The Soul Must Sing
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May 16, 2021 • Seventh Sunday of Easter
Reading: Psalm 98 (adapted from The Inclusive Bible)
Rev. Lea Matthews, guest preacher
It is all joy to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings from Pastor K and all of St. Paul & St. Andrew. This congregation is close to my heart, so many friends, beloved colleagues, and fellow justice-seekers…not just familiar faces, but family. It feels really good to be in this sacred and special place with you today.
When talking to Katie and Jorge in preparation, I shared with them two worship memories that I bring to with me to this service. One is that the last time we worshiped in-person together was Ash Wednesday 2020. It was a rich, moving, and Spirit-filled time. I remember Martha and Hailey dancing the ashes up to the altar, Pastor Jeff and Pastor Alexis presiding over communion, and Katie leading us in song. I remember singing a particular chorus during the service,
“Waymaker, Miracle Worker,
Promise Keeper, Light in the Darkness,
My God, That is who you are. That is who you are.”
Very soon after that, the world tilted and every single thing changed. But I kept that worship experience, and in fact, I kept that refrain, deep inside me….I held onto it.
The other worship experience I bring to this moment is from a few years before that in late June of 2016. You’ll remember that 49 precious souls were taken in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. We came together to lament, to rage at the attack on our queer siblings, and to process the deadliest shooting in American history in community. We needed each other. We came to Church of the Village. I led a call to worship that day, but what I remember most is that after the benediction, I led the procession out of the church and over to Stonewall for the vigil. I did so carrying the pride flag and singing this song….
“We are a gentle, angry people. And we are singing, singing for our lives.
We are gentle angry people. And we are singing, singing for our lives.”
It was a profound moment. We were there, and undeniably, God was there crying and screaming and yes, singing, with us. These two services live inside me….and I can reach back and feel their power and their place in my life by going to those songs. They anchor me to a time, a place, and a precious people….you all. I’m glad, I’m honored, to be here.
Last Thursday, our daughter, Nora, and I were driving back to the Bronx from Manhattan. What should have been a 15 minute commute home turned into an hour-long bumper to bumper adventure. The traffic was annoying but not my point. Here we were, Nora and I, side by side and stuck, and with a lot of time on our hands. Nora plugged her phone in, selected a playlist, and cranked up the volume….
I mean, cranked it UP! And we started to sing…
(Get Happy)
Forget your troubles come on get happy,
you better chase all your cares away.
Shout hallelujah…come on get happy.
Get ready for the judgment day.”
(9 to 5)
“Stumble out of bed and tumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition and yawn and stretch and try to come alive. Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumping,
out of the street, the traffic starts jumping and folks like me on the job from 9-5.”
(Don’t Rain On My Parade)
“Don’t tell me how to live, just sit and putter,
Life’s candy and the sun’s a ball of butter.\
Don’t bring around a cloud to rain on my parade”.
(Driver’s License)
“And I know we weren’t perfect, but I’ve never felt this way for no one.”
And I just can’t imagine how you could be so okay now that I’m gone. Guess you don’t mean what you wrote in that song about me. Cuz you said forever now I drive alone on your street.”
Song after song, we danced in our seats, employing creative, if bizarre, hand motions. We sang, loud and long and together. My throat is still sore, that kind of singing. It was glorious. And I was all too aware, of how in that moment, I felt the Spirit with us. I was attuned to its message, having already begun to think and prepare for this service and sermon.
Around minute 43 of our commute, I lowered the volume. And I asked, not knowing if this wonderful connection with my preteen child would vanish if I asked a sort of preacher-y, parent-y question of her. But I courageously stepped out and asked…. “Nora, you love to sing. And with all the stuff you’ve done and tried out, you keep singing, keep wanting to take voice lessons, and to sing. Why do you think that is?” She answered without a beat, “Because singing helps me be more me.” Because singing helps me be more me. She went on, “It’s like singing helps release what’s in the moment, so I can move on to what is next.”
I grabbed the grocery list in between us on the car console. Would you mind writing that down for me, please? She did. I kept it. Because that’s what I had been feeling and needing to express too. It rang true for me.
It reminded me of a Mary Oliver poem that is dog-eared in my collection. As a poem about singing, it is really a song about song. It speaks to the release found through singing, and also to the risk that one takes in order to find voice in song.
I Worried by Mary Oliver
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
Oliver depicts the act of singing as a holy interrupter of obstacles, those created from within or without ourselves. Putting breath over vocal chords in sustained sound, to a common beat, demands our energy, our whole. Our intention and attention when in the midst of singing can’t be split as easily, between whatever matter is at hand and what negative thoughts, looming worries, or fears might try to steal focus. So it becomes a great liberator, a pathway to freedom from what presses in on us and from what can consume us, if we let it.
Think with me about when we sing. And I don’t mean when we’re asked to or forced to, but when our soul cries out in song…the emotional and spiritual shower stall, if you will. When do you feel compelled to sing?
We sing when we are in a cycle of anxiety and cannot break free of the words and thoughts in our heads, clogging up our hearts.
We sing when we’re so grateful, full to brimming with thanks for the blessings in our lives
We sing when we’re hopeful, looking ahead at what is possible, what might happen
We sing when we need renewal and energy because we are depleted and despairing
We sing when we protest injustice and shout down oppressive powers. They somehow diminish when we sing out against them.
We sing when we feel alone and need to be reminded of the larger chorus, the collective we are all a part of
We sing when we lament, when our sorrow needs grounding and can find it in rhythm
We sing when speaking just doesn’t get at it, when the emotion or situation we find ourselves in asks for a heightened vehicle, a larger perspective, a bigger container than regular speech can hold. So we break out in song. Literally breaking out of our containers and boxes and patterns.
