SUNDAY SERMON
November 7, 2004
Proper 27, Year C
I MEAN TO BE ONE TOO
Gospel: Luke 20:27(28-33)34-38
The saints are standing row on row
Engulfed in light and peace,
Standing face to face with God
Whose love will never cease.
King David sings with harp and lyre
He's cantor of the town,
And Mary sings Magnificat
Before her lowborn son….
There's Louis Armstrong with his horn
(Ray Charles, his ivories;
Mahalia Jackson's golden voice
Calls out such harmonies!)
From every nation they have come
To sing in this great choir,
Their music raises up to God
Whose (blessing we desire).
(author unknown, adapted from a translation from the
Dutch by Gracia Grindal in Imaging the Word:
An Arts and Lectionary Resource, Volume 3, p. 65)
Last Sunday, just a little bit early, they celebrated All Saints' Day at Idlewild
Presbyterian Church. As a member of little Abigail's extended family, I had
the privilege and pleasure of sitting in the pew, watching while her grandmother
baptized her brand new grandbaby.
There was a little more noise than usual. There was also a visiting gospel choir. Together we made a joyful noise, singing hymns by Isaac Watts and Martin Luther. But when we sang a hymn we'll be singing today, in just a few minutes, I knew those words the best. It's hymn #293 - if you want to look it up and have it ready now.
I learned "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" a long time ago, when
I was a member of the children's choir at Christ Church in Cincinnati. Gerre
Hancock made sure all his choristers learned to sing hymns well - especially
that one, for he knew how special it was. It was created for children by an
Englishwoman - a mother who crafted hymns, not for choirs, but for her three
children to sing at home.
"Make us a hymn for a picnic!" they would shout. "Make us a hymn
for a rainy day," they cried out. Lesbia Scott, that devoted hymn-writing
mother, wrote "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" to use on Saints'
days, like St. Patrick's Day and St. Mary's Day and St. Nicholas Day, "to
impress (on them) the fact that sainthood is a living possibility today"
(Hymnal 1940 and 1982 Companions, pps. 553 and 292).
A living possibility today. Yes, saints are alive and well and living among us - today, right here, right now. To be a saint, to be sanctified, to be made holy, in its simplest sense, can be reduced to one thing. To be a saint is to be blessed.
Not "blessed" as we so often use the word, as in "bless her heart." Not blessed in the sense that we have something few people have and we want to show it off. No, saints are not blessed because they have something or do something others don't have or do.
Rather, saints are blessed because of who they are. Saints are blessed because of whose they are. Saints are blessed because they love, because they are loved…and because they know it.
"Blessed are," said Jesus to the crowds of people on the mountain. "Blessed are the poor in spirit…those who mourn…the meek…the merciful…the pure in heart…." Blessed are they all, because they know they need God, and they know God needs them. Blessed are they all, because they know they love God, and they know God loves them.
I ask you: who shows us how to love or be loved better than a baby? Who shows us how to give and receive blessings more than a child or grandchild? Who knows how to be saints in the way our sons and daughters do? No wonder Jesus called peacemakers the children of God.
Throughout my life, singing hymns has been a wonderful way to remember I am God's beloved child. When I open my mouth to sing, my heart can be open to embrace a more simple, childlike love of God. Maybe that's because, when we sing, according to Saint Augustine, we pray twice. And, I suggest, when we sing with others, we pray lots.
The blessing of song, the marriage of tune and text, so often takes me to that simple, deeper place with God. Here's how one spiritual writer describes that kind of blessing: "…(it) goes below the bubbling surface of life to the deep currents that run strong and steady beneath surface turbulence" (Companions in Christ: The Way of Blessedness, p. 18). Another way to put it: "blessed are those who spread joy like music, sowing smiles in the furrows of sadness" (Prayers for Feasts, Charles Singer, p. 130).
So, when we sing, let us go to that simple, deep, childlike place and sing with the saints of God. Let us dare to believe in the living possibility. Let us make a joyful noise, forgetting for a few minutes about how we sound, how we look or how we feel. Let us spread joy and blessing like the music we raise to God - sowing smiles in this place, in our homes, in our world. And may we learn how to be saints from Sofia Andrea, Anne Hansen, Thomas Walker and all the blessed children of God. May they show us how to sing today, these little ones, these children of God, these blessed saints, who are indeed among us - today, right here, right now.