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Shoreham Deanery Evensong (IISam.1.17-27;Col.3.12-17)From David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan (so eloquently translated in the King James Bible) to Paul’s encouragement to sing, with gratitude in our hearts, psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. From the challenging and radical words of Mary in the magnificat where we are reminded of a God who ‘casts down the mighty from their seat and exalts the humble and meek’ to the gentle and moving words of Simeon where, after seeing Jesus, the promised hope for the future, he tells God that he is ready to die – ‘Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy will’ – some of the most significant moments in scripture are expressed in song. The tradition of expressing significant moments in faith in song has continued ever since. So powerful is song in the Christian tradition that St. Augustine wrote: ‘He who sings, prays twice.’ This is worth remembering in our celebration this evening which is not only a wonderful gathering of local choirs, but is also designated Music Sunday by the Royal School of Church Music. But because we have been brought up with the concept of singing our faith, do we take what we sing for granted? We pick up our books and sing words, words that have been known to us for a long time – do we examine them in any depth to discover how they travelled from person to pen to paper – and how they became connected to the tune? We examine words from scripture, we examine the words of the psalms – what about examining the words of the hymns and songs that we sing, especially as we spend more time singing in our acts of worship than we spend on any other activity? Also, if we take mission seriously, in what ways can what we sing draw others into the community of faith.....and in what ways does it keep them out?It is not only in Christian communities where song is so important. Some scientists claim men and women originally communicated with each other by singing before they did so by speaking. Song and music play a large part in our culture, expressing hope as well as despair and we can learn a great deal about a culture by studying its song. One musicologist (A.P.Merriam) wrote:Mythology, legend and history are found in song texts and song is frequently used as an enculturative device...Songs provide the student of human behaviour with some of the richest material he has available for analysis, but their full potential remains to be exploited.There was a time when songs sung in the church – or the tunes to which they were set – were also sung outside the Church. Folk tunes were set to hymns and the people who sung and played them in church also sung and played them in the local pub. Charles Wesley was particularly talented at writing hymns and setting them to folk tunes. What is important here is that the story of faith was being transmitted. Sometimes tunes set to hymns became folk songs. ‘Ilkley moor ba’tat’ originally started its life as a hymn tune – it was written as a tune to ‘While shepherds watched their flocks by night.’ It was as a result of an outing of the Halifax Wesleyan Methodist Church across Ilkley moor that it acquired the words we all know. Two of the party disappeared into in the bracken. On their return a choir member bellowed out ‘where hast thou been since I saw thee?’ .....and so the life of the song began. Not so many years ago, ‘Abide with me’ used to be sung at the FA Cup Final; even now Jerusalem is sung at the Last Night of the Proms. Sadly, such exchanges between church and society are nothing like as common probably because, in many ways, the bridge between church and society has become quite rickety. Is it possible, through our music and composing, to change this? The opportunity is still there.People, not connected to the church, still want to express thoughts about God and the struggles they have. If the Church cannot provide the means – or does not accept their way of communicating - they will find other ways. Listen to this, a song called ‘There by the grace of God’ and the key line is, ‘With grace we will suffer, with grace we will recover.’ What about this song: ‘All of my sins are attempts to fill/the voids all of my voids they are/filled with sin all of my demons/they are kept within’. Words expressing Christian concerns written by the Manic Street Preachers, formed in the 1980s, but still popular now. The same group released a CD in the mid 1990s This is My Truth Tell me Yours. So many of these songs are searching and articulating the human struggles frequently found in hymns and they articulate such issues in ways that speak to the young of today, the very group with whom we, as the Church, are trying to be in touch. I know there is Christian rock music, but groups such as the Manic Street Preachers appeal to those for whom the church means nothing....and yet they are asking, perhaps in very different ways, the questions that Christians are asking. How can we bridge that gap........how can we rediscover and redefine that long and honourable tradition where songs of the church and songs of society are not seen as enemies to each other but as friends? What an amazing discussion would happen if non-church goers were asked to bring songs which spoke very powerfully into their deepest hopes and aspirations, into their needs and concerns and church-goers were to bring songs or hymns which did the same.What makes a hymn/worship song a good hymn? Are some hymns unacceptable? I am aware I am on tricky ground here, because the hymns sung in a church and the tunes to which they are sung arouse great emotions churches and not infrequently have changing hymns and tunes been the cause of local revolutions. Bernard Manning, writing on the hymns of Wesley and Watts in the 1930s, commented: Reverence is due to hymns as to any sacred object. The hymn that revolts me, if it has been a means of grace to Christian men and women, I must respect as I should respect a communion cup, however scratched its surface, however vulgar its decoration.As a parish priest in Zambia, my congregation was 85% Zambian, 10% Asian and 5% European. The only common language was English, but it was the first language of the minority (5%) and the second or third language of everybody else. What we frequently did was to ensure that each ethnic grouping were able to worship God in their own language at some point during worship. The Lamb of God was sung in Bemba (Zambia), one hymn in Tamil (Sri Lanka) and another in Malayalam (South India). It meant that each member of the congregation was able to worship from their heart....and it was deeply enrichening for the rest of us to allow that to happen and listen to God worshipped in another tongue. How can we enable, often through the hymns/worship songs we sing, people to worship God from the heart? Do we always insist in doing it in one way, through a particular style or kind of singing, or can we allow the Spirit to blow more freely in what we sing? Having said that, there are some hymns and songs that are so exclusive and alienating that they need to be revised or sent to the liturgical dust-bin – and this is the story of the development of the hymn. For example, the lines from Rock of Ages ‘While I draw this fleeting breath, when my eye-lids close in death’ were originally ‘While I draw this fleeting breath, when my eye-strings break in death.’ I hope that one day the line in In Christ alone ’The wrath of God is justified’ will be replaced by something like ’The grace of God is magnified.’ And what about this verse dropped from Thy hand, O God has guided thy flock from age to age was written during reign of Queen Victoria when the Archbishop of Canterbury was Edward Benson): ‘God bless our merrie England/God bless our dear old Queen/God bless our great Archbishop/ The best there’s ever been.’ And finally, here is the favourite of a strict Calvinist sect which used to meet in Hyde Park : ‘We are the Savior's Chosen few./The rest of You Be Damned./ There's Room enough in Hell for You./ We can't have Heaven Crammed.’ If we do remove or revise hymns, then it is important that there are good, sound theological reasons for doing so.‘He who sings, prays twice’ St. Augustine wrote. He also wrote: ‘Do you know what a hymn is? It is singing with the praise of God.’ Hymns and worship songs play such a significant part in our worship and in our lives. They can draw us deeper into the mystery of God. They are more than words on a page, they are more than notes on a stave but provide keys to worship and doorways to a relationship with Jesus Christ. What it is important for us all to do is to make sure those keys are available to all and the doors are always open.26.vi.11 ................
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