A Lenten Awe-robic Exercise: Sing!

Something significant happens when people sing together.


In singing together, we engage in corporate worship – it takes what each of us does here and moves it from a personal experience to a group experience.

Singing together is an awesome experience.

Singing together increases an awareness of other-ness.

That you are a part of a much larger whole –
an awareness that inspires awe.

Today we take up another Lenten Practice: Singing !!! – learn a new song.

Apparently from the very beginning, when Christians have come together, they sang songs together.

The very earliest descriptions we have of Christian meeting always include an allusion to the singing of songs together.

God's people have always been a people who sung.
Singing together is biblically commanded –
and edifying to those who participate.

You see, in singing together, we engage in corporate worship – it takes what each of us does here and moves it from a personal experience to a group experience.

Of course, at the very beginning they sang from the Psalm Book –
it contained the songs they knew –
the songs they were familiar with.
They used the Psalm Book as their hymn book –
and as their prayer book
and as their worship book.

What we have found out, and what we are quite sure of, is that something significant happens when people sing together.

One of the most profound encounters with the holy through the power of song I ever encountered was some 40 years ago.
We were living in the San Francisco area when a young man who went by the name of Donovan came to do a concert.
The concert was in the Cow Palace (a large venue like the Spectrum) – a place where the professional basketball team played, a place were large numbers of people could gather to hear a concert.

And Suzanne and I went.

There must have been 20,000 seats that night.
In the center of the room was a small stage with a single microphone on it.
When it was time, the lights went down, a voice intoned: “Ladies and gentlemen, Donovan.”
And this young man walked out alone from somewhere, through the crowd carrying a guitar.
He walked up on to the stage and sat down, cross-legged right there in the middle of the stage – in the middle of 20,000 pairs of eyes staring down at him.
And he started to sing.

And for over two hours this one man with his guitar mesmerized the crowd of 20,000 people with his songs.
The power of his music and song we experienced that night was far more powerful than what is experienced in the loud amplified staged concerts that we expect in a venue as large as the Spectrum today.

It truly was an awesome experience.

Another most profound encounter with the holy through the power of song was experience right here in Philadelphia, just a couple of years ago.
I’ve mentioned before how Suzanne and I were privileged to be among an audience of some 2500 people gathered at the Kimmel Center to hear a concert of some 650 singers from Presbyterian churches all over the Philadelphia area.
I mean, think about it – 650 voices in concert!
There had never been that many singers assembled for a concert in the Kimmel Center – before or since!
A choir of 650 people.
650 Presbyterians lending their voices in concert with the magnificent Kimmel Center mammoth pipe organ.
It was a magnificent experience.

The music of the voices and the organ filled the auditorium and moved the souls of all in attendance that day.
It was truly awesome – awe inspiring.

As I sat there with the music infusing my very being, I was glad I was there,
but I really didn’t want to be where I was.
Our seats were maybe 40 feet from the nearest singers, but I wanted to be closer.
I wanted to be there in the midst of them –
feeling their energy,
hearing their voices,
joining right in – singing for all I was worth.

After the concert I ran in to several of the choir members in the rest room line.
And, I commented that it was an awesome experience for us – and I could only imagine what it must have been like for them
to be in the midst of 649 other singers
all singing at the top of the lungs
being heard as one.

And, to a person, they all said it was the best day of their lives!
It was an awe-inspiring experience –
for the participants and for those present to hear the performance.

We all know that there are some performers that people go to see and to hear –
whose performance commands rapt attention from the those present.
And, at times, we might even feel we are in the presence of greatness when we are there.

And, there are other performers who feel that is their “job” to involve the audience in the performance.
People go to the concerts of these performers knowing the lyrics to all the songs –
and feel like they have to join in.

Suzanne and I had another experience a couple of years ago that struck a chord with me.
We were on an airplane returning to Philadelphia from one of our trips to the midwest.
Our plane had three seats on either side of the isle.
And seated in the window seat of our row, was a little old lady with snow white hair.
Almost as soon as we sat down she started talking with Suzanne.
She had never been to Philadelphia before, was flying in to visit with brother in Newark.
(I thought to myself, yeah but you’re not going to be in Newark when you get to Philadelphia.)

But, Suzanne was game so she asked the question, where are you coming from.
The woman’s face lit up as she allowed that she had just returned from a two week cruise.

Ever the trooper, Suzanne then ventured: “O, where did you go?”
The little old woman scrinched her face a bit, and said, “O I don’t know. We didn’t go anywhere, really.”
She said, “It was an Elvis cruise.”

That’s when she got my attention.

“There were twelve Elvis impersonators on board – and it was non-stop music from dawn to dusk – it was great – we didn’t care where the ship was going.”

An Elvis cruise.

Well, you can be sure that those folks on that cruise did not go on the cruise to hear Elvis impersonators.
They went because they knew all the Elvis songs and relished the opportunity to sing along with the Elvis impersonators.

Something powerful happens when you sing along.
Something powerful happens when you are in the chorus –
when people on either side of you and in front and behind you are joining their voices in song.

Pete Seeger has been on a life-long mission to go wherever he could just to engage people in song.
Like many other performers, he judges the success of his performance by getting the folks to sing along in concert with one another.
Over the years, Pete Seeger has perfected the art of getting folks to join right in singing their song.
When he first started out, Peter Seeger recognized the power of voices in song and on the front of his signature banjo he painted the words: Warning: this instrument conquers hate.

Singing together is an awesome experience.
Singing together increases an awareness of other-ness.
That you are a part of a much larger whole –
an awareness that inspires awe.

I have to believe that corporate singing is vital to what we do when we come together for this awe-robic exercise we call Christian Worship.

Occasionally, I have someone say to me, why do we sing so much at this church?
Other churches don’t sing as much as you do.
And, I think, well, that’s to their detriment.

As the song goes, we sing because we are happy.
We sing because we know we are free –
free from old baggage which tends to weigh us down.
We don’t worry if our song is not good enough for anyone else to hear.
We sing because there is inspiration in voices singing together.
We sing because it inspires awe – and that’s a good thing.
May your life go on in endless song.
May your song last your whole life long.
And let the world sing along.

Sing! Learn a new song!
It is truly an awe-robic exercise.
Amen.

This is a portion of a sermon delivered 03-21-2010 to the congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church -- a center of faith in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania