Of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs

I had a conversation with a pastor friend the other day in which my friend spoke of a couple in her congregation that had ceased to attend worship in that church.  Upon contact they told the pastor that they were attending another church, and that the reason was that this other group sang “the old songs” in worship.

 My discussion with this pastor speculated on some of the possible reasons why these folks had chosen an alternative to their long-time fellowship.  One is as likely as the other, and we’ll never know for sure.  But for the moment I am going to take this couple at their w

At first glance it seems a small thing.  How many songs/hymns does the average congregation sing in a weekly worship service?  Three?  Four?  Factor in an anthem, maybe a choral introit, a prelude, a postlude and an offertory and the musical opportunities do begin to stack up.  But truth be known, I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say, “Well I just got tired of the constant new music during the offering and I decided to go somewhere else!”  So, what is at issue is three, maybe four singing events per week.

 It is easy to dismiss such a small percentage of all the goings-on in worship.  But in many worship orders the singing is one of the few opportunities for congregational participation that Sunday morning offers.  Some churches may include a unison Affirmation of Faith.  Many pray The Lord’s Prayer together.  We ask the folks in the pew to put money in the plate when we take up the Offering.  But a given congregation may not do all these things every week.  Other participatory acts may be infrequent at best.

So, hymn-singing is one of only a handful of non-passive elements in many of our churches.  If the few chances for people to join in are made up of the unfamiliar or the uncomfortable, it is a fair criticism to say, “I am more comfortable somewhere else.”  This would be especially true, I think, in a setting where the change in music had been abrupt.

Music often touches the heart in a way that prose cannot.  I am not speaking of mere “feel good” moments.  Music is evocative.  It can transport us to times and places from which we are far removed.  I remarked in a sermon recently that people can think of times when they have buried loved ones more than fifty years ago.  They can’t quote a single verse of scripture from that day, nor do they remember any word that was spoken.  But often they recollect every piece of music that was played or sung.

Church music is one of those “all things to all people” topics.  It is difficult to include A Mighty Fortress is our God and Bringing in the Sheaves in the same service.  But in a time of fragile balance, most of the churches of which I am aware could benefit from being more intentional in their consideration of their music.

I hope my friend’s folks come back.

We are what we sing -- yet again

It is a valid observation that I am a bit hard on that category of hymnody that many people call “Praise Music.”  That is not a great descriptive title, because it describes – intentionally – contemporary Christian music with simple melodies and simpler lyrics.  The music tends to be highly repetitive and to concentrate on a single, simple idea.

I would contend that “A Mighty Fortress is our God” and “Holy, Holy, Holy” are praise music.  That contention muddles rather than clarifies the discussion, however.

I am a child of my time.  “My time” admittedly pre-dates contemporary Christian music. The contemporary music of “my time” was “And They’ll Know We are Christians by our Love” and “He’s Everything to Me.”  (I will still put the merits of these pieces up against a lot of what I hear today, but that is an observation for another time.)  Still, there are some truths that guide evaluation of our religious music.  Here are some things that come to mind.

A piece of music immediately disqualifies itself as worthy of consideration if it contains the phrase “we just…”  The writer believes it to be a confession of humility and simplicity.  But, the term means “merely,” “only,” “barely,” “quite” and even “almost.”  So, it is “We barely praise you…” or “we almost adore you?”  Even worse, writers employ the phrase as if it were a comma, or when they need another syllable or two in order to fill out a not-so-poetic line.

A piece of music immediately disqualifies itself if it appropriates a stanza of “Amazing Grace” as part of its content.  I reluctantly exclude a handful of well-done medleys.  But, write a song or cover a classic.  Don’t rely on the power of a marvelous free-standing lyric because a contemporary composer can’t find the words to carry the freight.

A piece of music immediately disqualifies itself if it actually makes no grammatical sense.  The stringing together of pious phrases that contain either nouns or verbs, but not both, is a violence to both the language and to the faith.

A piece of music immediately disqualifies itself if it cherry-picks a small portion of scripture out of context and uses it to try to make a case for an issue/topic that doesn’t exist in the larger biblical reading at all. 

A piece of music immediately disqualifies itself if it appropriates Hebrew or Greek words (especially names/titles for God) that are unfamiliar and not self-explanatory.  Note to the lyricist: OK, you found a Bible commentary and learned a new word.  Interpret its use or file it away. 

A piece of music immediately disqualifies itself if it employs a six-word or less phrase and repeats it four times (or more) without any other intervening lyric.  Singing “God is great; great is God,” repeatedly ceases to be praise.  It becomes a monotony that dulls the senses and assaults the soul.  A burden (“There is a Balm in Gilead”) or a refrain (“Blessed Assurance”) is one thing; blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah has no meaning, no power and no praise.

We need music in our worship.  We need music in our souls.

Real music.

We are what we sing -- again

Yesterday I commented on the hymn “And Are We Yet Alive,” and to a much lesser extent “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”  Both of these hymns (texts by Charles Wesley) play an important part in the history of the Methodist movement.  This is not only because they are hymns that we frequently use in worship, and therefore that the great majority of Methodists know (or at least recognize).  These texts are also important because they serve to carry the freight of traditional Methodist theology.

