Our Songs

Advent 4, Yr. C, December 23, 2012 

Micah 5:2-5a; Magnificat; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church

            When I was first at Two Saints and we did both the Christmas Eve services there, we still made the early service especially friendly for children.  When we did the crèche blessing, we usually sang a few verses of Away in the Manger.  The kids would come up and join us at the crèche at the front of the church, most without any leaflet with them.  Many too young to read it if they had it.  When it came time for the carol, we expected the children to join in the singing because they would know it.  But that never happened.  They didn’t know it.

            As a child, I remember going caroling in nursing homes with my Girl Scout troop, and in the neighborhood with friends.  I remember hearing Christmas Carols on the radio and singing them in school.  I remember being sick of them by the time Christmas arrived.  We sang them and we sang them and we sang them … all the time! 

A few days ago, as I was thinking about the service of Lessons and Carols we will do next week for the Feast of St. Stephen, I began to wonder how many of the songs my daughter would recognize.  So I asked her. 

Hannah, do you know Away in the Manger?  No.  How about Silent Night?  No.  What about Hark the Herald Angels Sing?  No.  You’re kidding, right?  You must know God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen … she shook her head.  Joy to the World?  Angels We Have Heard on High?  O Little Town of Bethlehem?  No.  None of them.  I could not believe it.  Nancy was way ahead of me. “They don’t sing them in school anymore”, she said.   I stood there in disbelief, realizing that it was very likely that none of children in next week’s service would know any of the carols we would be singing. 

You know what Christmas songs our children know now?  Guess.  You can figure this out.  Up on the Housetop, Santa Claus is coming to Town, Jingle Bells, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  All the songs that have absolutely nothing to do with what Christmas is really about.  Nothing … at least, that has to do with the birth of Jesus.  Those are the songs our kids know best now.

For many years, Christians were spoiled.  As Christians we used to be able to rely on culture to teach some of our tradition to our children.  I can tell you with absolute certainty, that that is no longer the case.  What’s worse is the fact that what is taught in our culture about Christianity isn’t very good theology.  We need to teach some of the things we took for granted intentionally now.  It’s made me think about asking our Sunday school teachers to teach some Christmas carols in Sunday school.  It’s made me think about having a bonfire on the front lawn during Advent to roast marshmallows, make s’mores and sing Christmas carols.  It’s made me think about having an evening before Advent for families to come make Advent wreaths or make Advent calendars that really say something meaningful about Advent and Christmas.  It’s made me think about how much we have to teach. 

If we’re not praying at home … our kids won’t pray.  If we’re not talking about God at home, they’ll get ideas about God from somewhere else.  If we don’t talk about the stories in the Bible, they’ll never hear, let alone understand, our salvation story … or have any interest in learning it.  If we’re not reminding them about the seasons of the church year with what we do at home, they’ll think nothing we do here really has anything to do with how they live their daily lives.  If we don’t teach them our songs, they won’t learn them anymore.  Our songs – most of them – teach us about God, about who God is, about our relationship with God and about what it means to be human.

Most of our Christmas carols teach us about the story of Jesus’ birth.  We sing about the night.  We sing about a messiah born in a stable and laid in a manger.  We sing about angels announcing the birth to shepherds in fields as they lay.  We echo the “Gloria” of the angel choir that welcomed Christ into our humanity and announced the birth of our Savior.  We affirm our Christian tradition that finds its ground in the reality of the incarnation, the reality of God and man finally living in full communion, and the eventual resurrection, that proclaims God’s victory over death and sin.  It’s all captured in the music.

Our tradition is rife with music.  Today we heard another song, an ancient one, the Magnificat, Mary’s Song.  We actually heard it twice this morning, once in the canticle, and again as part of the gospel reading.  To many of you it may be familiar.  It’s a canticle that is very often recited during our service of evening prayer, a service we don’t use very often anymore so our children probably don’t know this one either. 

Mary has decided to go visit her cousin Elizabeth following her encounter with the angel, Gabriel, who told her that she would carry the Christ child in her womb.  When Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice, Elizabeth’s child – the future John the Baptist – leaps in her womb.  “The life in me recognized the light of God in you”, Elizabeth tells her.    Elizabeth greets her cousin with a blessing, words that the former Roman Catholics among us would recognize as the meat of the prayer, Hail Mary. 

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you.  Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen. 

The Magnificat is sung on the heels of this blessing.  All that Mary has heard from the angel is affirmed in her cousin’s greeting.  God’s word is reliable.  Elizabeth is indeed pregnant, and so also is Mary … with the Christ child.  This birth will be of God, and Mary will be remembered for ages to come as God’s chosen instrument.  The surprising point of this song, however, is its insight into the way God works in the world.  God turns the tables.  God upends our expectations.  God lifts up the lowly.  God feeds the hungry.  God shelters the humble as he scatters the proud.  So look out.  God’s saving grace isn’t going to be what we expect.

It’s safe to say, the disciples … if they had known this song shouldn’t have been surprised with the Jesus they got.  They should not have been surprised to find Jesus feeding the five thousand, or speaking to the woman at the well, or healing the woman with the hemorrhage.  They might have understood a little better why he invited children to come to him, and why he dined with tax collectors and sinners, why he told stories about Samaritans and so often argued about the law.  Jesus came to help us get things untangled, because it was pretty clear that by the time he showed up on the scene we had gotten everything pretty tied up in knots. 

But that’s not the end of the story.  Don’t forget to sing all the verses.  The point is, God is going to be around to help us sort all this out.  We’re not left to our own devices.  We got Jesus.  The Magnificat proclaims it; the carols celebrate it.  We’ve passed the story down through generations in song.  Let’s keep singing.  On Monday evening, we’ll be belting it out, because those songs live in us.  They carry the good news of God in Christ, and we are that Body in our world today.  Those songs are ours to teach, to share, to sing and to live.  The promise belongs to us, and to all who believe.

Amen.