In A Desert Valley, A Restorative Oasis

Sermon by James W. Crawford

For The Installation of Gregory Peterson as Minister of Music

October 19, 1997

Psalm 84

What is, to you, the most wonderful place in the world? If you had your choice, where, more than anywhere else, would you wish to be? Hundreds  of thousands answered that question here in Boston this morning by settling down on the banks of the Charles for this vast regatta. I have a son making a small address before a teen-age Sunday school class in Rochester, New York, this evening who, though I know he cherishes the opportunity there, wishes desperately to be in Miami this evening for the beginning of the World Series. I suppose there as many dream places as there are people here this morning. But how many of us would have dreamed of church?  Church! Our Psalmist does. There we find him, waylaid in some distant land, making his way back home to Jerusalem. He passes through arid valleys threatening thirst and death. Traveling through dread deserts, some of the worst country in the world, he seeks oases, pools, refreshment. Using his parched surroundings as a metaphor our Psalmist envisions the towers and domes of the temple in Jerusalem as a cool spring in a waterless valley, whose turrets appear to him like a gentle rain on scorched earth. "How lovely--how lovable--is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts," he sings.

And yes, not only the dwelling place, but the One who dwells there appears lovely too. In the precincts of the temple for our Psalmist, there resides the God who brings joy out of suffering; solace through loneliness; succor amid  illness; whose love will not let us go even as everything collapses all around us.

Deeply blessed are those who strength is in thee...
As they go through the valley of thirst
They make it a place of springs.
They go from strength to strength.

Now I do not know if any of you feel about church the way that Psalmist feels about the temple, the loveliest of dwelling places, an oasis amid a desert of longevity. But I dare say, with that ancient singer, one thing drawing us together week after week in this lovely place is the power and glory, the spirit and joy represented by what we celebrate and lift up today: the ministry of music. We in the Reformation traditions, those of us in the Calvinist and Lutheran heritage, are known as churches of the Word. That is why this pulpit stands in the middle of this chancel; that is why we are people of the Book and books, why education has always been a high priority among us. Even this morning you see this tradition carried on in a 14-page bulletin: words, words, words. But music, we know music speaks to us as much of a Divine presence as any preacher, as one of our critics remarks, "blubbering before God."

Music as bearer of the Divine presence? Well, most of the time, anyway. That gloomy Dean of London's St. Paul's Cathedral, William Inge, once wrote in his diary, "At morning prayer I listened to the choir chant the Nicene Creed--and I ceased to believe anything."

And I trust Gregory Peterson will never suffer the church bulletin blurb blending a sermon title and an announcement: "'What is Hell?' Come and hear our new organist.'" No way! The young man we install this morning as organist and Director of Music is a Johann Sebastian Bach aficionado.  Hear what Gregory brings to us this morning in prelude and postlude. Talk about the mediation of the Divine Presence! I do not have to tell you I don't appreciate all the musings of and seldom read the writings of William F. Buckley, Jr., but on Bach's three hundredth anniversary in 1985 Buckley described an essence and reality behind the music of Johann Sebastian that I believe lies behind much of what makes this place and other churches what the Psalmist calls an oasis amid a parched and barren valley. Referring to Bach's birth in 1685, Buckley, that devout Roman Catholic, writes of Bach, that ardent Lutheran, "The event ( Bach's birth) is as though God had decided to clear his throat to remind the world of his existence."

And Buckley continues,

If one were to throw out the 300 cantatas, the 100 odd chorale preludes, the three oratorios, the passions and the masses (which would be like destroying half of Shakespeare) still the other half would sustain Bach as a creature whose genius is inexplicable in the absence of belief in God. . . If it is true, as the poet says, that one cannot look out on a sunset without sensing divinity, then it is also true that one cannot close the door on a sunset and entering the darkened chapel, listen to the organist play one of Bach's toccatas and fugues, without sensing divinity. . . There are those who believe it is not merely to boast, but to be vainglorious to suggest that the movements of Bach's pen could have been animated by less thandivine impulses. . .

And perhaps Bach himself, for all of his ornery ways and irascibility, recognized the transcendent presence he imparted and served by initialing his manuscripts, "S. D. G.," "Soli Deo Gloria--To God alone, the Glory."

Thus do Bach and his kind quench our desert-thirst in one fashion, but we encounter the Divine presence, not simply in the majesty of oratorios and masses, cantatas and fugues, we encounter it in our hymnody as well. And if you want to discover what church people really care about, if you want to get yourself into a knock-down drag-out, face-flushing, high decibel church fight, you will not find it so much in what the Church has to say in wrestling with creeds, sorting out its doctrines, figuring out where it may stand on nuclear weapons, the death penalty and abortion, but how we will sing our hymns, what tunes go with what texts, and what texts resonate or rub us wrong.

My soul! as I have told you and as I told the General Synod when introducing our New Century Hymnal to the United Church of Christ in the summer of 1995, for the five years of preparation, and now nearly three years beyond, I find hymnal matters to be the volatile source sending friendships down the drain, triggering church shouting matches, rousing the most complacent and somnambulant Christians to the barricades.

Martin Marty, one of our shrewd religious commentators, knows the story. He says we will not find the real religious news items in the Globe, theTimes or on CNN. Marty insists,

Those who would faithfully account for the real hopes and fears of Christian people do well to pay attention to Sunday church bulletins, to read letters to the editors, columns of denominational magazines, or eavesdrop on congregational debates whenever someone suggests revision of hymnals, the hiring and firing of organists, or the use of guitars. Over such issues churches divide, ulcers develop, or, when there is harmony about harmony, true reconciliation emerges to provide bonds between Christian people.

Oh, these hymn tunes and texts are burned into our hearts and souls, for many of us the very marrow of our faith. And I, no different from you, answer the question, "So Jim, in one sentence, what do you believe?"  using the words of that church-school hymn taught to me when my mother served as superintendent of the church school, "Jesus loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so," but I believe much more as well, that as we make music, as we absorb texts, give voice to poetic imagery and sing our faith. We express our unity in Christ in a special way, we seal our faith with mind and heart--and yes, with our gut--we express our gratitude for the Gospel with a joy that only song can convey, we embrace fresh, broad and deeper symbols of faith, we tell "the old, old story" to new generations of Christians, we offer public witness to our mission and our hope. Perhaps that servant of the Word, John Calvin, says it best, "In truth we know by experience that song has great force and vigor to move and inflame our hearts to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal."

And so, this morning, we celebrate a ministry of music. We install Gregory Peterson to forge and to mediate this ministry. Why do we do this? Igor Stravinsky can tell us: "The Church knows what the Psalmist knows: Music praises God; music is well or better able to praise God than the building of the church and all its decoration; music is the church's greatest ornament."  Indeed!