"The Spirituality of Christian Music"
Paul writes in today's Epistle lesson from Galatians that we should be loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle and in self-control. It's quite a list! We all know that we aren't quite there yet, don't we. So the question for we, fellow travelers on this great spiritual journey is "How do we get there?"
Music helps. And Christian music presents us with both something that can inspire us along the way as well as provide us with an inspiring record of our heritage. Much of Christian music is an inheritance that tells us a great deal about those who traveled spiritual paths before us. We can draw inspiration from them. Christian music invites us to learn intellectually about the past. More importantly, we are invited to participate in the journeys of the composers by listening and singing along. Those who do so often find that their lives are changed.
Spiritual growth is fostered by music in many ways. For those gifted with the music gene and creativity, it can be in the very act of creating music for the worship of God. Bach, who wrote this morning's Prelude, was a spiritual man whose church music flowed from the core of his soul. His majestic Mass in G Minor is one of the greatest musical compositions - even strict secularists say this -- ever written.
Singing in church is a way that we can participate with the composers of hymns in our their spiritual journey. Singing hymns together, and listening to music sung or performed by talented vocalists and musicians, is a shared, communal experience that brings a congregation together in spirit.
Hymns can be simple or complex. They can tell a story, challenge us to action, or encourage us to make a commitment to Christ. When set to a good tune, they become something that we carry with us throughout the week, a reminder, a "foretaste of Glory Divine."
Music is a powerful language that conveys much across national boundaries, cultures and eras. It's often the words of a special kind of hymn as well as the music, that are most moving. But for me the most interesting hymns are ones that express praise of God during times of distress as expressed in that ancient religious hymn, Psalm 77 (a very old hymn,) our Call to Worship this morning. It is an _expression of faith in times of trouble. I love music. But, more than that, I love faithful courage expressed in tough times. I appreciate the spirit expressed in hymns that seem to come from the individual voices of the composers. I use my imagination and knowledge of history to return the words to their original settings. Many hymns are grouped together such as "Providence" or "The Glory of the Triune God," They are transformed into inspiring testaments of faith when returned to their historical settings.
We sing familiar Wesleyan hymns in church almost every Sunday. But we forget what life was like when they were written. Almost all of the first Methodists in England were poor, from the bottom class of society. Farmers lived at subsistence level. Many of them in Wesley's day were being forced off their farms and found themselves looking for work in the new industrial cities. The urban poor, from whom many of these hymns sprung, were almost always hungry, cold and sick. Epidemics took many of their children. Women often died in childbirth. Men died at work in the mills and coal mines. Loss of employment in Wesley's day often meant starvation. Childhood was not spent in school, but rather in factories and few children escaped industrial accident. Many children grew up with alcohol problems from the bottles of gin that they were given by their bosses to keep them warm. Most of the urban poor who managed to live to adulthood were missing fingers or limbs. Many were chronicall! y ill from lung disease caused by polluted factory air. Often the air outside the factories was worse. It was common for the urban poor who lived near the factories not to be able to see more than the hand in front of their faces, the mid-day sun being obscured by tons of airborne coal dust.
Established Christianity in Wesley's day pandered to the rich. The rich controlled government. And government money as well as individual donations from wealthy patrons, built the cathedrals. The poor correctly felt that they were not welcome in church. They, after all, had not paid for the cathedrals. The poor were dirty, smelly, and coughed a lot. It was common for the rich to have nice cushioned places to sit - up front where they could see and hear what was going on. The poor were relegated to standing room - often, believe it or not, behind a screen where they couldn't see anything, and, more importantly, where the rich wouldn't have to look at them.
Into this setting came John Wesley who preached outside the cathedrals, who came to the sometimes riotous places where the poor lived. He let the poor know that they had souls and that the Good Shepherd wanted to walk them through their "Valleys of the Shadow of Death." The poor flocked to Wesley, sometimes in the tens of thousands. This is how Methodism became an enormous movement.
Into this setting also came John Wesley's brother, Charles, who wrote words to hymns which spoke to the poor and set them to scandalous music that was often (with much different words) sung in taverns.
Imagine, if you will, a solitary poor man standing on a street corner in London in the 1600's. The thick dusty air has cleared for the moment and you see him standing there in dirty rags. He's lost most of his children to the pox or diphtheria. His wife died earlier that year. He is missing several fingers from work. But he is employed, so he has something to eat each day - although he can't remember a time when he was finished eating and wasn't still hungry. All his life he has watched fine carriages bring the rich people to church. He knows that they don't even see him standing on his corner. The rich don't think that he has a soul, or if he does, not one worth saving.
