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The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as are right, that we, who cannot exist without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 14)
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The Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
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A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
✛
Music Everywhere
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Today’s Gospel, Jesus’ parable of the Rich Fool, is one of my favorites, but I am taking a pass on it and the other Scriptures appointed today in order to preach on music in the Church, a topic brought to the fore by the presence of our singers today in the Saint Thomas’ Girls Course. Thanks to the Headmaster and staff at the Choir School, together with our distinguished guest conductors, and above all the girls themselves and their families and friends, this has for several years been one of the highlights of the summer for us.
Holy Scripture testifies to music glorifying God from the elements to the angels. The heavens declare the glory of God, says the Psalm, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. One day telleth another; and one night certifieth another. There is neither speech nor language; but their voices are heard among them.[1] There are no inanimate objects, and there is music inherent in all things, reflecting back to God his own music in creating them. When we think of the Word of God calling all things constantly into being, it is right to think the life-giving Spirit includes music.
In the Book of Common Prayer, the canticle, Benedicite, captures this music of creation. O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever. And then comes a grand procession. O all ye angels, heavens, waters above the firmament, powers, sun and moon, stars of heaven, showers and dew, winds, fire and heat, frost and cold, ice and snow, lightnings and clouds, winter and summer, nights and days – bless ye the Lord: praise him and magnify him forever.
It continues! O let the earth bless the Lord: mountains and hills, green things upon the earth, wells, seas and floods, whales and all that moves in the waters, fowls of the air, beasts and cattle, and finally children of men – bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him for ever. Then come Israel and the Church and all people of God: priests, servants of the Lord, spirits and souls of the righteous, and all holy and humble of heart, bless ye the Lord, praise him and magnify him forever.[2]
The Psalms are replete with similar music, from creeping things to flying fowls, to creatures that the Lord seems to have made simply for the sport and fun of it.
Music is crucial in the history of faith. The first thing that Miriam, Moses’ sister, did after the deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh and his host at the Red Sea, was pick up her tambourine and join her brother in the song, “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.” When Israel broke camp in the wilderness and the priests lifted the ark of the Lord, they sang, “Arise O Lord from thy resting place: thou and the ark of thy strength.” These are among the earliest verses of the Old Testament, going back to the Exodus itself. They are songs.
Songs, music, witnessed victory in battle, lament at defeat; praise of God’s glory and creation, of God’s providence and deliverance and punishment. Many oracles of prophets are clearly songs. King David, who is the moving spirit of the Psalms, whom Scripture calls the sweet psalmist of Israel and the man after the Lord’s own heart, took care over the worship of the Lord to include a range of instrumental as well as vocal music. David danced before the ark as it was brought up for the first time into Jerusalem. (II Sam 6:12-23)
When the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity came, Judah’s pain was so exquisite that music refined it in the highly wrought Lamentations of Jeremiah, where every stanza is denoted and determined by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Similar acrostic poetry may be seen in the very lengthy Psalm 119, a meditation on the Torah.
The great events of the Gospel are attested by song and music. The births of John the Baptist and Christ are surrounded by canticles by the parents and burst of praise from the angels. The apostolic writings about the Lord’s incarnation, death and resurrection, from John to Paul, break forth constantly into hymns. But most significantly, Jesus himself, having had his Last Supper with the disciples, having instituted Holy Communion, having been betrayed, before he went to his Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, sang a hymn with his friends. Music was at the very center of our salvation. Our Lord died with fragments of the Psalms on his lips: into thy hands I commend my spirit.
Music is in all of this, at the heart. It is the praise of the heart – the heart of the universe itself as well as the human heart, returning spirit and blessings and praise to our Maker and Redeemer and Sanctifier. So, Girls, thank you. Thank you for being you and exemplifying for us what music is all about – the return of the spirit to the Lord who is the author and composer of all beauty, life and holiness. We began with the Benedicite. We shall finish with its last verse.
Let us bless the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost: praise him and magnify him for ever. Amen.
[1] Psalm 19: 1-4.
[2] The Benedicite, Omnia Opera Domini, is found in The Book of Common Prayer (1928), pp. 11-13; and The Book of Common Prater (1979), pp. 47-49; pp. 88-90.
