ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

6 EASTER , 2010 SERMON PREACHED BY THE VICAR, FR ALAN MOSES

EVENSONG AT ST. PANCRAS, EUSTON

FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHURCH MUSIC

Readings: Zephaniah 3.14-20; Matthew 28.1-10,16-20

I must begin with an apology. I was supposed to be here several years ago, but ended up in hospital instead! St. Pancras was one of a number of churches I was forced to let down. Gradually, their incumbents are calling in the IOUs!

Given the nature of this festival, I asked Fr. Paul if he wanted me to preach about music or on the readings. He opted for the latter, which is probably just as well. I have spent the greater part of my ministry working in churches with choral traditions, but I am not a musician by training.

Over 30 years of ministry, I have been struck more and more by the fact that the Anglican tradition of reading scripture according to the lectionary has many virtues. The first is that it ensures that we hear a great range of passages. The second is like unto it , namely this: congregations are spared the endless repetition of the clergy's favourite passages. There is also some chance that they might be spared their favourite hobby horses too, if they take seriously the business of preaching on the texts.

I have also become more and more conscious of how often the lectionary does provide passages which speak to the situations we are in.

And so, tonight, the first words of the first lesson from the prophet Zephaniah were:

"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;".

The short book of Zephaniah, sitting there among the Minor Prophets at the tail end of the Old Testament is not one of the better known books of the Hebrew Scriptures. The scholars tell us that if the Old Testament books were arranged in historical order, it would come between Isaiah and Jeremiah. It shares with them a powerful denunciation of the sins of Israel and Judah and foretells divine punishment, both of the Jews and of the other nations.

Earlier in the book, there is a passage which has provided inspiration for many musical settings.

"That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements." 1. 15-16.

It was the inspiration for the hymn Dies Irae which came to be a part of the Requiem Mass, although it was not written with that purpose in mind. I was fascinated to discover that the first English translation of the Dies Irae was made by someone from al Saints Margaret Street who heard it sung at the Funeral Mass of the Archbishop of Parish who was killed during the Commune which followed the Franco-Prussian War.

The Dies Irae is not much used liturgically these days, even on All Souls Day. It is far more likely to be heard in the concert hall. The plainsong setting even appears in Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd".

But the Book of Zephaniah is not all doom and gloom. In the final chapter, as we heard tonight, it changes to a mood of hope based on trust in God.

"Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgements against you... the king of Israel, the Lord is in your midst...."

Then there is what I think is an extraordinary verse which also speaks to what we are doing tonight:

"he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival."

With passages like Isaiah's vision of the seraph's thrice-holy hymn which became the Sanctus of the Christian Eucharist or St. John the Divine's visions of the worship of heaven in the Book of Revelation, we tend to think of worship, and music in worship, as being the work of creatures, heavenly and earthly, offered to our Creator and Redeemer. That is true enough, but here we are told of a God who does not sit there as an audience, the recipient of praise, but of one who leads the singing and celebration himself.

So to sing and make music is not simply a human activity, it is not even just to share in the worship of the angels and saints in heaven, it is share in the joyful activity of God.

This is true not only of the music of celebration but also of the music of lament over the state of our world and penitence for our part in it@ the great music of Lent and Passiontide.

This passage from Zephaniah was chosen for this Sunday, not I suspect with the St. Pancras Festival in mind, but because it foreshadows those great words which end the Gospel according to St. Matthew: "Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

The prophet foresaw God. the King of Israel in the midst of Jerusalem. The risen Christ promises his abiding presence to the embryonic Church which he has just commissioned to "make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you."

Matthew tells us that when the eleven disciples saw the risen Lord, "they worshipped him, but some doubted." On a Sunday evening in central London at the beginning of the 21st century, we might not feel very confident about that task; we too might well doubt. We do not even need not go to the ends of the earth to play our part in that mission, to make disciples of all nations, because if we walk the streets of your parish or mine, we see that those nations have come to us in this world in a city.

But faced with a daunting task, let me end with some thoughts about what part music in our worship might play.

Well, liturgical music need to not be relentlessly cheerful. It can help us to express and explore doubt and in doing so actually deepen our faith. Music in worship is of course a celebration of God's ways with us which are not the world's ways: the ways of power and success.

It is worth noting that Jesus commissions the eleven disciples: the perfect number twelve was lost by Judas's betrayal. The Church to which Jesus entrusts his mission was imperfect then as it is now. That is not a reason for avoiding the call.

Some at least of those who saw, says Matthew, doubted. The company of apostles included those who doubted. Matthew shows us that doubt and faith belong together from the very beginning and that is not an obstacle to mission. Mission does not have to wait for the perfect church. We do not have to wait until we think our faith is perfect and that we can answer all the questions. Our faith grows as we seek to share it with others. It is as we engage in the task of mission that we know more deeply the real presence of Christ with us.

The church sings the Psalter which en-capsulate a whole gamut of human emotions. Yes there is the praise which ends the collection, which ends even Psalm 22 with its opening cry of dereliction, but that praise is not the product of make-believe, of a sunny belief in human perfectibility. It is forged in the fires of harsh reality; a realism about human and personal sin.

"I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth".

This is the same great reversal, the turning upside down of the ways of the world, which we celebrate when we sing the Magnificat at Evensong.

"At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I Will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord."

"all generations will called my blessed."

This is the same hope which we celebrate when we sing the Nunc Dimittis, the Sing of aged Simeon who had waited for the Lord to act: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, to be a lighten to lighten the gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel."

"Choirs and places where they sing" do provide a home for those who only half-believe. Evensong is a space for those who may not have the single-minded commitment of the twice-born or the card-carrying catholic. That does not mean, however, that we should remain content to allow people to remain unchallenged, unstimulated in that half-in-half-out state.

That is why church music must not consist simply of old favourites from the past but include the challenging and the new. That is why it cannot exist on its own but must be accompanied by serious biblical and doctrinal preaching.