Charles Wesley wrote an average of 10 poetic lines a day for 50 years. He wrote 8,989 hymns.  He wrote hymns that taught and reinforced understanding of the basics of scripture and of Methodist theology.  In “And Are We Yet Alive” for instance, according to The United Methodist Church’s Discipleship Ministries website:

The original four stanzas represent a progression through the Wesleyan "way of salvation." The first stanza reminds us that God's prevenient grace has been present with us, preserving and protecting us even in our absence from one another; the second that God's justifying grace has saved us from sin and imputed to us his righteousness. In the third stanza, we see that God's redeeming grace has saved us and starts the work of regeneration in us. The final (omitted) stanza reminds us that God's sanctifying grace continues to work in us until the day we finally meet Christ, moving us from our imperfect state to entire sanctification.

The measure of great church music is that it transports the heart and mind heavenward.  Great music is not a theological treatise, that aims at the intellect only.  But neither is it mindless repetition that purposes to create feeling to the neglect of understanding: (O come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come, come… to the church in the wildwood).

Our worship time is too short, its opportunities too precious, to fritter away on meaningless verbiage.  Fred Craddock used to say that “We don’t get nourishment by chewing, but by chewing food.”  He was talking about preaching.  But it works for church music as well.

Psalm 1

Psalm 1

Happy are those

   who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread,

   or sit in the seat of scoffers;

but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

   and on his law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees

   planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

   and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

The wicked are not so,

   but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,

   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

   but the way of the wicked will perish.

The Psalter Reading for this past Sunday in the New Revised Common Lectionary (NRCL) is Psalm 1.  It is a delightful text and is worthy of our meditation. 

When I ponder this text, one of the questions I ask is, “Why is this Psalm 1?  It is not that it is unworthy of a place of prominence.  But I simply wonder, “Why this one.”  Now, I know that this text has occupied this particular position for a thousand years and more.  I have no point of contention or dispute over its right to be here.  I just wonder, “Why this one?” 

If you think of the entire body of The Psalter, you see texts that we know simply by reference.  All you have to say is “Psalm 23,” and the entirety of “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” floods over you in its entirety.  You might say the same thing about Psalm 51 (a Psalm of repentance) or Psalm 100 (Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth…).

One might observe that Psalm 119 is the lengthiest Psalm.  The reader might also remember that the 117^th Psalm is the briefest poem in the collection. 

We remember that Jesus quoted Psalm 22 (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)  and Psalm 31 (Father, into your hands I commend my spirit!) from the cross.

The first text in a 150-psalm collection sets the tone for all the rest.  It cannot possible embody all of the emotions and experience of the entire Psalter.  But, it of necessity carries an appropriate tone as it introduces all that is to follow.

There is a fiction in The United Methodist Church that the Charles Wesley hymn “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” has been the initial hymn in all Methodist hymn-books since the beginning.  This is not true.  There have been a few – not many, but a few – Methodist song books where this song was not the first.  The most recent is The Methodist Hymnal of 1935, which had “Holy, Holy, Holy” as its first hymn-text.  This is to say that “O for a Thousand Tongues” set the tone for all that was to follow in most of the Methodist song-books throughout the church's history.  For a denomination that transmitted its theology largely through the content of its hymns, the initial hymn carries a lot of freight.

So, Psalm 1 is an admirable choice for the beginning of the Psalter.  In a simple – but never simplistic – fashion, it speaks of blessing, of communion with God, and of the reward of righteousness.  These themes and their antitheses are the subject of much that is to follow. 

Good choice!

Of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs

I had a conversation with a pastor friend the other day in which my friend spoke of a couple in her congregation that had ceased to attend worship in that church.  Upon contact they told the pastor that they were attending another church, and that the reason was that this other group sang “the old songs” in worship.

My discussion with this pastor speculated on some of the possible reasons why these folks had chosen an alternative to their long-time fellowship.  One is as likely as the other, and we’ll never know for sure.  But for the moment I am going to take this couple at their word.

At first glance it seems a small thing.  How many songs/hymns does the average congregation sing in a weekly worship service?  Three?  Four?  Factor in an anthem, maybe a choral introit, a prelude, a postlude and an offertory and the musical opportunities do begin to stack up.  But truth be known, I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say, “Well I just got tired of the constant new music during the offering and I decided to go somewhere else!”  So, what is at issue is three, maybe four singing events per week.

It is easy to dismiss such a small percentage of all the goings-on in worship.  But in many worship orders the singing is one of the few opportunities for congregational participation that Sunday morning offers.  Some churches may include a unison Affirmation of Faith.  Many pray The Lord’s Prayer together.  We ask the folks in the pew to put money in the plate when we take up the Offering.  But a given congregation may not do all these things every week.  Other participatory acts may be infrequent at best.

So, hymn-singing is one of only a handful of non-passive elements in many of our churches.  If the few chances for people to join in are made up of the unfamiliar or the uncomfortable, it is a fair criticism to say, “I am more comfortable somewhere else.”  This would be especially true, I think, in a setting where the change in music had been abrupt.

Music often touches the heart in a way that prose cannot.  I am not speaking of mere “feel good” moments.  Music is evocative.  It can transport us to times and places from which we are far removed.  I remarked in a sermon recently that people can think of times when they have buried loved ones more than fifty years ago.  They can’t quote a single verse of scripture from that day, nor do they remember any word that was spoken.  But often they recollect every piece of music that was played or sung.  

Church music is one of those “all things to all people” topics.  It is difficult to include A Mighty Fortress is our God and Bringing in the Sheaves in the same service.  But in a time of fragile balance, most of the churches of which I am aware could benefit from being more intentional in their consideration of their music.

I hope my friend’s folks come back.