Saturday, April 30, 2011

Singing a new song? Oh, dear, no...



I’m taking a service tomorrow and we are going to read a hymn. The words are just right but the tune will be completely unknown and too difficult even for the music readers among us. The sense of the words will be lost in the struggle with the music.

It's a shame. Hymns are to be sung. Singing is one of the distinctive things about worship. If I made the decision to read this one tomorrow with a heavy heart, my frustration has been somewhat lifted by the memory of a service I attended in a sister church in Australia recently. There was not one thing I could sing in the entire 75 minutes. Everything was quite foreign to me.

I remember our Principal at Trinity College, in reflecting on the possibility that heaven and hell are what you make them yourself, once told us whimsically, “An angel would take something of heaven if she were sent to hell. And the worst reprobate would hate being transferred to heaven – he wouldn’t know the tunes!”

I think I can sympathise. I hope our worship tomorrow will match up some vigorous and tuneful singing with some thoughtful and inspiring words. We may not be quite good enough for heaven – or bad enough for hell, perhaps – but we will try to uplift each other in our singing.

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