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SOMETHING TO SING ABOUT
The text of the sermon delivered by the Revd David Jenkins at Sunday morning's communion service.
Twelve months ago I shared some musical meanderings with you, in which I attempted to encourage a greater intensity of listening to the music beyond the score, the word beyond the words, a more imaginative belief in making music together, in participation, and a sharper focus on leadership which orchestrates rather than dominates. Now here we are, twelve months further along, and I am still not short of musical questions.
During this past year it has been a privilege to travel north, south, east and west and come alongside children, young people and adults from our churches. It has been good to listen to some of the songs of the saints. So I am not surprised to hear you asking: 'what have you heard? Melodic strains or strained melodies? Grafted compositions or silent decomposition? Charming chants or despairing disenchants? Is there anything to sing about?'
Well I assure you the Psalms live Ok. Songs are still sung by people in anger, people at peace, people in tears, people in celebration, people in loneliness, people in love, people in fear, people in security, people in pain, people in wholeness, people of doubt and people of confidence. They still come from the lips of people in community and people persecuted by the community, from people at worship and people for whom God seems as distant as the stars. They still come from Beatitude-people unlikely ones, poverty-stricken ones, meek ones, despairing ones, oppressed ones, abused ones, and they come from salty ones and light-filled ones. And nearly all of the songs are written on the hearts and will never get to the publishers.
But the Lord God hears them all.
For the Lord God made them all.
And the Lord God includes them all in his family.
They come from children who are enchanted with being part of the Church Family and they come from young people who are about to vote with their feet and will soon join the ranks of the disillusioned. There are songs of confidence and dreaming, with expectation of new roads to be built and risky journeys to take. But there are also songs of nostalgia, and cries of longing for the good old days. And there are dusty harps hung on willow trees and vocal chords sagging through lack of use. Yes, there are songs for every experience, every hour and every mood. And that is right. Churches should be places where the music of human experience have complete freedom of expression, for the blessed ones are the weeping and joyful ones, the singing ones and the sad ones.
But, thank God, this is not the whole story. We are not the only singers. Our ears need to be trained to listen to the songs God plants in the wide, wide world. Like shepherds on night-shift and wise travellers from the East, we are willing to be surprised by the songs in the heavens, and ready to take journeys of discovery. Yes Christian, you should expect to hear hymns in the street, and psalms in the cities,
and music in the market place.. God's songs are heard in literature and art and poetry and in cartoonist and comedian, in peace-makers and justice-bringers, and in the meek and merciful of the earth. Long live the singer psalmists of our time.
What a body blow it is then when the media come along and say 'Come on, what have you got to sing about? The United Reformed Church is in terminal decline, like much of traditional religion.' Much of the media of course feed off controversy, dialectic and disaster. They are not on the hunt for angels' songs. At the Assembly of the Church of Scotland they avoided the worship, the celebration, the youth festival because they were not newsworthy But there is another hidden agenda here. Behind this question of numerical decline is the hidden implication that the Church exists to keep itself going, that the main purpose of the Church is to maintain the Church. We might have even been hoodwinked into believing it ourselves. But the Church doesn't exist to rejoice in its own existence or to sing its own songs. It doesn't exist to be Top of the Pops.
Why then does the Church exist? The answer is in the song of the angels in Luke:
'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace'. We exist to worship God and to create shalom on earth. We exist for God's sake and the world's sake, not our own. This is elementary. But it is often forgotten. And we need both parts of the song or we will only be half-heard. If we put all our energy into worship which is deaf to the cries of pain all around us and deprecating of people's life-affirming gifts and possibilities, we will become a sanctimonious sect If we direct all our attention to creating justice and peace, without affirming God's worth and mystery in Word, in Bread and Wine we will lose touch with our source, our nourishment and our vision.
Are these not the two inseparable sides of our raison d'être, brought together wonderfully here in the proclamation of the good news of great joy for all people, and in the sharing of Communion? The bread and wine of earth become signs of God's eternal presence. The broken bread and the poured out wine speak of Christ's body, God's people sacrificing and serving in order that the earth can taste shalom, God's children suffering so that all earth's children can have food and drink, nourishment of mind and spirit to enable them to say: 'Thank you, God, for life'.
