singing with others

A Sermon for III Easter                                                All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores,     NC  

April 14, 2013                                                       Thomas E. Wilson, Rector       

Acts 9:1-20                          Psalm 30                              Revelation 5:11-14                          John 21:1-19

Isn’t it interesting the decisions that you make in your life? 47 years ago I had to make a choice between two roles being offered me in Outdoor Drama. One of them was to come to the Outer Banks, the place I finally came to 37 years later, but I turned down that role because the other role down in Florida paid $20.00 more a week. The parts were similar but, in Florida, I wouldn’t die in the final battle, and I would join the entire community in singing lustily at the end of the play. I love to sing, but that summer I had trouble with my ego in that I thought that I ought to stand out.

I really wasn’t interested in blending in and listening to the other voices; I wanted to promote my own self-interest. As a consequence I was the only member of a cast of 60, politely but firmly, asked not to sing as they pointed out that I was being paid as an actor and not a singer.

I love hearing our choir because Steve is usually able to get the members to forget about performance and concentrate more about being the church in miniature, gathered together in praise of God with songs of the heart. The reading from the book of Revelation for today has the apostle hear all of creation singing together:

myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”  

What a wonderful vision. Just picture it: here are the robins singing along with the eagles and crows, and the fox, and the basset hounds, and the donkeys. and the lions, and tigers and bears- oh my! - and the porpoises, and the sea lions, the oysters, the shrimp, the sharks, the iguanas, the pandas, the wind, the thunder, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the Unitarians, the Buddhists, the Muslim, the Hindu, the South and North Koreans together in perfect harmony, the Romans and Jews, the Swedes, even Britishers in their tweeds—all of creation singing praise to the Lord. All of them forgetting their own agenda and joining in singing the song, listening to each other so that the space between them is sacred space.

The Book of Revelation is about one vision of two different ways of living in this world. One vision is the way things seem to be in the following of the “way” of the world, and the other competing vision is the way things can be in the following of the “Way of the Risen Lord”. The early church called itself the “Way” as we can see from the lesson from the Book of Acts for today. The “Way” of the church was not a collection of creeds but a new way of living, as if one was in praise of God, in awe of God, and in love of neighbor. We can see how this way is played out with the response of Ananias. Here is Ananias, sitting fat and happy in Damascus and suddenly Jesus appears to him in a vision and tells him to seek out Saul, the man who was sent to Damascus to capture him and take him back for trial and execution to Jerusalem. He is instructed that, when he finds Saul, he is to pray over him and heal him from blindness of vision. Now Ananias’ mother didn’t raise no dummy, and so he starts to object, but the Risen Lord convinces him to be vulnerable and follow the “Way”.

Two “ways” - the way things seem to be and the way things can be in God’s dream. There is a line from George Bernard Shaw’s play Back to Methuselah, which Bobby Kennedy used to paraphrase: “You see things, and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were, and I say ‘Why not?’”  However, there was a response by comedian George Carlin, and I will paraphrase:  “Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that . . . stuff.”

The Carlin quote is what Peter seems to be saying in today’s lesson from John’s Gospel. They have just had a life-changing experience with the Risen Lord, and Peter has been commissioned to forgive sins and bring healing, but he decides that he doesn’t have time to do all that “. . . stuff”.  He has to go to work and goes back to just seeing the way things are, and so he returns to fishing, acting out a quote from Thoreau: “Everyone should believe in something; I believe I’ll go fishing.”  However when he meets Jesus on the beach, he comes to the realization that another quote from Thoreau seems to fit:  “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” Jesus persuades him to reclaim God’s vision and return to the “Way” of dreaming of things that never were and working to make the “Why not “ come true.

There is a song to be sung and it is the song and not the individual singer that is important. Some months ago I saw the film of the musical Les Miserables and was reminded all over again of how much I love this story. I have read the book, seen five different movie versions of the book ( Fredrick March and Charles Laughton as Jean Valjean and Javert 1935, Michael Rennie and Robert Newton 1952, Jean Gabin and Bernard Biard 1957, Richard Jordan and Antony Perkins 1978,  Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush 1998,  and a wonderful variation with Jean Paul Belmondo in 1995),  and  I have seen both live and film productions of the musical. Victor Hugo wrote of the book:

The book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details ... a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life; from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end.

Hugo looks to his past and sees a new future. When I saw the film of the musical, at the finale and under my breath (so I would not be asked to stop), I sang along with the final song - right after the epilogue’s last line “To love another person is to see the face of God”:

Do you hear the people sing
Lost in the valley of the night?
It is the music of a people
Who are climbing to the light.

For the wretched of the earth
There is a flame that never dies.
Even the darkest night will end
And the sun will rise!

They will live again in freedom in the Garden of the Lord!
They will walk behind the ploughshare. They will push away the sword!
The chain will be broken and all men will have their reward!

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Somewhere beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?
Do you hear the people sing?
Say, do you hear the distant drums?
It is the future that they bring
When tomorrow comes...
Tomorrow comes!

Will you sing the song with others, seeing, and working for the different future of God’s dream?