Christ Church Episcopal, Harwich Port Sermon for June 20, 2010 Psalm 42; 1 Kings 19:1-15 + As longs the deer for cooling streams in parched and barren ways, so longs my soul, O God, for thee and thy refreshing grace. i This week I have been thinking about our plans to have an historic liturgy on Sunday, July 4, trying to capture the spirit of worship in fledgling America in the late 18 th century, just after the Revolutionary war, when the American version of the Anglican Church began officially as the Episcopal Church. From the time English colonists settled in America, they began worshipping according to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (and even versions earlier than that), until the first American Prayer Book in 1789. Many had adapted the English Prayer Book to strike through the references to the Crown and replace them with praying for the American president and congress and this practice culminated in the proposed 1786 and official 1789 prayer book. But more about all that on July 4! What I m really leading up to is the use of singing the psalms in the American Churches in the early days and particularly to talk about today s lectionary psalm, Psalm 42. Surprisingly, the only tradition that during the Revolution produced new musical compositions by identifiable composers was psalmody--literally the singing of psalms, but by the time of the Revolution the term included the practice of all sacred music. Although in some ways the devotional purpose of psalmody separated it from secular music, it was an important kind of eighteenth-century American popular music-making. Psalmody is the genre best documented in printed sources, and most of the central issues of popular music-making including the oral tradition affected it. From the mid-sixteenth century, Protestants followed the Scriptural injunction to sing psalms. English Protestants made the psalms accessible by setting them in the vernacular and casting them in the verse forms of popular balladry. The psalm Sermon for June 20, 2010 / Judith Davis / www.christepiscopalharwich.org Page 1
verses were published; they also circulated orally through the practice of liningout, in which the text is read line by line by a deacon or precentor and sung back in answer by the congregation. The earliest English colonists sang psalms in church as a continuation of British practice. The first book printed in the colonies was the Whole Booke of Psalms, nicknamed the Bay Psalm Book, a New England versification of the psalms, published because the settlers believed the existing British versions were insufficiently faithful to Scripture. During the eighteenth century psalmody proliferated in print. The Bay Psalm Book appeared in nearly thirty New England editions by 1760. Brady and Tate's New Version of the Psalms of David (London, 1696) went through many American editions as well, The version of Psalm 42 for today comes from an American edition of Brady and Tate's New Version of the Psalms of David (London, 1696). This and similar publications were inspired, at least in part, by the establishment of singing schools instructional sessions in note reading and singing that began to be formed early in the eighteenth century, chiefly in response to the outcry of the clergy and others about what they felt to be the low state of singing in New England. Therefore, sacred music in New England, which in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had been "committed and entrusted to the uncertain and doubtful Conveyance of Oral Tradition" the words are those of Thomas Walter, a Boston clergyman and important musical reformer began to work its way back into written tradition. ii During this time, one young American who came of age in the 1760s William Billings (1746-1800), wrote significant psalmody. In 1770 he published the first collection of entirely American music: The New-England Psalm-Singer, containing 126 pieces, all by Billings, a Boston tanner. You ll hear an anthem by Billings in the 10am service on July 4. So, now let us look at Psalm 42. Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 are really one psalm. The refrain, in verse 6 of Psalm 42, is a connector, Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? And why are you so disquieted within me? or as the hymn based on the 1696 Psalter says, Why restless, why cast down, my soul? The themes woven through these psalms are many and varied. The psalm opens with that great image of longing for God as the deer longs for water. Water reminds us that God is like living water and yet the water of tears has become the psalmist s only drink and food. The headwaters of the Jordan remind the psalmist of God s power as Sermon for June 20, 2010 / Judith Davis / www.christepiscopalharwich.org Page 2