When Churches get this blend right, then the numbers game is of little consequence. There is such a passion for prayer and for peace, for wonder and for welcome, for rejoicing and for reconciliation, for reverence and for risking, that the focus is now sharp and clear. It is God's Kingdom and God's wish for rightness to prevail in the world that becomes the centre of our attention. God promises that if we get that centre right then worry about the future is banished and we are freed to get on with enjoying life.
So allow me now to paint one or two pictures from the journeying of the past twelve months illustrating this unchanging purpose and goal of the friends of Jesus.
I'll start nearest heaven, in Northern Province. Holy Island can either be an unholy stomping ground for thousands of holiday makers or a focus or pilgrimage and prayer, of mission and creative thinking reflecting on the task of Christians from the Celtic Church to the saints of today who seek to proclaim and live in the Kingdom of God. Our presence on that Island at St. Cuthbert's is a fragile flower in a tough climate. After a recent visit, Marjorie Lewis Cooper commented that this was a fascinating model of mission
Keeping to Celtic areas allow me to mention also Manselton, Swansea. This congregation has been asking all sorts of questions about purpose and identity over the past few years. They pulled down a large building but did not build on the site until they had spent nearly ten years using homes and community premises. Now they are building and know much more clearly what sort of place they need in order to be a sign of worship and peace-making. Worship and prayer undergird a people whose goal is to resurrect the deprived community in which the church is set.
Penrhys overlooks the coming together of the Rhondda Fawr and the Rhondda Fach. In a culture of deprivation and fear it announces God's determination to come alongside suffering people of all ages. Lives are not only touched but enfolded. The Gospel is mined by all ages. Treasures are unearthed to help a people on their present pilgrimage. With over thirty young people in groups discovering what it means to belong to be friends of Jesus here is no theology plucking people from an evil world, but equipping them to transform their dark situations by candle-lights and Christian compassion.
Ramsey in the Isle of Man sought to secede from the United Reformed Church a few years ago. Now, under the care of a positive, patient, caring minister, they have trodden a new path, one of affirmation not criticism. They have discovered that the Province is there to help and sustain, envision and enable. Their Easter Day family fun day at Ravenscraig Castle was full of new life and hope. Five new elders were ordained on Palm Sunday, all women, their first women elders. Look out Ramsey Street, new neighbours are being born every day.
We need to affirm all those places where mission has become service with no strings attached, rather than a disguised way of saying: "we'll help you if you'll come and help keep the church going." But we have to admit that we've a long way to go before our faith and trust is as strong as that. The purpose of many of our church organisations is to feed the church rather than feed the world, strengthen the church rather than strengthen the world. We only do the first in order to do the second. The problem is we never get round to doing the second. When will we reconstruct our agendas and programmes so that we seek to nurture and equip worshippers for their service in society? We talk about countless themes in our churches but we rarely take time to help people to reflect on their jobs or lack of jobs, their community involvement, or their family joys and pains.
In Taiwan, the Changhua Christian Hospital is a brilliant light in that community. Most of the staff people Margie and I met, from doctors to administrators, to porters or cleaners, were convinced they were doing their work primarily as Christians, engaged in a calling, a serving way of life in the name of Jesus Christ. How we need to extend and deepen our thinking on Christian Vocation so that all our people realise they are part of God's diakonia as well as God's koinonia, God's ministering people as well as God's covenant fellowship.
It's right here, staring at us, The breaking of bread and the pouring of wine is proclaiming an offering of human life for the sake of humanity. Praise of God pours out into a broken world, and every word and deed becomes flesh to transform and resurrect.
So let the song of the angels be heard by us all.
Let our churches sing and strive to give glory to God and create peace on earth. Then they will become places from where people begin journeys of surprise rather than where people shelter from the tempest.
Let our churches sing and strive to give glory to God and create peace on earth until staves and bars are not weapons in the hand on the Garvachy Road or anywhere else, but are left to enrich the music on the printed page.
Let our churches sing and strive to give glory to God and create peace on earth until the discord of earth is drowned out by the Alleluias of the suffering saints.
Let us break bread and pour wine, eat and drink together, to show the world that we are overjoyed to belong to that body which will never stop ministering, never stop singing, never stop dancing, never stop praying until Alleluias drown all human discord and the universe resounds with the music of its Creator.
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