Do You Hear What I Hear?
With our creation series alternative lectionary readings, we have been able to see the world we live in and the kingdom of God that is breaking through this world from the perspective of poetry and metaphor. Listening to the creation singing God’s glory invites us to sing along.
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
Transcript
From Psalm 19:
“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the earth proclaims God’s handiwork.”
We have this week and next week in this lectionary cycle that focuses on focusing our attention on God’s work in creation. This special lens onto many familiar passages has been fascinating to me. I am learning to notice God’s fingerprints on everything, and perhaps even more to the point, I am learning to notice God’s DNA.
No, I have not become a pantheist. Pantheism rejects the idea of God incarnate and instead holds that creation itself is the supreme Creator. But, what these readings, these prayers, have helped me see is “pantheism”; that is, God’s life-force in every aspect of God’s created worlds. I have discovered so much more of where God is incarnate.
As a linguist and a narrative theologian, these readings have become a thread that I have followed through to earlier translations of certain words, and to other readings outside of our scriptures, even into our hymnal. And a pattern has emerged that I hadn’t previously noticed.
Listen to the words from this Christmas hymn on page 104 in our hymnal:
“A stable lamp is lighted, whose glow shall wake the sky; the stars shall bend their voices, and every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry, and straw like gold shall shine; a barn shall harbor heaven, a stall become a shrine.”
Then, from the book of Job, listen in on God reminding Job of Job’s limited view of his own world during a time when Job and his friends and wife cannot help but wonder why such calamity has befallen him:
God says to Job:
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Or when I laid earth’s cornerstone, and all the morning stars sang together, and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?”
Then, today’s reading from God’s revelation to John:
“Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads and thousands, singing with full voice! 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!”
In the normal scheme of things we rarely have a passage on Sunday morning from this apocalyptic text, but these weeks have been peppered with them. The only other time Revelation verses appear with such frequency is at funerals. Thus, for me, the pattern emerged.
That is, the universe sings when something absolutely new is beginning. And, according to the research into the benefits of music therapy on our mental, physical, and spiritual health, the singing isn’t only accompanying the new birth, or celebrating it. Music is also midwife to it.
Music and singing actually create parallel neural pathways in our brain to enhance our ability to learn new information if we are exposed to it while listening to the music. Singing releases serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins, nature’s anti-depressant and mood stabilizers, naturally occurring chemicals that lift our spirits and ground our beings. Group singing, such as a congregation joining together in hymn singing, connects people and reduces the impact of external stressors on a group. Certain music played during legal mediations has been shown to smooth otherwise troubled waters.
Our parish musician Lynn Swanson has an adorable video of her grandson when not yet two years old singing, in his crib, to soothe himself when he awoke in the night crying.
There is a story of an entire population of a monastery that suffered a near-crippling case of malaise after some weeks of not gathering together to chant the psalter, which had been their custom. After changes to diet and sleep failed to improve their condition, the doctors suggested they resume their practice of chanting the psalter in harmony. Their health improved immediately.
One of the longest lived cultures on earth is in scattered villages in lower Siberia, where one of my colleagues has worked for years as a translator. It is thought that the customary throat singing of the people there — the capacity for individuals to simultaneously make their vocal chords vibrate on different harmonies — contributes to their hardy constitutions. Going about their farm lives in sub-zero temperatures for 11 months out of every year may also be a contributing factor.
I even looked differently at this so familiar parable of the mustard seed. What if a slight difference in the translation gave us “if you only had the faith OF a mustard seed” rather than faith “the size of a mustard seed”?
Our tendency to think in terms of relative size is an evolutionary mindset that frankly has kept us alive, as we are constantly sizing up the threat posed by anything or anyone we encounter. But what if we are meant to pay attention not just to the smallness of the mustard seed, but to the amount of its energy. That, something barely visible to us is divinely powered for thriving.
If stones cried at Bethlehem, if stars rejoiced at Eden, and every creature above and beneath the waters of the earth will sing when Christ comes again, then what is being born in us this day? What new period in God’s kingdom breaking through to this world are we witnessing?
Perhaps peace is about to break out in our families, a divinely counter-cultural response to external forces that promote discord. Perhaps you have grown weary of the burdens you have carried for so long, heavy loads of shame and hurt and are ready to lay them down.
We know that every day we are being reborn, that each morning we begin again. And the invitational words in the service for Morning Prayer are “Open our lips O Lord and our mouth shall proclaim your praise!”
I can only testify to what these weeks have revealed to me, whether in worship, or preparing lessons, or being present at Creation Care Camp, seeing nature again through the eyes and ears and imagination of children; that is, I want to recover the gift that was given at my baptism and that we pray on every person we baptize here: I want to be mindful of and cultivate a sense of joy and wonder in all of God’s works. I want to make space in each day to listen to the world, to feel the heart vibrations of stars singing, stones crying, and everything above and below the earth rejoicing. If the stars we see in the night sky have already been dead for tens of thousands of years, then surely if I listen closely, I can still hear the two thousand year old stars singing at creation. And then I want to sing along.
Let us pray: Gracious God, thank you for the beauty of creation, that reveals your glory to us in every where we move. Keep us ever grounded in joy and wonder so that we praise you, not only with our lips but in our lives. Through Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.