But if the wealthy took the time to really look at him, they would see a light in his eyes, one not extinguished by hunger and deprivation. Sometime in the past year or so he had heard the message of John Wesley, that a loving God was his shepherd. He heard people like himself sing new hymns set to tunes that he already knew, hymns that helped him see a larger perspective. In our imaginations his cracked lips smile as he sings,
"Come, thou long - expected Jesus. Born to set thy people free; From our fears and sins re - lease us; Let us find our rest in thee. Is-rael's strength and consolation, Hope of all the earth thou art; Dear de-sire of ev ery nation, Joy of every longing heart.
Born thy people to deliver. Born a child and
yet a King, Born to reign in us for - ev - er,
New thy gra - cious king - dom bring. By thine own e - ter - nal
spir - it Rule in all our hearts a-lone; By thine all · sufficient merit,
Raise us to thy glorious throne."
(UMC Hymnal)
Powerful words. Listen to these words from 1675. You can find them in hymn 126 in your hymnal. Imagine that these are sung by a poor woman, dressed in rags, who is struggling to feed her children and has no doubt buried more than one.
"The Lord is never far away,
but through all grief distressing,
an ever present help and stay,
our peace and joy and blessing.
As with a mother's tender hand,
God gently leads the chosen band:
To God all praise and glory.
3.Thus all my toilsome way along,
I sing aloud thy praises,
that earth may hear the grateful song
my voice unwearied raises.
Be joyful in the Lord, my heart,
both soul and body bear your part:
To God all praise and glory."
(UMC hymnal)
This was not opium for the masses, but rather a revolution. The same poor people who became convinced by these new Methodists that they had souls, eventually brought democratic revolution to England and the American colonies.
Our hymnal also contains expressions of the faith and courage of the urban poor in England who immigrated to England's colonies in America, departing rough seas only to find new slums, tough frontiers, and slavery in their midst. John Newton, a convert to Christianity, a man who had been a slave trader, famously repented of his sins in 1789 when he wrote these words and reportedly set them to an old African tune:
"4. The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures; he will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures. 5. Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace. Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; 'tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."
He did not write the word "wretch" that's usually in the first stanza of our hymnal. The original words went,
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a worm like me! I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.
These courageous words have been whispered by countless defiant dying men and women. They have been on the lips of soldiers on the eve of battle, women facing childbirth, and alcoholics struggling for recovery. They express a triumph of the spirit made possible by the grace of God.
No one anticipated the horrors of the Civil War until the first battle was fought at Bull Run, near the nation's capitol. Julia Ward Howe soon afterwards wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In the 20th century the hymn was often sung almost as a glorification of war. But in its original setting, it served the purpose of transforming horror into hope. God's love is seen despite the presence of hundreds of circling armed camps where "the grapes of wrath are stored."
(UMC Hymnal)
In the 20th century we wrote and sang hymns that helped bring hope, comfort and courage to a world ravaged by two world wars. The third, undeclared, Cold War, was the setting for these words from hymn #178, published in 1954 by Georgia Harkness under the threat of nuclear annihilation.
"Hope of the world, thou Christ of great compassion, speak to our fearful hearts by conflict rent. Save us, thy people, from consuming passion, who by our own false hopes and aims are spent."
The third verse especially spoke to Georgia Harkness who felt that we all were walking in the Valley of the Shadow of death.
"Hope of the world, afoot on dusty highways, showing to wandering souls the path of light, walk thou beside us lest the tempting byways lure us away from thee to endless night."
(UMC Hymnal)
These beautiful hymns can help us on our journey to answer life's most fundamental questions:
Who am I?
I would be loving, joyous, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle and in self-control, but I'm not. I am someone who accepts what John Wesley taught my forebears. I have a soul, despite what the powers of this world may say. God's Son, Jesus, is the Good Shepherd. He is looking for me.
Who is God?
I can't know all of God, but I know this much: God doesn't care if I can carry a tune as long as there is a song, honest and true, in my heart.
Where is the church?
My church teaches me that we are all equal in the eyes of God. And I am humbled to know that no one else is less important than me.
Where does God want me to be?
On my spiritual journey, singing despite the sound of my voice or the darkness of the valley I am in.