well as the power of the waters of chaos at creation. The deep or tehom in Hebrew also reminds us of the primeval chaos before Creation and so water stands for both life and death. Those of us attending the Wednesday Bible Study are also reminded of the promise of the waters of life in Revelation for those who are thirsty. The psalmist longs desperately for God and pours out his soul in anguish. The Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, is repeated again and again. Nephesh is the essence of one s life, one s soul, and the psalmist feels his soul crushed and downcast, desperate for God. While the psalmist seems desperate for God, he especially longs to worship God with the community in the temple, the special place of God s presence and, for some reason, the psalmist is not in Jerusalem near the temple. The enemies are taunting him and grief shatters his bones. Then the terrible question from those who taunt him is Where is your God? Yet even in distress the psalmist clings to the assurance that God is faithful and patiently waits for God to lead him to the opportunity to praise God again. We too, all too often, are like the deer longing for running streams, and like the psalmist longing to be back in the temple to worship God. This psalm has been used in the Easter Vigil, particularly when an adult is being baptized. Indeed this image was so powerful in the early church that ancient baptisteries were decorated with the motif of a deer. When in your life has your soul longed desperately for God, desperately for the waters of life, for the opportunity to praise God? When have you been separated from God and the community and longed to be back? When have you been so thirsty for God, for love, for being included? What strikes me most about this psalm is the psalmist s ability to remember the goodness of God after all, to remember that God is faithful, that God will be there, and that the psalmist has not been deserted by God. I am reminded of two quotes. The first is by Vincent van Gogh in the 19 th century, In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing. I love that quote because yesterday I spent a couple of hours painting in Harwich Port with the Guild of Harwich Artists who were painting the town. I chose to paint the Sundae School and it had been for ever since I had painted. The second quote is from Mother Teresa: We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature--trees, Sermon for June 20, 2010 / Judith Davis / www.christepiscopalharwich.org Page 3
flowers, grass--grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls. Indeed, even in the busyness of our summer, the influx of visitors and family, the chaos of our own lives, the illnesses of our friends and family, the state of the world, let us remember that we long for God with all that we are. We long for God like the deer panting after the water-brooks, and as St. Augustine said in the beginning of The City of God, our hearts are restless until they find rest in God. When Elijah was desperate to hear God, God was not in the fire and the earthquake and in the power, but God was in the sheer small voice in silence. That s where Elijah heard what he needed in order to act. The conclusion of Psalm 46 also reminds us that God is in the silence, Be still, then, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. No matter what we are going through at any given time and I know that many of you are going through difficult times, we are assured in the scriptures that God IS with us always, even when we look for God in the places where we do not find God. God is a near as our breath and as close as our heartbeat. God is in the silence and in our hearts. And, as Thomas Merton reminds us in Thoughts in Solitude, God will never leave us to face our perils alone. iii The title of that small wonderful book by Thomas Merton says it all, Thoughts in Solitude. Let us take the time to hear God s voice in the moments of silence this week that we may be assured, like Elijah was and like the psalmist was, that God is with us always. i Hymn 658, The Hymnal 1982, words from Tate and Brady s New Version of the Psalms of David, 1696, para. of Psalm 42:1-7; see hymn below. The image is from the extraordinary polychrome mosaic floor of the Butrint Baptistery in Southwest Albania and is the most complete and complex mosaic pavement of all surviving baptisteries of the period. It can be dated to the second quarter of the 6th century AD, and may have been the work of craftsmen based at Nicopolis. It shows the image of the deer. ii These thoughts are from Music of the American Revolution: The Birth of Liberty by Richard Crawford, New World Records, org. iii Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1958, p. 86 Sermon for June 20, 2010 / Judith Davis / www.christepiscopalharwich.org Page 4
As longs the deer for cooling streams Words: Brady and Tate, New Version of the Psalms of David, 1696, alt.; para. of Psalm 42:1-7 Music: Martyrdom, melody & bass Hugh Wilson (1764-1824); adapt. & harm. Robert Smith (1780-1829) Sermon for June 20, 2010 / Judith Davis / www.christepiscopalharwich.org Page 5