Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs Rev. Chandler Stokes Colossians 3:12-17 The Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time November 1, 2015 Introduction Today, as part of our confirmation preaching series, we explore the role of music in our worship. While talking about music is a bit like trying to dance about architecture, I will try to use words to get at music in our worship. We also celebrate All Saints Day today and remember those who have died and who are now a part of the communion of saints. And we celebrate Communion. We will get a glimpse of all three of these gifts through this one beautiful text from Colossians. Scripture Colossians 3:12-17 12 As God s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let 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. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. *** Music. All Saints. Communion. Taken together, they are bigger than us. That s a lot, but the three are all connected. They are connected not so much in something that we can grasp or as something that we can completely explain. They are, rather, something larger than us that hold us and carry us, rather than our holding and carrying them. They are connected in a place of mystery. A place of mystery that is near what is explainable or useful, but they are beyond that, over the edge, in a place that is larger than us. When our son and his wife were married, after the wedding, you know how the couple has a first dance with each other, and then they each dance with a parent? Our kids didn t have a first dance at their reception; they had a first song. Jeremy and Jesse sang a tune together, and then Karen and I sang a song with Jeremy that we always used to sing together, and then Jesse and her family sang a song that they always used to together. Jesse s mom had died about seven years before, but, as Jess sang and played with her father and brother, people who knew Jessie s mom, Molly, kept calling out, She s here! She s here, Jess! Music. All Saints. Communion. My question is, in part, what are we doing here? I don t mean in cosmic sense, on planet earth. I mean, what are we doing here, in worship? What s the point? I m asking about utility. There is a usefulness to a lot of what we do a utility, a point to it. We go to school to learn. We go to the doctor to be healed. There s a clear point to those activities. But here? Liturgist Marva Dawn has called worship a holy waste of time. Yes, that s what it is! Because sermons are prepared with an emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts may occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
In particular, all this music on Sunday morning: we come here and we sing, we play, or at least hear, a lot of music. It s all through the service. So what s the point? Is all this that we do here, all this music, is this going to accomplish something, make us better people? Look at the picture on the front of today s bulletin, a picture of our congregation at worship. What are you all doing? And why? I like this picture very much, and it s easy to imagine all the beautiful music going on, but those people aren t really doing anything very useful. Wouldn t they be more useful on the assembly line or doing something for someone else? Yes, there are wonderful gifts in listening to, singing, and playing music. I ll grant that singing, in particular, gets us breathing, and when Helen, our minister of music, leads us at the organ, pausing so that we take a breath together to begin each phrase of a hymn, it s actually a wonderful way to build community. But there are a lot more efficient ways to do it than to build this organ and put all these people in here. This music and worship is very pretty but, in a world where so much is terribly broken, it seems pretty useless and inefficient. While we gather here, we are not feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or visiting those in prison. So, what s the point? * * * The section of Colossians that comes before what we read this morning begins with Paul s simply saying, So since you have been raised with Christ For Paul the resurrection is the place we begin as followers of Jesus Christ. This section ends with Paul s saying, Do everything in the name of Christ, which means, do everything as a representative of Christ, as part of the risen Body of Christ. One embodies these virtues and values as one raised with Christ, as part of the risen Body of Christ. So he begins with the assumption of resurrection. When I began my study of this text, I was reminded that there is no easy way in fact, there is no way at all to explain the resurrection not the way we might explain learning or healing. Explanations are not well-fitted to the resurrection. Explanations usually diminish or reduce or shrink the resurrection in some way. Resurrection is something bigger than us. The earliest Christians, in fact, didn t try to explain the resurrection; they let the resurrection explain them. So Paul goes through a long litany of things he wants folks to demonstrate as those who have been raised. Paul doesn t explain the resurrection; he assumes it.. Christ is risen: that is the truth with which this part of Colossians begins. Paul says, Since we have been raised with Christ, then: Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another, and forgive each other. Clothe yourselves with love. Let the peace of Christ rule among you. Be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you. Teach and admonish one another. And with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI Page 2 of 5 November 1, 2015
Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God through Christ. There are at least ten different virtues, that, since we have been raised with Christ, we are called to practice. Ten things: they involve compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love, peace, and gratitude. And then the Word is to dwell in us; we are to teach and admonish one another and then, at the pinnacle of this long list, he says, sing. Paul offers us a long catalogue of virtues and practices that all derive from the mystery that Christ is risen, and then he says, singing is critical among them. To Paul all of these virtues and practices are important all of them: compassion, love, wisdom, gratitude. We can t diminish their importance. They are in some way a version of the charge at the end of our service they have great power and utility. But we should note that, after all of those virtues and actions that are to pour out of us, since we have been raised with Christ, the culminating expression of this reality, before Paul s final, whatever you do, the culmination of this list is sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. It s as if singing to God were closest to what Paul was driving at all along. And I thought that very odd. As much as I love singing, it still seemed odd. You d think that love or wisdom or peace something deeply ethical, something useful, something that can make a difference in the world would be the culmination of the list, but Paul says, sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. Christ is risen: The inexplicable bedrock of truth. The defining feature of our reality: Christ is risen. So what do we do? We climax all of that, he says, in singing. The French novelist Victor Hugo once said, Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and yet which cannot remain silent. And the English writer Aldous Huxley said, After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. And the German poet Heinrich Heine wrote, Where words leave off, music begins. A speaker of