“I Sing Because…”

Luke 1:46-55

And Mary said,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of their servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is God’s name.
God’s mercy is for those who fear God
from generation to generation.
God has shown strength with their arm;
they have scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
God has helped their servant Israel,
in remembrance of their mercy,
according to the promise they made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Do you have a favorite song? I have to say, I marvel at people who have one favorite song  because I can never choose just one! I have favorites for different times and purposes and seasons. My Spotify Wrapped tells me year after year that I listen to more Taylor Swift than anything else and every year, I am not surprised. And while I do love Taylor Swift, she only holds part of my music-loving heart. There are other songs that dwell deep inside who I am– the songs that shaped and formed me into the person I am today. There's contemporary Christian music from my childhood at an Evangelical church, there are classic hymns that I somehow also picked up in childhood. There are the songs of the Civil Rights movement that I did not learn until much, much later but still wove their way into my soul. 

I’m curious– what are the earliest songs that you remember? Who sang them to you? Were they lullabies from your parents at bedtime, or songs in Sunday School, or an album your family listened to at home? What did those songs make you feel? Did they make you feel safe or loved? Like you belonged because you knew the special version that your family sang? Did the song make you happy? Did it make you laugh? 

How does it feel to remember it now? Is it bittersweet to remember a time when life was simple? Does it make you smile to remember the people you loved that made that song special to you? Are you thinking about several different songs as the memories flood through you? I certainly am. One of my favorite music memories always comes up this time of year. I grew up attending a wonderful, huge church in Salem, Oregon with thousands of members. The Christmas Eve services always ended with The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Anyone who wanted to was invited up from the pews to join this impromptu choir and I loved being a part of it. I’m not a great singer, but I did enough choir as as kid to be able to read music and so my dad and I would practice our parts at home beforehand– him a bass, me an alto– and I would wait the whole service to finally get go up to the stage and take my place with the other altos. I only made the mistake of joining the sopranos once! When I was in college, I remember attending my first Easter at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Seattle and, of course, my friends and I were late and it was so packed that we had to sit outside in the narthex in folding chairs! I was a bit disappointed until the end of the service when, to my surprise, the music director called people forward to join the choir for the Hallelujah chorus. I couldn’t believe it! I bolted from my seat in the hallway and made my way up to the choir– beaming from ear to ear. One year, when I was on staff there, I sang in all three services on Easter morning because I loved it so much. That song will always make me think of the churches that formed me into the person and pastor I am today. 

Music has power–there’s no denying it. We sing for so many reasons, don’t we? We sing lullabies to babies and young children. We sing fight songs and school anthems at sporting events. We sing the National anthem at public gatherings. We sing Christmas carols on our neighbors’ doorsteps. We sing protest songs, silly songs, and worship songs. Sometimes, we sing because somehow, putting our words to music changes what we are able to say. Sometimes, the poetry of song captures the truth in our hearts in ways that prose simply can’t. I think that’s why Zechariah and Mary sang. They could think of no better way to respond to what God has done for them than to sing. They were faithful Jews who knew the scriptures well and the language of the Old Testament is all over their songs. 

Zechariah’s song is a blessing and benediction to his newborn son, “And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” In it, you can hear how he harkens back to the last book of the Old Testament– Malachi– which ends with one final prophecy– “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.” Zechariah is saying that John will be this new Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord. A powerful answer to the question of his friends and family who asked, “What, then, will this child become?” 

And then, there is Mary’s song, which echoes loudly with the song I bet she knew by heart– the song Hannah in 1 Samuel. As an extremely religious high schooler, I loved to read my bible and I was always looking for stories about women that I could relate to. I remember being proud of Hannah and Mary and their beautiful songs. Mary’s song is called “A song of praise” in the NRSV but it’s more than that. It’s affirmation of her dignity and worth– “Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed.” It is a radical declaration of God’s desire to make the world right– “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly, God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

I wonder, what tune do you imagine went with Mary’s song? What kind of song is it? The genre of music completely changes how we understand the meaning of the lyrics. Is it a personal prayer and song of praise meant to thank and bless God for what God is doing in her? That song might sound like the Canticle of Turning, which we’ll sing in a few moments. Or perhaps, it’s more of a chant than a hymn. Maybe it’s the kind of song that is sung at a protest or a rally– God has cast down the mighty from their thrones! Or maybe, it’s a lullaby that Mary sang to her son in the middle of the night as she tried to get him back to sleep. Maybe it’s a song that she would sing to get him to calm down when he was upset, maybe she would hum the tune as she stroked his back after a nightmare. 

This is Jesus’ mother we’re talking about, of course. This is the woman that raised him and shaped his theology. The mystery of the incarnation is truly more than we can fully comprehend. Jesus was somehow both fully, 100% God and fully, 100% human. And that human side of him was really and truly human. A human child who cried, who tripped, who made mistakes, and who had to learn. Believing that he was without sin does not mean that he had the knowledge and skills of an adult at birth. Like all people, he was formed, and influenced, and taught by the people that raised him. I wonder if Mary’s song was ingrained so deeply in him that he did not second guess himself when showing mercy to the poor or judgment to the rich. The music of his mother and theology of his ancestors formed him into the Living Christ that we know now. 

Music is powerful and it’s not just my opinion. Interesting research has been done on the power not just of singing, but of singing together. It turns out that singing with others can reduce stress hormones, stimulate memory for those with dementia, and even ease postpartum depression. It literally changes our brain chemistry when we sing with others. 

Why is church special? Why does this community feel different from the other important social groups we belong to? Maybe it’s because we sing together. Every week, we sing songs both new and familiar every Sunday morning. We sing the Gloria Patri and May you run and not grow weary and we don’t even need to look at our hymnals because those words are so deeply ingrained in us. This practice of singing together is part of what forms us into the community that we are. One of the things that many of us look forward to most about Christmas at church is songs. We wait all of Advent to finally get to sing Joy to the World. And yes, we can sing Silent Night all year round in the comfort of our homes and cars, but nothing replicates the holy magic of singing together, like we will tonight. 

Perhaps, if you read my sermon title, you too thought of the great hymn, ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’ made famous by Mahalia Jackson, the great singer of the Civil Rights Movement. “I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free. His eye is on the Sparrow and I know he watches me.” So why do you sing? Do you sing because you are joyful or because you are trying to find your way back to joy? Both are possible. Some days, we sing because we believe and other days, we sing because we long to believe again. And we sing because we are not alone. From our spiritual ancestors Zechariah and Mary, to the people who formed us in song and in spirit into the people we are today, we sing songs of hope together.