Lord God, take my words and speak through them, take our minds and think through them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Anyone who leads and plans worship regularly will know that, as we stand at the church door after a service, if we have preached a bad sermon (or even an heretical one!), we are unlikely to get any comments. But if we have had a poorly chosen hymn, then we can get the strongest of reactions! It's often said that we remember the hymns we have sung in church long after we have forgotten the Bible readings and the sermon. The power of words when they are sung as hymns, songs and canticles, is immense. And that, I believe, is because when words and music work together, they produce something which is far greater than the sum of the parts.
The popularity of BBC Songs of Praise amongst a largely non-churchgoing public speaks volumes: Christian hymns and songs have a place in people's hearts where churchgoing does not. We have to take this seriously.
Throughout history, periods of revival and renewal in the Church's life have all been accompanied by a fresh outpouring of song. The Latin hymns of the medieval monastics reveal a rich vein of personal spirituality. The rise of Lutheranism in northern Europe was accompanied by a great wealth of hymn writing in the vernacular (German) language. The 18th century English evangelical revival and the birth of Methodism found its expression in a new wave of hymn-writing. The Oxford movement and rise of anglo-catholicism in the 19th century carried with it a rediscovery of the ancient hymns of the Church and the composition of many new ones. And within our own lifetime, the various movements of the Holy Spirit within the Church (seen in such wildly different contexts as charismatic renewal, the Gospel-radicalism of the Iona Community and the contemplative worship of Taizé) have all been expressed through new hymnody, chant and song.
And because hymns lodge so much more easily within our consciousness than spoken words, they inform and shape our beliefs. Martin Luther recognised this when he translated vast chunks of the Latin liturgy into German verse: so that people could internalise, and feed upon the truths enshrined there. When the first Methodist hymnbook was published, it was subtitled 'A compendium of practical divinity'. In other words, John Wesley (and his brother Charles, who in the end wrote over 6000 hymns) saw hymns as a means of educating and building up people in the faith. A century later, General William Booth of the Salvation Army put the same principle into practice as he formed his bands of brass players and songsters. Hymns are powerful vehicles for getting Christian truth into people's hearts and minds.
Hymns also bridge the gap between abstract theology: that is to say, statements about God - and personal experience: what it is actually like to live as a Christian. And in making that link they are, as Wesley said, 'practical divinity'. When I visit a family before a funeral, it is almost certain that they have decided on the hymns they would like to sing before even starting to think about which readings to have. And almost always because 'that particular hymn' was a favourite of Uncle Bill's, because of an association with a particular event or place. Hymns help make connections between God and personal experience.
So what place does music have? I'm sure we all agree that the tune to which a hymn is sung is vital, and we all have our particular strongly-held views as to which tune is 'right' and which is 'wrong'. The music of a hymn can help interpret the words for us. It is usually the tune that first stays with us, and this becomes a peg upon which we then hang the words (and the sentiments they express) as the hymn becomes more familiar. The right tune for a hymn can enhance the words and contribute to our understanding of them; the wrong tune can wreck both the words and our experience of worship.
[Take, for instance, Isaac Watts' hymn When I survey the wondrous cross. The tune we normally sing to this is wonderfully matched. In the last verse, the words 'love so amazing, so divine' (which is, in fact, the line which sums up the entire hymn in one) is set to an exquisitely crafted line of melody [demonstrate]. But if I were to sing those words to the Old Hundredth, we would lose something! [Demonstrate]
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
To change a tune can be disastrous - but a change to another good tune can make us see a hymn in a totally new light. And it is quite possible for a new tune to be written which fits the words far better than anything else from the past.
And so, to this evening's hymn. I begin our Lent sermon series with John Mason's How shall I sing that majesty?
John Mason was born not many miles from here, in Northamptonhsire - probably at Irchester, where his father was a non-conformist minister. After attending school locally he went up to Clare College, Cambridge and from there was ordained deacon and priest in the C of E. His ministry was within a small number of parishes in Buckinghamshire, and in the course of that ministry he also wrote poetry and hymns.
The Church of England was slow to get off the ground where the singing of hymns was concerned. Following the Reformation, music in most parish churches was at a low ebb and eventually a typical pattern emerged in which the Sunday service was said without music. At the end of the service, the musicians would take their places in the gallery and there would be singing - but not of hymns as such, but metrical Psalms - the Psalms put into (usually rather poor quality) verse. This was standard practice throughout England, and endured right up until the end of the 19th century (we can read accounts in Thomas Hardy's novels Under the Greenwood Tree and The Mayor of Casterbridge).
John Mason, working at the end of the 17th century, was one of the first Anglicans to encourage the singing of hymns, as distinct from metrical Psalms. The Independent churches had already begun to move in this direction - and by the early 18th century, the hymns of Isaac Watts were becoming popular. But the Church of England was slow to get on the bandwagon. Mason believed in hymns, and so he is a very appropriate person with whom to start the series.
How shall I sing that majesty is his best-known hymn, though it could still be better known. Its theme is the contrast between the perfection and majesty of God, and the insignificance of the worshipper. The answer to the opening question,
'How shall I sing that majesty which angels do admire?'
might well be, 'With virtual impossibility'. Mason paints a picture of God, enthroned in heaven, surrounded by the praises of the ten thousand times ten thousand and of the angels, and asks: 'compared with all this, who am I?' He draws heavily on the imagery of the Book of Revelation, such as we heard in the New Testament lesson, where the major activity of the redeemed in heaven is to sing around the throne of God.
