Our Music Ministry: "Engaging the Whole Self in Praise" (Passionate -- 2 of 2)

Bethesda Presbyterian Church -- October 9, 2011

Scriptures: I Chronicles 15:25-29 II Chronicles 5:11-15 Luke 15:25-32

Our Music Ministry: “Engaging the Whole Self in Praise”
Passionate-Our Worship – 2 of 2

Having trouble sleeping at night? Allow me to recommend a sure-fire cure for your woes: A random reading of our Presbyterian Church (USA) Constitution, Part II: Book of Order.

But if you really want to catch some shut-eye, I would suggest you do not jump to the second of the book’s three sections: the Directory for Worship. For there you might encounter some of the most beautiful and arresting and – yes – passionate faith language known to humanity.

Lines such as this one, opening a paragraph under the heading “The Elements of Christian Worship”: “Song is a response which engages the whole self in prayer.”1

Truly, our denomination recognizes the inseparability of song with prayer.

Truly, our church celebrates the fullness of prayer as song.

The paragraph continues: “Song unites the faithful in common prayer wherever they gather for worship whether in church, home, or other special place. The covenant people have always used the gift of song to offer prayer.” In other words: If our whole self is to be engaged in prayer, the songs of our communal worship lead the way.

Prayers fully robed as our Sunday hymns and spiritual songs. Prayers which, in actuality, are all about praise.

Take our Old Testament texts today. Twice in Jerusalem, the second time in their magnificent new temple: The Hebrew people under David and then under Solomon gather to celebrate the symbolic presence of God being ushered in. God’s symbolic presence known as the ark of the covenant.

Why wouldn’t God’s presence be celebrated by the Hebrew people? Why wouldn’t they sing and dance and carry on? Put another way: They do not sing in praise of the presence of their faithfulness or of the magnitude of their good works. It’s God presence, not theirs, they are celebrating. As one of our great hymns puts it, Great Is Thy Faithfulness – not that of any human being. These celebrants instead remind us that even our Hymns of Dedication are in essence Hymns of Praise, finding their basis in God’s joyous grace that then sends us forward.

Sadly, we straight-laced and duty-oriented mainline Protestant sorts are tempted to forget we worship the best when we sing in praise to God. Not unlike the two grumps we find in our scripture stories today: the forlorn Michal despising the leaping and dancing King David in her heart, and the rigidly obedient older son resenting the festivities of his prodigal sibling’s return. We straight-laced, duty-oriented Protestant sorts tend to forget, or at least we overlook, the wonderful legacy left for us by the founder of English hymnody, that good old eighteenth century Reformed Englishman Isaac Watts. Commenting on Watts’ masterful carol “Joy to the World!”, The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion states this: “Watts was not the first to write hymns, but he was the first to use a method. Watts believed our songs are a human offering of praise to God.”2

Hymns – or any spiritual songs – engage the whole self in prayer to God … as praise. I believe to a significant degree this is why joy-filled evangelical movements such as The Vineyard have made their mark. The Vineyard often commences worship with lengthy congregational singing – 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour in the extreme. The shallowness of some of the contemporary praise music may alarm many of us – would you believe “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “Gilligan’s Island”? (Let’s not dwell on that.) And yet musical substance, or the lack thereof, aside, note the passionate body-and-soul rightness of The Vineyard’s method. For there’s hardly a better way for the Holy Spirit to enter into the life of the church than to get those pleasure-inducing brain chemicals known as endorphins flowing through a period of lengthy praise!

Truthfully: Haven’t some of you felt a bit more jazzed with all the hymns we are singing today? Aside from worrying how long the service might become?

Begrudging, in our prayerful singing, the primary importance of praise to God reminds me of the time St. Peter met a dour Protestant approaching him at the Pearly Gates.

St. Peter asked the starched shirt, “Did you enjoy yourself down there?”

“Enjoy myself? How could I enjoy myself, in all my efforts to be good and get into heaven?”

St. Peter rubbed his beard. “Well, then, you may not as well enter these gates, for you’re not going to enjoy yourself much up here, either!”

This past week, I asked those of you on our church email listserve what your favorite hymn or spiritual song in general is – inviting you to add a bit of a back-story about what makes that piece so meaningful to you. I received several responses – plus a couple of more at our Presbyterian Women gathering on Thursday. Including one from a respondent who, in a most Protest-ant spirit, lifted up a hymn he passionately loathed.

Most of the responses consisted of soaring, triumphal compositions – what I would call praise in-the-raw. Lofty pieces such The Navy Hymn … How Firm a Foundation … On Eagles’ Wings … and yes, Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

There were exceptions. Several shared the yearning “Here I Am, Lord” as a favorite – reflective of the Presbyterian poll I once saw that indicated this is the most-sung song in our current hymnal. We conclude our Worship today with that hymn sending us forth.

And one respondent offered a favorite of mine: “Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore”. She shared that this hymn took on new meaning for her when her father – who adored this hymn – passed away, and the piece was played at the witness to his resurrection. These words in particular struck her then:

O Lord, with Your eyes You have searched me,
And, while smiling, have called out my name.
Now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me,
Now with You I will seek other seas.

When she heard these words, she shares, “I imagined (my father’s) spirit moving on, answering his own new call.”

O Lord, with Your eyes You have searched me … Indeed: God’s eyes have searched us – and continue to do so, to this very moment.

And, while smiling, have called out my name … Indeed: God unconditionally – smilingly – summons us, regardless of what are afraid might be found.

God searches us, and God calls us. And the two are bridged only when we realize that God is smiling at us, all along.

Is this not enough of a reason to offer up all our spiritual songs as praise to God?

Is this not enough of a reason to end this sermon – as we end each hymn – with that one resounding, scriptural, praise-filled word: Amen?


1W-2.1003.

2(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), 46.


Benediction …

St. Peter asked the starched shirt, “Did you enjoy yourself down there?”

“Enjoy myself? How could I enjoy myself, in all my efforts to be good and get into heaven?”

“Well, then, you may not as well enter these gates, for you’re not going to enjoy yourself much up here, either!”

One translation: Whenever we sing our praises to God … let us enjoy ourselves. And let us, from time to time, notify our face.

And let those songs of praise known as hymns – and more – call us to go out into the world in peace, to love and serve our servant Lord.