Earth's fragile beauties
From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Earth’s fragile beauties: 9th October 2011: am: The Very Revd Frank Nelson
- Psalm 106: 1- 6, 19 - 23
- Exodus 32: 1 - 14
- Philippians 4: 1 - 9
- Matthew 22: 1 - 14
A short article in the latest edition of the Church Music Quarterly is the inspiration for today’s sermon. Much of the music sung by our cathedral choirs uses texts from the Bible. The evening canticles, those two glorious passages of writing found in St Luke’s Gospel and beloved by Anglicans as the Magnificat and Nunc Dimitis, or the words of the Sanctus sung in the Great Thanksgiving Prayer, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord (straight out of Isaiah) are good examples. Many of the hymns we sing are also drawn from biblical texts, especially the psalms. But some are written for special occasions or seasons – a baptism, Christmas and Easter, a harvest festival. One of the features of being an Anglican is that we are expected to keep our brains working when we worship God – so, from time to time, it is well worth looking at the hymns we sing.
In your hands this morning is a new hymn written in 2005 by the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd Robert Willis, and included in a recently published supplement to our hymnbook Common Praise. The inspiration for the hymn is the events of 9/11 in 2001. The tenth anniversary of 9/11 has seen the shocking images of that day replayed - the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, smoke and flames billowing out, tiny dots of people leaping to their death, and the tragic stories of fire-fighters and rescue workers killed even as they went to help others. Tragedy, as we know only too well, is not new. Nor, sadly, will the events of 9/11, or the Boxing Tsunami of 2004, the earthquakes of Christchurch and Japan, the flooding in Bangladesh, or the devastating droughts in north east Africa be the last. Tragedy will come again. But how do we deal with tragedy in a religious sense – especially when we deal better with ideas such as faith, hope and love? It is not uncommon for responses to tragedy to fall into one of two extremes. Either – if that is what your loving god gets up to, then I want nothing to do with religion. Or – this is god’s judgment and punishment on some or other wickedness. Is there another way of making sense of religious, and specifically Christian, faith in the face of tragedy?
The editors of New English Praise asked Robert Willis to write a hymn for use “in time of trouble”; one that could be used in the Church when people come together to pray for the victims of a tsunami, an earthquake, a terrorist attack. Willis started with a good tune. Not a new one, but one that is familiar without being so tied to particular words that it could not be transferred. The tune for the hymn is Kingsfold. Originally an English folk tune called “Dives and Lazarus” it was arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams for the words “I hear the voice of Jesus say”. Willis says that the tune appealed because it reflects something beyond tragedy, but is not triumphal. It reflects the blend of hope, faith, grief and love of the words of the text he wrote. Commenting on the choice of tune Gordon Giles, whose meditation on the hymn I have drawn heavily upon and quoted freely from, says this: “There is something of innocence, or rebirth and recreation in its almost ecological repetitiveness and simplicity – a greenness and fragility.”
So much for the tune. There are, I believe, four key areas to look out for in the words of a good hymn. First, they should engage our minds – no meaningless repetition of trite or simplistic words. Second – strong links with the day, the disaster, the tragedy. Of course, the words need to be general enough to fit any situation of disaster, or it will only be sung once. Third – sound theology. It’s no good having something that is not going to ring true with the rest of our faith and understanding of Christianity. This does not mean it should not deal with difficult, hard to believe, concepts, but that it should be the sort of thing that the Church continues, in honesty, to wrestle with. Finally, there needs to be resonance with the rest of our faith – hooks that we can latch on to which take us into those areas of belief which inform and encourage us, and ring true to our stated beliefs.
As a young priest I used to take communion to people in the dementia wing of the local hospital. Much of the time I struggled with this task. It is not easy being twenty-four and trying to minister to people who are a fraction of their former selves. One lady showed not the slightest sense of recognition or engagement until I got to the Lord’s Prayer. As I began to pray, “Our Father” she would join in. It is this deep seated resonance that is picked up in the last line of each verse of the hymn, and which reminds us that the world as we experience it today is not God’s last word: “Your kingdom come, O Lord.” Question for us: do we know, by heart, enough prayers, short passages of the Bible, hymns perhaps, to carry us through even the darkest days, a sort of well-spring on which to draw in times of tragedy?
St Paul’s words at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 are these: And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. Faith, hope and love – all three have become such important touchstones of Christian belief and teaching. Look for each of the concepts in the three verses of the hymn. There is reference to the pilgrims’ song of hope, to singing with faith the pilgrims’ song, and the wounded heart of love. As you ponder on the words, perhaps during the time of Communion this morning, or at home later in the day, live with these phrases, let them mull around in your mind and heart, let them take root and grow.
The idea of us being pilgrims comes through strongly in the words of the hymn. Pilgrimage is a powerful motif in the Bible. Abraham is among the first mentioned when he is told to leave his home and go wherever God calls him. The second verse makes reference to the pilgrim people following Moses through the wilderness, led by the cloud and the fire. Among the first encounters we have with Jesus in the Gospels is his invitation to the fishermen to leave their nets and follow him – even to the cross. The first name given to those who eventually came to be called Christians was the “Followers of the Way”. For many of the early followers of His way, being baptised in the name of Jesus led to suffering and sometimes death.
Both the Boxing Day tsunami and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were in the mind of Robert Willis when he wrote our text on 1 April 2005. Echoes of the earth’s fragility and the sin of humankind are found in the first two lines of the first and last verses. The opening words of the hymn remind me of the profound statement by Peter Beck in February when he said in Christchurch: This is the earth doing what it does. Those who know their bibles will quickly hear the resonances of Genesis chapter 2 and 3 as the picture moves from the paradise of the Garden of Eden to the shame, blame and desire for revenge following the Fall, and the shattering of the image of God. In theological thinking the logical result of the Fall and the sin that follows is the Crucifixion of Jesus.
But of course, we do not end with the crucifixion, just as we dare not end with despair following tragedy. So the last lines of the last verse take us beyond despair, not avoiding it, but growing through it, to the image of God restored through the “wounded heart of love”.
A prayer to end: Pilgrim God, you love your creation, and grieve with the broken-hearted when they cry to you in anger, pain or confusion. As in Christ you walked the way of suffering and love, hold your dear ones who cling to life, and bring comfort to all who must bear unspeakable sorrow, until that day when your Kingdom comes, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
Note: I freely acknowledge that this sermon draws heavily on the “Hymn Meditation” by Gordon Giles in Church Music Quarterly 2011.
Earth’s fragile beauties we possess as pilgrim gifts from God, and walk the slow and dangerous way his wounded feet have trod. Though faith by tragedy is rocked, and love with pain is scored, we sing the pilgrims' song of hope: 'Your kingdom come, O Lord!'
Earth’s human longings we possess by love or grief compelled to take and bear the heavy cross Christ’s wounded hands have held. By cloud and fire he leads us on through famine plague or sword, singing with faith the pilgrims’ song: ‘Your kingdom come, O Lord.’
God’s own true image we possess in innocence first known, now tainted by the hate and spite to Christ’s own body shown. By that same wounded heart of love God’s image is restored, to sing again the pilgrims’ song: ‘Your kingdom come, O Lord.’
Words: Robert Harris (b. 1947) Tune: Kingsfold