We sing when we want to praise God and we know no better way to do it
We sing when we need to bolster our confidence, to grow our courage.
And we sing for so many other reasons, too. But we sing because we have to. Our souls must sing.
Psalm 98, our focus text of the day, offers us some insight into why over and over again, our sacred texts remind us to lift our voices in song. “O sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done marvelous things….Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.” Here again, we have the motif of the song breaking into the norm to make something new, a way through perhaps. Like the poet, the psalmist acknowledges and relies on the power of singing to break into the world and us, to create something, that wasn’t… before.
And here’s something to note. This psalm, a song itself, asks a people who regularly sing-- to sing a new song. In other words, these folks, the Israelites already know well and value the gift of music in their everyday, spiritual, and communal lives. The psalms offer us a window into the religious custom and liturgy that existed thousands of years ago, used by our faith ancestors to worship God and join in community. They sang, they sang for all the reasons we sing.
And still, the psalmist, in her wisdom, instructs them, and us, to sing a new song. Because we must…the reasons are ours, existing in this moment, not ones in the past. For God continually blesses us, wins victory against evil and injustice, and always deserves our praise and thanksgiving. We are instructed to receive God’s steadfastness and faithfulness each time as a gift, a way to feel and be touched by grace. Sing back in gratitude, we are told. Sing it out in each new moment, staying connected and aware of the source and sustaining Spirit of God.
The body of psalms, though, encourages us to sing out not only in times of praise, but in times of peril and unknowing, rage and sorrow. Those pressures on us, on our hearts, need to be lifted off through song, too. I think back to the beginning of Advent 2020. As you remember, we were experiencing a wave of rising Covid cases and accompanying closures, restrictions, and necessary measures to limit interaction and spread. It was cold, a sad and worrying time, and we were facing an Advent and Christmas season with the understanding that we wouldn’t be able to gather in-person with family or friends. I remember the time with a heaviness in my body.
We held a Zoom vespers service, our first of the season. Everybody involved was home, including the worship leaders. We, the staff, were in quarantine from Covid exposure. In fact, Rach, my wife, was sick with Covid and in Nora’s bedroom on double quarantine. It was a scary time.
In planning the service and looking at how we would observe Advent, holding each other close and tending to our anxious spirits and broken hearts, we’d come to a decision. We’d given ourselves formal permission to sing what we wanted to sing. Period. See, in church circles, there are liturgical season sticklers, who insist on singing Advent songs in the season of Advent and waiting for the Christmas carols until the Christmas season, starting on Christmas Eve. That tends to really limit the hymns, and it certainly holds a lot of the joy-centered stuff featuring baby Jesus, angels, shepherds, and good tidings until later.
But this year in these worrying circumstances, with our beloved Minister of Music, Frank Glass, at the helm, we’d all resoundingly agreed to let ourselves loose and sing what we needed to sing. If we wanted to sing about baby Jesus being born on December 9th, the date of this particular service, then we would sing about baby Jesus being born…dangit! So we did.
I remember the first hymn, led by Jane Williams. She started. She sang acapella, and we were to sing with her on mute, as is the convention we’re now so familiar with. I checked my mute button nervously, before I opened my mouth…thank you very much. I saw the red slash through the microphone icon, so I knew I was safe. I joined in the lyric with her…
There's a song in the air!
There's a star in the sky!
There's a mother's deep prayer
and a baby's low cry!
And the star rains its fire
while the beautiful sing,
for the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!
I got to the second line and my chin started to wobble, my voice squeaked out, and I could feel the tears inside me bubble up. I looked at the screen, and my face was drawn to Carter, our Youth Director. I saw his hand wipe at the corner of his eyes. He was crying too. I clicked to gallery view to see more of my friends. Many were crying along with us...while singing.
After service ended, and I exited out of Zoom, Carter called immediately. I picked up. He didn’t say hi. He said, “I hadn’t realized how much I needed to sing a Christmas carol.” Carter was saying exactly what I felt…and what I witnessed on the screen of us gathered.
We needed to sing. And it wasn’t about sounding good, let me tell you. My voice was thin, cracking all over the place, behind the beat, and embarrassing if anyone had heard. But when I opened my jaw and took that deep breath, being led in rhythm, it unleashed so much of what I was holding way too tightly inside….worry, fear, loneliness. It came up and out through that song. I was allowed to be in and move through those deep feelings, and had company, as I felt them. And when we let all of that out, on the inhale, we could take in something else. We had made some room in our souls… for the joy, for Jesus, for love to be birthed, for hope to be born within us. We were all freed in those sung moments. We were, as the song goes, “singing for our lives.”
It makes me think of a passage from the Gospel of Thomas, from Thomas 70. “Jesus said: When you give birth to the one within you, that one will save you. If you do not have the one within you, that one will kill you.” Singing, it seems to me, helps us birth what is within us that needs to be released beyond us. If we keep things in, experiences, fears, doubts, joys, learnings…any and all of it…if we keep it sealed within, we can be as stuck as it is inside of us.
Singing is stepping out in faith with voice, in breath, and in body. It’s us taking a risk, moving through vulnerability towards freedom. If we take the step, and if we shout out, lift up our voices, and join in the new song…our souls, our selves, can be saved.
(Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee…)
Mortals, join the mighty chorus
which the morning stars began,
Love divine is reigning o’er us,
Binding all within its span.
Ever singing, march we onward,
victors in the midst of strife
Joyful music leads us sunward,
in the triumph song of life.”
Amen.
Copyright © 2021 Lea Matthews
All rights reserved