French, of English, and of German each affirms the limits of his language and the critical role of music that goes beyond explanation. There is something ineffable, inexplicable about the resurrection. And so in music s ability to communicate beyond words, to resonate with the ineffable, it becomes an appropriate medium for expressing ourselves, since Christ has been raised. Maybe better than any combination of mere words, we come closer to the mysterious reality and substance of the resurrection through music. It seems to me that J. S. Bach s repertoire of music is really a theology that doesn t explain the resurrection to us but that allows us to enter and experience it. Music takes us to the edge of words and beyond explanation, which often doesn t make it very useful at least not to the production-consumption cycle of the economy, or what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. Music is about our moving beyond explanation and utility. It s about entering, or rather rooting ourselves in, a world of values that is not subsumed by utility or explanation. And music is strewn throughout the worship service. A few specifics before I return to this more general idea about music: look at all the places we include music: voluntaries, hymns, Kyrie, doxology, responses Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI Page 3 of 5 November 1, 2015
The voluntaries are prayers. If we were to call them the Introit and Postlude, that would imply that Helen or the Winds were playing before and after the actual worship. No, that music is part of our worship. When we arrive here and Helen is already playing the organ, she is praying on our behalf to God. The service isn t over at the benediction. There is a final, wordless prayer from the organist to root us in that which is beyond our ability to speak. We sing the Kyrie as part of our confession. How can we sum up all that is broken in human existence? We can t do so with words. So we sing our sorrow and lament, our regret and sadness. We sing these deeper, more complex truths. Out of that silent prayer of confession, we live the truth that: After silence, where words leave off, music begins. The Hymns contain some great theology, some great poetry, and some wonderful music (and some, sometimes, don t and we try to sift those out). The text In Preparation for Worship today, which is from Proverbs, is a warning: Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, and like vinegar on a wound. The picture is of someone singing Tra-la-la a trite ditty to someone in grief; it makes the hurt worse. That s why we try to keep away from the trite in worship. It s cold for a lot of people. A lot of people come in here wounded, with heavy hearts. So a trite song, as the proverb suggests, can simply add to the pain. And you know why we drawn on so many hymns that are so old? It s because our mothers and fathers in faith sang them. Not everything that s old is good, nor is everything that s new good but an extra blessing in the old songs is that, when we sing them, we can hear our mothers singing them too. These are the songs that they always used to sing together. She s here, Jess! She s here. And there is more music in the service, but to return to our main point: music is not really a moral force, especially when Paul names it here; it s neither explanatory nor useful. It s not even really like kindness or humility, which could be far more useful. As I said, in Paul s list of values and virtues and practices, music still seems the least able to make a difference in the world. And yet it s the most important to him. But I suspect that the reason Paul culminates his list of post-resurrection practices with singing is this it doesn t make a difference. Because the difference that any of these values might provide, the critical difference, has already been made. Not that these aren t really important; these things do make a difference, but for Paul, and for us, the resurrection has already happened: God has defeated death. And that s what makes the biggest difference, so we don t begin to get confused that our participation in the resurrection is somehow accomplishing that. No, it s just flowing out of us as an expression of God s victory in life: forbearance, love, wisdom and most of all, music. Because we ll never get confused that music is accomplishing the resurrection. So we root ourselves there, in music that we can t hold onto but that holds onto us. Music ends up a perfect mystery and medium for worship. We are here to express and to enter the mystery of resurrection life, topping it all off with singing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Look again at that picture on the front of the bulletin. What are all those people doing? They ve got trumpets and trombones, drums, and an organ. There are actually six choirs in that picture, and then everybody else seems to be singing along, too. All that is essentially useless. And therein is its great goodness. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI Page 4 of 5 November 1, 2015
Paul identifies music as the climax of resurrection life. We don t hold it; it carries us. It is bigger than us. Music is about our moving beyond explanation and utility. It s about entering a world of values that is not subsumed by utility or explanation; it is beyond that edge where we are to be rooted. In that context we might understand Rowan Williams, who said: maybe we ought to sing the creed more often than we say it. We re going to sing For All the Saints at the end of the service, but it was written as a processional, not a closing hymn. And when my dear friend KC Ptomey, a professor of liturgy, died a year ago, we sang that hymn as a processional at his funeral. And every time we sing that hymn now, I say, He s here. KC s here! He s with us. All Saints. How are we going to live in the confidence that even death cannot separate those whom God loves from that love? How do we live in the confidence that even though they died they will live? How do we enter that ineffable reality and promise of the resurrection? Well, we re certainly not going to explain it, so instead we re going to sing it. We re going to enter that reality that s bigger than us. We play and we sing because music can root us in mystery and connect us to those who once sang with us. Paul didn t tell us just to sing. He gave us a list of ten or more witnesses to resurrection life, values and practices by which we enter that resurrection life and don t just talk about it. But he also reminded us that Jesus, on the night of his arrest, took bread and blessed and broke it. He told us, as a witness to his resurrection power, to gather at this table. There is a story I almost always tell the Communion servers before the service. I was in Princeton, New Jersey, one Sunday on study leave, so I was at the church across the street. But I was not worshipping the Lord our God; I was criticizing the other preacher. It was awful not the sermon, me. And then a woman elder brought me the Communion bread and said, The Body of Christ, broken for you. And suddenly it was no longer in my head, but there was something that moved beyond that language and into the pew where I sat. Invitation: I look out at the pews today, and I see them so very full Clarence Wisse sitting next to Barb, Dick Parmenter walking through the halls on some errand, Mark Forrester in his new suit, full of hope. And dozens of others Bobbi, Peggy, Virginia, Henry.... But most of all I see the One who would bid us come to this table; that One is here among us. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI Page 5 of 5 November 1, 2015