The Sacrament of Singing
Wineskins Contributor・05/03/19
“Music is the universal language of mankind.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Who hears music, feels hissolitude peopled at once.” ― Robert Browning
“Music actslike a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.” ― Mariavon Trapp
“Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
For hundreds of years, philosophers,musicians, and educators have debated whether or not music is a language. Ilean on the side of those who agree that it isa language. I’d like to take that one step further though. That is to say,congregational singing, done a cappella (whichonly means “in the style of the chapel”), without the accompaniment ofinstruments, has the power to create community, form and transform the heartand mind, and transport a person completely into a spiritual dimension unlikeany other.
We all have those musical momentsin our lives that we’ll never forget. I remember the first time I sang atsummer camp in the piney woods of East Texas with 200 other folks under thestars. We sang the immortal hymn of George Stebbins and James Edmeston, Savior, Breathe an Evening Blessing. Iremember the first time I heard a large crowd sing the four-part polyphonicsong, The Greatest Commands, based onthe words of I John 4. Or the sound of 5000 people singing The Lord Bless You and Keep You. Maybe you have those moments inyour life too, those thin places, where the distance between you and God is sosmall and music or singing is what took you there. We all have moments likethis.
lucky for me, I’m a part of this wacky tribe, this tradition of a cappella Churches of Christ and have been for all my life. I have a long list of places where the singing of the community of God’s people has helped to take me to those thin places where Earth and Heaven meet.
Churches of Christ have long been known as a singing people. Many times, I’ve been asked where I go to church, or what church I serve, and when the inquisitor hears me say the words “Church of Christ” they are quick to respond with something akin to “Oh, y’all are the people who don’t have music.” And like fingernails on an aged chalkboard, my mind fights its urges to apply the right hand of fellowship to their left cheek of righteousness, because that’s JUST NOT TRUE. We have music. Beautiful music…and it’s something I cherish and wish I could do something about or change the minds and perspectives of people who view our tradition as the one “without music.”
That misunderstanding about our tradition bothers me greatly. And I think those of us in Churches of Christ are to blame for that misunderstanding. For far too long, the answer to “why” our tradition, by in large, hasn’t employed instruments in worship, has been a wrong one, or, perhaps better said, a misinformed one.
We’ve been known for far too long for what we AREN’T and what we DON’T DO, then for who we ARE and the beauty of what we do.
Allow me to unpack this just a bit.
I have long heard people referencethe “five acts of worship” that are found in the New Testament as a guidingprinciple of sorts for “why we do what we do” with regard to worship inChurches of Christ. Preaching, Praying, Communion, Contribution,Singing…Granted, there are lots of flaws in reducing worship to merely fiveboxes to check off, and not to mention the more important perspective of whatthis says regarding who the “actors and players” are when the community comestogether to worship. But, I digress. Five acts. We’ve stayed away from thiskind of language, but these are essentially our sacraments. These are thingsthat sit at the center of what the church does when it comes together toworship. A sacrament is something that is an outward visible expression of aninner spiritual reality. You notice, perhaps that this word looks a lot likethe word sacred. I think that’sappropriate. But maybe singing is sacred not for the same reasons you may havealways thought.
My friend Darryl Tippens haswritten a lot about singing as sacrament. And I think he’s spot on when he saysthat even though we may not use the word “Sacrament” there is something holythat happens within us, even those who may not categorize themselves assingers, that forms us, that shapes us.
This is the bigger point, in mymind, of passages like Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, not so much thatthey restrict or don’t restrict the use of instruments. Instead, they draw ustogether as a community of believers and form us increasingly into the image ofChrist. Karl Barth said that “Singing is the highest form of humanexpression…We can and must say quite confidently that the community which doesnot sing is not the community.” This is the heart of congregational singing.
I am at least a fifth generationCampbellite on both my mother and father’s sides. I have a great grandfatherand great great grandfather who served as elders for, and as song leaders forthe great Restoration Movement Preacher and Hymn-Writer, Tillit S. Teddlieduring his years in East Texas.
Our roots are deep in Churches ofChrist. You could say it comes natural to me to love and appreciate ourheritage of a cappella congregationalsong. But, my reasons for loving it, becoming an advocate for it are largelynot based in the historical or traditionalist perspective that are held my somany in our movement. Some have arrived at singing being sacramental becauseit’s what they’ve always known or that they interpret scripture to say thatthis is the only way it must be done. I have arrived at this sacramentalperspective because of largely experiential and aesthetic reasons.
Each and every time God’s peoplecome together and sing, there is the strong possibility of something deeplyspiritual and formative taking place. That alone is more than enough reason forus to sing. Singing does not always need to be the happy, clappy, joyousemotion that some think is required in worship. Singing can also be a place fordeep grief, sorrow, and doubt to be manifested. Singing with these emotions oflament allow us an incredibly meaningful vehicle with which to talk to God, butalso to each other.
But there’s also this cyclicaloccurrence that occurs in the beautiful simplicity of human voices comingtogether in song. As human beings, we’re drawn to beautiful things. Artwork,nature, words, their beauty endears them to us. It’s the same with song. Thebeauty of the God-given instrument, the human voice, almost without thought oreffort, physiologically enjoining hundreds of muscles to create a sound, isjust another example of the creativity of our God, the Greatest Creator theworld has ever known. When we join our voices together, the created in praiseof the creator, a thin place becomes a reality. And this beauty, from thecreator to the created and then, humbly offered back to the creator again,regardless of your vocal prowess or the talent level of your alto or tenor, isholy ground. Something TRULY beautiful…this is why we sing. This is why I sing.
Yes, there’s plenty of evidence wecan extract from New Testament context that talks about singing. But that aloneis not what drives me to want to sing or what drives me to sing in praise of mycreator and for the building up of my fellow “createds.” Here’s another passageyou may have never thought about.
Jesus, when meeting with hisdisciples and sharing in the last supper during Passover, was in the middle ofwhat had to be an emotionally volatile situation. Not eating and drinking withthem again, someone being told that they’d betray Jesus, the thought of Jesusdying and leaving the ministry he had inaugurated with this different kind ofKingdom with this group of misfit disciples, everyone must have been on edge.
There’s a little verse at the endof Matthew 26 that never gets included when anyone reads this text around thesacrament of partaking in communion. And I think that’s an utter travestybecause it offers unparalleled insight into the beauty of song and its functionin the Christian community.
At one of the most poignant momentsin the narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry, death, and resurrection, afterthey’d eaten, Matthew says this…
" 30 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mountof Olives.”
That’s right. At this moment intime, at this thin place that Jesus & his disciples experienced whenemotions were running at their highest, what did they do? They took the time tosing. What I would give to have been in that room in that moment and to knowwhat they sang, how they sang it, and how that impacted their lives.
If Jesus thought it was importantenough to sing at this moment, there’s nothing in the world that should keep usfrom singing today…for who He is, for what He’s done, and because it’s abeautiful expression of that inner transformation that takes place inside theheart and lives of those who follow Jesus. It’s utterly beautiful. It’sabsolutely sacred. Singing is a sacrament. And it’s a sacrament that haschanged my life. Won’t you allow yourself the opportunity to let it change yourstoo?
DarrylTippens, “That’s Why We Sing,” Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 2006.
DarrylTippens, “Singing as Sacrament,” http://char.is/blog/2016/05/13/singing-is-a-sacrament/