I’ve
been told by several people over the years that I did not inherit the gift of singing. I know…it’s hard to believe. Mary Katherine often says, “No, Daddy, you
aren’t singing it right!” I’ve also been
known to butcher a lyric or two!
For
this reason, I took a whole year of singing and chanting in seminary. I’m not sure how much the class helped but it
produced a few laughs. I remember one
day in class we were singing the Exsultet which is an ancient hymn sung at the
Easter Vigil service.
I
was making my way through the hymn like a bull in a china shop. Not only was my voice bad, but I was also
missing all the notes that were written on the page. About half way through, the professor stopped
me and asked, “Jack, do you know when you need to know this?” I replied, “next week?” The professor responded, “No, Jack, this
week, we are moving on.”
So,
for the next week, I walked around seminary chanting. Any chance I got, I was chanting. I chanted at lunch. I chanted in the common room. I even chanted to Jamie over the phone. I think this is when she decided that she
wanted to spend the rest of her life with me!
The
next week finally rolled around, and I was up.
I started chanting, and I remember thinking, “I’m nailing it!” But then the professor stopped me again. I was deflated. And then he said, “Jack, you’re having a great
day.”
As
I beamed with pride, my friend Geoff Evans was up. He was
granted the gift of a singing voice. He
never had to practice. As Geoff began to
sing, I felt my ego shrinking again. It
was beautiful. But the professor stopped
Geoff and said, “Geoff, that’s beautiful but that’s not what’s written on the
page. If you can sing what is written on
the page, then you’ll knock it out of the park.”
Today,
on Pentecost, the Church celebrates the completion of God’s salvation song. All the notes have been written on the page,
the song is perfected by Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit the
Church gets to play that song to the ends of the earth.
Jesus says to his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And then Jesus breathes on the disciples and
says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Through
the power of the Holy Spirit, we are given the power to play God’s song of
salvation. We have been given the power
to knock it out of the park.
As
Paul says to the Corinthians, it will take all of us, using our various gifts,
to knock the song out of the park. Some
of us are given wisdom, others faith, others prophecy, others discernment. Through the power of the Spirit, we are all
given a different instrument to make known God’s salvation song to the ends of
the earth. Some of us can play the piano. Others of us can play the violin. Others can sing.
And because we are in the
Episcopal Church we believe that God can make us sing a 4-part harmony. As the Pentecost scene suggests in Acts, we
don’t all have to look and sound the same to play the song. In fact, the song only sounds right when all
cultures and nations and peoples join in and take their part.
A song in the Alleluia
III book goes, “We are different instruments playing our own melodies, each one
tuning to a different key. But we are
all playing in harmony in one great symphony.”
For over 2,000 years, the Church has been playing the great salvation
song of God, a song that is perfected in Jesus, a song that is revealed in just
about every nation and culture.
And every once and while
I can see the many different instruments of the Church playing in harmony in one great symphony. But sometimes the Church forgets to practice
the song. Sometimes the Church tries to
wing it and ends up playing a song of their own devising.
While the song of the
church’s own devising might sound beautiful, it is not the song that is written
on the page, it is not the song of Jesus.
As Paul says to the Corinthians, without love the Church’s song sounds
like a noisy cymbal or a clanging gong.
Sometimes the Church does
remember to practice. Sometimes the
Church sings the song in every venue they can.
Sometimes God looks at the Church and says, “Church, you’re having a
great day!”
I wonder what God, the
great composer of the salvation song, is saying to the Church today. Are we out of practice? Are we having a great day? Or are we trying to wing it hoping that God
will overlook the fact we aren’t playing the song that is written on the page.
I imagine God could say
any one of these things to the Church today.
Sometimes the Church rests on her reputation and tries to wing it. Sometimes the Church gets out of practice and
forgets that people actually care if we get it right. Sometimes the Church practices really hard
and gets it right. But whether we get it
right or wrong, the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit perfects the
song through Jesus – the great tuning fork.
If you know me, then you
know that when it comes to my leadership style, I like to wing it. But you can only wing it for so long. Almost three years ago, we celebrated our new
ministry together at St. Paul’s. And
over those three years, I’ve tried to listen to the song of salvation that God
is writing through St. Paul’s. And it is
a beautiful song, a song that has the power to amaze and astonish people.
Earlier this year, the
Vestry wrote some of the verses of this song down on paper. In the institutional world, we called this
song a vision statement. But it is
really just putting on paper what God is already up to through St. Paul’s. And now it is time to start playing the song
with some intentionality. It is time to
start figuring out who can play what instrument. It is time to start trusting that the grace
of God and the Holy Spirit will help us do things that Jesus has already done.
In case you were wondering,
the song has six verses. The first verse
calls us to increase our participation in the community and world through
outreach and partnership. The second
verse calls us to increase fellowship and service among members and new
comers. The third verse is about
preserving the physical campus that gives witness to the glory and majesty of
God.
The fourth verse is about
documenting how St. Paul’s has been an instrument of God’s salvation story for
almost 180 years and how that story continues today. The fifth verse is about education and
training in how we can best use the gifts God has given us for the benefit of
the kingdom of heaven on earth. The last
verse is about equipping our lay ministers in the areas of worship and pastoral
care.
Friends,
this is our song. It is the song that
God gives us the ability to play through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a song that will take us collectively harnessing
the creative energy that God breathes into us all, an energy that first moved
over the deep in the beginning of creation, an energy that animates and
restores life in its fullest.
Like some of the
onlookers on the first Pentecost, some will look at us and think we are
crazy. Some will not understand this
amazing new thing that God is doing through the power of the Holy Spirit. And even some of us will fear this new thing
that God is doing because a new thing requires change.
But the accomplishment of
God’s purposes on earth has always involved change and renewal. If you look at the story of scripture, God is
constantly putting up detour sign after detour sign. God is constantly recalculating our journey
in order to get us back on track. Again
and again God calls us into covenant, a covenant made sure in body and blood of
Jesus Christ. God does this because God
loves us and wants us to know abundant life.
God does this because God
knows that we often fall out of practice, that we try to make up new songs
because we think they sound better.
Therefore, God gives us the Holy Spirit to re-animate and re-store us to
light and life. The Church universal
could not have survived without the power of the Holy Spirit. Without the power of the Spirit the Church
would have died out after the first generation of believers.
Pentecost calls us back
again to the heart of God’s salvation song made perfect through Jesus Christ. Pentecost renews and restores our
imaginations to wonder again of all the things the Almighty can do through the
faithful. Through the power of the Spirit,
Pentecost gives us the confidence to believe again that God can do things that
surpass our wildest imaginations if we are simply willing to show up and let
God use us as instruments in his
salvation story.
As a famous pop song
goes, God tells us, on Pentecost, “I write the songs that make the whole world
sing.” Dear people of God, the song is
written on the page. It is a beautiful
song. It is a song that transcends every
genre. It is a song that you can never
mess up because it is a song that is perfected in Jesus, in the one whom you
live and move and have your being.
God’s salvation song is a
song that will make you laugh and make you cry, a song that will cause you pain
and bring you joy, a song that will sometimes make you angry, a song that might
even break your heart. But it is the
only song that will breathe life into you and into the world, a song that makes
the whole creation new, a song that reveals the kingdom of God in this very
time and place. Amen.
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