it does have a way of bonding the band members together. And then, a certain Dr. Stephen Pinker of Harvard University puts forward the ‘auditory cheesecake’ theory which says that- singing is a totally superfluous development and fills no evolutionary function for our species. When we discussed the article at Wednesday Bible study, I think the general consensus was that this last theory was a bunch of hooey, and that Dr. Pinker appears to be missing a soul. Okay, okay, that last part was just me but we did all agree that he was wrong about music being simply an accident or an evolutionary aside.

Why is Singing So Important to Our Faith?

This isn’t surprising given that our faith takes a very different view of the importance of music and singing. Our scriptures this morning, tell us that singing is the appropriate response of the worshipping disciple people of God. They tell us that God is worthy of a song, and that the people of God have something to sing about. Psalm 147 begins:

“¹Praise the Lord!

How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.”

A song of praise is indeed fitting for the God who is the architect of stars, sender of rains, feeder of young birds, gatherer of Israel’s outcasts and healer of broken hearts. Doesn’t that God- our God deserve a song?

And our reading from Colossians ends “¹⁶Let the word of Christ^* dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.” ^{* 1}A song of praise is indeed fitting from the people of God, who through Christ have been released from the bondage of their own sin to the freedom of a life of forgiveness, peace and love. That’s the basic equation of this passage- disciple people-old sinful life, + new life in Christ= SING! Don’t those disciples- don’t we, have something to sing about?

These scriptures and many, many others in both testaments call upon us to offer a song as a fitting response to the grace and faithfulness of God in our world and in our lives.

When We Sing Together We Enter A Mystery

And as people who make that offering week after week here at St. Paul’s as people who worship together, who sing together on a regular weekly basis, we know don’t we- we know how meaningful, how stirring, how holy it is when the people of God join their voices to sing God’s praise. As a worshipping community of disciples, we sense intuitively that when we sing as a congregation, we don’t just feel good, although that is often part of the experience. When we sing as part of our worship of God, we participate in a kind of mystery- a mystery that draws us nearer to God, and invites God to draw nearer to us. We know it and we feel it- in our minds in our hearts, in our bodies, in our souls.

Our Favourite Hymns

Singing together in worship is all about those feelings we get when we encounter the presence of God. Many of you took the time to share the emotions and images associated with your favourite hymns in the brief survey you were invited to fill out last week. A number of you named hymns you learned when you were young, and your faith was being formed by Sunday School, a parent or grandparent. One person named “Jesus Bids us Shine” as a favourite because “It reminds me of Sunday School as a child-the innocence, the joy of discovering Jesus.” Some of you named hymns sung as part of specific historic occasions. One of these was “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace”, which was sung at the funeral of Diana Princess of Wales, pointing out that “millions sang it- reminding them, if only briefly their connection to our God and our faith in him.” Slide Another person named a very different hymn the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” sung at a very different memorial- the National Service of Remembrance for the Victims of the 9/11 attacks because of the stirring sense of conviction it conveyed.

Some of you felt most drawn to hymns that speak of our commitment to God as disciples of the gospel. Hymns like “We Are Pilgrims On A Journey” or “I the Lord of Sea and Sky” because as one of you wrote “I have always felt you must lead by example- to lead the best life you can”. The awesome awareness of God’s presence in all of creation expressed in hymns like “How Great Thou Art” was also named. And the ongoing presence of God in our lives, as a source of comfort and refuge, as a promise and gift of hope was a theme running through almost all of the surveys, especially reflected in favourites old and new such as “In the Bulb There Is A Flower”, “On Eagles Wings”, “I Come to the Garden Alone”, and “I Guide Me O Thou Great Jehova”. One sentiment summed up for many by naming a sense of “that anything is possible, and that... God and Jesus are with you always to give you comfort and support.”

As a disciple community who sings every week as part of our worship of God, we know, we sense intuitively that when we sing these hymns together, we participate in a kind of mystery- a mystery that draws us nearer to God, and invites God to draw nearer to us. We know it and we feel it- in our minds in our hearts, in our bodies, in our souls.

Group Singing is An Endangered Animal

I wonder if we realise what a rarity our experience of congregational singing is. Although not that long ago, informal group singing was a common feature of social gatherings among families and friends, today things are much different. To illustrate the generational contrast, you would only have to come to one of our monthly lunch out event for seniors, where there is often a sing along after the meal and the guests by and large participate happily. On the other hand, I was told recently about a Christmas concert at one of our local schools where the great majority of parents sat silent during what was supposed to be a participatory carol sing at the end of the program.

So why don’t we sing- The Simon Cowell Factor- The number of people who have been told in no uncertain terms that they can’t and or shouldn’t sing- and have never done so since is legion. Some parents tell me that this is definitely changing now in the schools, so that at least is encouraging. #2) We no longer have a common song book- the well of songs that people have in common has become much shallower given #3) With an emphasis on performance, most people experience singing only as an audience member- we listen or we watch and listen, but we don’t join in.

The Church is A Sanctuary for Group Singing

Religious worship, is the only public occasion I can think of where people of all ages, musical tastes and backgrounds sing together on a regular basis. Worship is the only public occasion I can think of where the strongest emphasis is, or at least should be, not on performance- not on the quality of the sound, but on the participation of those gathered. That doesn’t mean that we don’t give our best in our sung worship, whether we’re talking about the choir or the congregation. But it does mean that in the end, what we are seeking is that mystery that takes us beyond ourselves all together, into that holy encounter with the presence of God. And that holy encounter for God’s people is a purpose and a goal that trumps any differences in individual musical ability or preferences in musical style or instrumentation.

Here’s a quote from an article written by Bob Kauflin entitled “What Happens When We Sing” that really gets to the heart of the matter.

It is clear that the dominant theme of Scripture is believers singing together. Jesus died to redeem a universal choir, and every individual voice matters. We are not called to listen to others sing or to sing by ourselves. We are called to sing together. The question is not “Do you have a voice?” The question is “Do you have a song?” If you’re redeemed by Christ’s cross then you do have a song.

Christians have a song- we have a song, I have a song, and you have a song-a song of a Glorious Creator, architect of the stars, feeder of young birds, gatherer of the outcasts, healer of the wounded. We have a song of a self-giving Redeemer, who releases us from a life bound by sin, for a life clothed in love. We have a song of a Constant and comforting Sustainer, who gifts us with peace in the depths of our hearts. We have a song- and here in this place, week after week, year after year, for almost 175 years, we have been singing it and by so doing drawing closer to God and inviting the Holy One to draw close to us.

If you remember one thing from this morning, remember that you have a song to sing, and you have this place and this opportunity, and by God’s grace so many, many reasons to sing it.

Thanks Be to God, AMEN.