A Sermon Preached In Celebration of James Arthur and Gay Goslin Smith on the occasion of their retirement
The Very Rev. Tracey Lind
St. James the Fisherman, Wellfleet, MA
Sunday, September 1, 2024
2 Chronicles 5:11-13 – Psalm 150 – Revelation 5.11-14 – Luke 1:46-55
The heritage of music, especially singing – in both good times and bad – has been passed down through history. Miriam and the women of the Exodus sang after crossing the Red Sea. Deborah, one of ancient Israel’s great leaders, sang, “a melody to the Lord” after defeating her people’s enemy. King David praised God in the songs of the psalter, and his son Solomon sang of love. Isaiah wrote songs of exultation, Jeremiah lamented in song, and Zechariah sang as he rejoiced. Paul and Silas sang in prison, and the voices of heaven sang a new song of the lamb before the throne of God. And, as we heard in this morning’s gospel reading, Mary, recalling the powerful words of her spiritual ancestor Hannah, sang when she learned of her pregnancy.
I once heard former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry talk about African American spirituality. “Why didn’t slaves go crazy?” Curry asked. “They had no doctors, therapists, or social workers. Even families were separated and sold. I believe it was their singing. Spirituals took away their shame, wiped away their tears and made them part of God’s own family.” Singing has freed the spirit in the midst of captivity, fed souls in spite of physical hunger, healed wounds of abuse, and sustained people in the wilderness of oppression.
Singing is a powerful form of prayer. Perhaps that’s why St. Augustine once said, “To sing is to pray twice.”
Over the years, I have given a lot of thought to the power of singing. We sing to celebrate and to grieve. We sing as we work and as we play. We sing to make the world smaller. We sing to drown out the voices of hatred. And sometimes, we sing to stay warm, awake and alive.
Singing has always been a way of surviving the horrors of prison and torture. Perhaps, one of the most poignant examples of the power of song during fateful times was the final message of Etty Hillesum. Scribbled on a scrap of paper and thrown from a box car as she and her family departed for Auschwitz, this young Jewish woman wrote, “Tell them, we left the camp singing.”
Singing is also a powerful act of spiritual and political resistance. The early Christian martyrs sang as they faced lions in the coliseums. Striking workers sang outside the mines, mills and factories. African American enslaved people sang as they toiled in the cotton fields. Women sang as we walked city streets “taking back the night.” The LGBTQ community has sung our way to equality. And, though I don’t know for certain, I imagine that our sisters and brothers walking from Central America toward our border are singing along the way.
Do you recall the film The Power of One. It’s about a young boy visiting an old music teacher in a South African prison. The boy ends up organizing a prison choir that performs a concert for the guards and their families. Singing in a language that the guards didn’t know, a group of imprisoned black men sat on the ground, and in one beautiful, harmonic voice, sang “The guards are stupid.” That’s the power of music.
One of the most powerful resistance songs is an old Quaker hymn that dates back to pre-Civil War North Carolina when members of the Religious Society of Friends suffered for their opposition to slavery. Its words spoke volumes about the power of song: “Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing. It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?”
Where would we be without singing? I don’t know. My beloved Emily says that when she sings, it is the only thing she can think about; for her, singing gives her head a vacation from the cares and worries of the world. For people living with dementia, singing is calming and comforting; it helps to make connections and keep memories alive; and is one of the last cognitive faculties to go.
Instrumental music has also been at the heart of the spirit for at least 50,000 years. Flutes made of bone and ivory date back to the Paleolithic era. Humans are meant to make music.
As Hans Christian Andersen once wrote: “Where words fail, music speaks.” An instrumental prelude helps to quiet one’s busy thoughts and prepare for worship. There’s nothing like a simple piano melody to calm an anxious spirit, a soulful cello sonata to inspire awe, or a pure violin concerto to transcend the cares of daily life. And when you put it all together in a string ensemble, there is magic, mystery and majesty in the air.
Timbrels and tambourines, drums and humming bowls, flutes and other woodwinds, as well as stringed instruments were a central part of ancient Jewish worship, Asian culture, and pagan ritual. The precursor of the organ was invented by a Greek engineer in the 3rd century BCE. The instrument, known as the hydraulis, delivered a supply of wind maintained through water pressure to a set of pipes. It was regularly played in the Roman arenas – during gladiator events, and perhaps, even as Christian martyrs were thrown to the lions.
To distinguish itself from its religious neighbors, the church rejected instrumental music in worship for much of its history. The early church leaders believed that musical instruments were associated with Temple worship and pagan rituals, and therefore, weren’t appropriate for Christian worship. Thus, the early church sang a capella.
Clement of Alexandria, one of the church’s early bishops actually wrote that, the body is our organ, our nerves are the strings, and when struck by the Spirit with harmonious tension, it gives forth voice. He said that the tongue is the symbol of the mouth, which makes a clash as it resounds with the pulsation of the lips. Thus, in our voices, we have a complete instrument of peace and no longer need the ancient psaltery, trumpet, timbrel and flute.
Gregory of Nazianzus insisted that Christians had to behave in contrast to pagan practices, “taking up hymns instead of timbrels, psalmody instead of lewd dances and songs, thankful acclamation instead of theatrical clapping.”
The organ, as we know it, with visible pipes and a keyboard, began to appear in churches and monasteries until the 8th century. But it wasn’t until the end of the 10th century, that the attitude about instrumental music in Christian worship began to shift.
By the 15th century, singing accompanied by the organ, and organ preludes and postludes had become the norm in the Roman and Anglican traditions. Bach actually wrote organ compositions for nearly every week of the church year. Composers like Schubert, Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Dvorak and Vaungh Williams created volumes of beautiful instrumental and choral music for the church. Over the past 500 years, secular classical music has been adapted for Christian worship, and much of the canon of sacred music has become a standard in secular classical music settings.
In the absence of an organ, for almost fifty years, here at the Chapel of St. James the Fisherman, Gay Goslin Smith and James Arthur Smith have accompanied our voices with piano and violin, and often included their children and friends on viola, cello, and other stringed instruments. For nearly half a century, this dedicated and talented couple have worked their way through the canon of chamber music appropriate for a summer church.
For all of this, we are very grateful. Now, the time has come for Jim and Gay to retire from the Chapel. Now, the time has come to close this chapter in our musical life and for us to express our sincere thanks to Jim and Gay – and their family and friends – for their steadfast fidelity to the Chapel of St. James the Fisherman through the music they have offered all these years.
Jim and Gay – you and your family and friends – have made a tremendous difference in the life of this chapel. Each summer, you have driven from Arkansas to Wellfleet, bringing with you instruments and boxes of music – a full-on, classical repertoire ranging from Elizabethan to contemporary American. Each week, you have welcomed us with your preludes, accompanied us in our singing, centered us in our communion with God, and sent us back out into the world with postludes worthy of the angels. For all of this and more, we say thanks. And, we promise that after you retire from the bench and bow, we will keep singing.