The Christian faith has always struggled to maintain a balance between two views of God. On the one hand there is God almighty and transcendent - standing apart from his creation; and on the other there is God who is fully knowable. Of course it is 'both - and'. The great mystery at the heart of the Christian faith is that God the creator of heaven and earth is knowable by his creatures and that to make that clear, he took the step of becoming one of us in Jesus. Mason struggles with this in the hymn: 'How can we, insignificant mortals that we are, know and begin to worship this almighty God?'
The second verse develops further the 'them and us' theme. (Notice the recurring use of the words 'them' and 'they'.) Here on earth, we might hear 'a sound of God' as we 'trace his footsteps' as best we can. In contrast, those in heaven see God's brightness and look upon his face. But, says Mason the worshipper, I will still offer my worship, although it's a mere widow's mite compared with their gold. The fact that we are as we are - fallen human beings who can appear so insignificant - should not deter us in continuing to offer our worship, poor as it might seem. A similar idea is expressed by the 19th century Tractarian-turned-Roman Catholic, Frederick Faber, in our opening hymn:
Yet I may love thee too, O Lord,
almighty as thou art,
for thou hast stooped to ask of me
the love of my poor heart.
And then, as we enter verse 3, John Mason encourages us to see that we too, can take our part with the celestial choir. How is this possible? Only by God himself working within us to enlighten our heart with faith and inflame it with the fire of his love. In other words, God accepts our widow's mite of an offering of worship, and, by the working of his Holy Spirit, transforms both that offering and us, so that we can also be part of the heavenly choir - and, if you like, on an equal footing with those who sing in heaven. In the words of another hymn it's a case of:
Come down, O Love divine,
Seek thou this soul of mine,
And visit it with thine own ardour glowing;
O comforter, draw near,
Within my heart appear,
And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.
Nothing is possible without the Holy Spirit, and all things are possible with the Holy Spirit. Mason reminds us that 'they' (that is, the members of the heavenly choir) sing not because of any merit of their own, but purely because 'thou art their sun' - and if that is case for them, then we can pray 'send a beam on me.' Then, as we worship here on earth, we become caught up into that never-ending round of worship in heaven: where life is a continuous 'Alleluia' (not a word I am allowed to use in Lent, I know, but it is Mason's and not mine!).
This is picked up again in the final verse, in which Mason reminds us of a number of God's attributes: his greatness, his boundlessness, his knowledge and his presence in all places - but also 'thy time is now and evermore.' Because all time is eternally present for God, there is a real unity between what we do now here on earth and what goes on (and will go on) in heaven. We see this in the words of the Sanctus ('Holy, holy, holy, God of power and might……'). Those words have their origin in Isaiah's vision in the Temple where they are the words of the seraphim flying around the presence of God. We use them as part of the Church's liturgy to express our adoration of God; and, in the Book of Revelation, they are there as part of the 'new song' sung around the throne of God in heaven. And so the worship we offer here below - paltry and insignificant though it might be - is part of what is going on in God's nearer presence.
How shall I sing that majesty
which angels do admire?
Simply by offering what I have in worship to our God.
It's a fine hymn, but one which is far more than just the words alone. The tune to which we sang it this evening was written not very many years ago. Named Coe Fen, it was composed by Kenneth Naylor, former Director of Music at The Leys School in Cambridge until his death in 1991, and it's appropriately named - as the Leys borders that part of Cambridge known as Coe Fen.
Superficially, it could be seen as just another great big English tune - in a direct line with Vaughan Williams' tune Sine nomine for 'For all the saints' or Herbert Howells' tune Michael for 'All my hope on God is founded'. It's no surprise to learn that Naylor taught in an English public school or that Coe Fen was first published in the Public School Hymnbook. But there is more to it than that if we are to dig deeper.
The hymn itself is a great favourite for singing on Trinity Sunday: the day when we struggle to put into words our rather feeble understanding of God and of his majesty. And in musical history there's a respected tradition of 'Trinitarian music', seen perhaps most clearly in J S Bach. Here, in Coe Fen, some of those hallmarks are present. It has a triple time signature and a key signature of three flats - not coincidental. The melody is broad and majestic, as befits the words, with strong harmonic progressions driven by a bass line than tends to move by step or in 4ths. And so we are given in the music a picture of a God who is mighty. But the harmonic language is rich and at times chromatic, giving the whole tune a feeling of immense warmth. And so although we are encouraged by the tune to think of a powerful God, we are also drawn in to what can only be described as the fire of his love.
The tune is in a regular metre (DCM) but not all the lines are the same length - and therein lies its genius. Rather than give us 4 lines of 7 bars each, Naylor extends the third line by a bar - and this has an important effect on us as we sing it. The final 2 lines of text in each verse are critical in summing up each stage of Mason's argument.
Ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?
Yet when thou dost accept their gold,
Lord, treasure up my mite.
For where heaven is but once begun,
There alleluias be.
Thy time is now and evermore,
Thy place is everywhere.
And because we are made to wait an extra bar before singing it, those 2 lines in each verse are invested with greater importance - they make more of an impact on our minds. Naylor's tune is quite superb, because it gets under the skin of the words and becomes part of a composite creation of words and music, despite the fact that the two were written 300 years apart. The result is that Mason's hymn has come more fully to life than ever before. And as we sing it, we are acutely aware of our being caught up in the worship of heaven, whatever our worldly state.
Amen.