Acts 10.44-48, Psalm 98, John 15.9-17
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 5 May 2024, Eldroth, Clapham
Like walking, swimming, snapping fingers, gargling, turning cart-wheels and whistling in the dark, singing is a human thing. The good news is that we don’t need any equipment to do it, apart from ourselves.
Singing is a natural thing. A baby and its nursing mother do it unselfconsciously. The one goes goo-goo, while the other lah-lahs in the hope of soothing the crying one or encouraging sleep. Many people do it in the bath or shower either because they are flattered by the reverberant acoustic, or because they presume they cannot be heard when pelted by warm water.
Football supporters do it, especially when the home team needs a boost or the opposition needs to be discouraged. Teenagers do it when carried away by the all-round headphone sound which transports them from a dingy bus-shelter to the main stage at Glastonbury music festival.
And all of us, whatever our age, absent-mindedly hum or croon when knitting, fixing the car or trying to disguise the fact that we don't know what we are doing. Many of us, when asked, will say we can’t sing. But really, most of us can, and even when we’re not aware of it, we do.
Singing is a natural thing - even more natural than turning cartwheels or swimming. Odd how these days all our schools teach physical education but neglect to help children develop their potential to sing.
This was not always the case. Until the 1960s class singing was the principal musical activity in schools. And county music festivals, Mods and Eisteddfodau, had entrants from infants to sixth form. Indeed many church choirs of an earlier era were indebted to schools for developing a confidence in singing from which congregations benefited. In the first half of the twentieth century, it was not just the renowned Welsh valleys or Hebridean islands which nurtured singers. Villages in Ayrshire, Northumberland and Norfolk could too.
Today, in sub-Saharan Africa, singing in harmony is still an everyday human activity. You may remember news bulletins from South Africa during the apartheid era which showed footage of rallies or funeral processions during which there was unaccompanied community singing of immense passion and energy. Sister Benedicta of the Holy Paraclete Order in Botswana was once asked by the songwriter John Bell to teach a group of people a song from her nation. She began by demonstrating each of the alto, bass, tenor and soprano parts. John asked Benedicta how she had learned these, given that she did not read music. ‘I learned them at home,’ she replied. ‘People sang all day. My mother sang the tune, my grandmother was alto, my father was tenor and my grandfather bass. So I just picked it up like that. Now when I'm in the convent and there are no men - which is most of the time - I just sing my father's or my grandfather's line.’
If this seems a million miles away from our situation, it need not be so. For there was a time in Britain when people believed in their voices, and in their ability to instantly recall melodies and harmonies they had learned. Because, while birds improvise their plainchant, donkeys bray and hyenas laugh, only humans have the ability to ally words to melody and produce songs for a community to sing.
We sing because we can. Thank God for this gift of song.
And we sing to create identity: the songs sung in the stands of Elland Road differ from those sung at Turf Moor because when they gather there to sing, Leeds people are affirming that they are Loiners, together, whilst Burnley-ites are doing the same thing for themselves. And in churches you can tell a Methodist hymn from an Anglican hymn, from an evangelical praise song, from an African-American spiritual: expressing the identities of different communities, in their own distinctive ways.
We sing to express emotion, of course: songs rise in our hearts when we’re happy; we draw on tunes in our sadness too. In church, there are songs of praise and songs of grief and yearning: from All Creatures of our God and King to Where You There When They Crucified My Lord?.
We sing to express words which perhaps we couldn’t say in any other way. Like words of love to the person who is our desire: “Woah, my love, my darling, I’ve hungered for your touch, A long, lonely time” [1]; words which speak of a faith which otherwise goes unspoken: “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.” [2]
Our songs help us to revisit the past: they bring back memories…. Think now of a song which reminds you of childhood, or of a special person, or a moment in your past life.
Thank God for this gift of song.
Our songs also help us to make sense of the present and to shape the future: that’s why in church we sing O God Our Help in Ages Past, Our Hope for Years to Come; and that’s why in the streets of cities worldwide protesters for peace and justice sing We Shall Overcome.
We sing as we work; and whether we’re aware of it or not, when we sing we are exercising our creativity, our ability to give sound and voice to joy and love and hope and longing.
When we sing we give of ourselves. Each of us is created in the image of God. When we sing – we offer a bit of that to each other and to the world. We don’t have to sing perfectly. To God’s receptive ears we are “singers in progress.” Each of us has a particular voice – a particular song – that matters to the world. It matters when we join our voices together – when we sing together.
When we sing in church – one of the few places left in our culture where folks gather regularly to sing together. When we sing together, we are offering something of ourselves to each other – and to God – and it’s a once in a lifetime experience. John Bell puts it this way:
“The chances are that never again will every one of these people be in exactly the same place, singing these particular hymns and songs. Even at the next worship service, some will be missing, others will be new, and the likelihood is that the liturgy will require a different set of songs for singing. So, if we can but sense it, every time a congregation sings, we are offering an absolutely one-time-only gift to our Maker.”[3]
In this sense, our songs are expressions of our love for God, and for each other.
Thank God for this gift of song. Thank God for the Spirit whose breath helps us give voice to our love and our joy and our hope and our longing.
Notes
This talk is based substantially on John L. Bell, The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song, Section One: Why Do We Sing? p.10-16.
[1] The Righteous Brothers, Unchained Melody. Music: Alex North, Lyrics: Hy Zaret, 1955.
[2] John Newton, Amazing Grace, 1772.
[3] John L. Bell, The Singing Thing: A Case for Congregational Song, p.81.
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