Below is the text of the sermon from Paula Kubik's final service at St. John's. Propers for the day were 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13, Psalm 51; Ephesians 4:1-16; and John 6:24-35.
In
our second reading, Saint Paul says that Christ gave some gifts to be apostles,
some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and some teachers to equip the
saint for the work of ministry and to build up the body of Christ into the full
stature of Christ. In Corinthians and
Romans, Paul lists other gifts given to members of the Body of Christ, and other
scriptures make special note of additional gifts. In particular, when you read the Old
Testament closely, you come across passages filled with names of the musicians
who played in the Lord’s Temple. Since these
Hebrew names can be difficult to pronounce, we don’t often read those passages
on Sunday morning, lest our lectors revolt.
But that doesn’t make them unimportant.
For thousands of years, we have remembered the names of those people who
used their gifts to make music to praise the Lord.
Now
you probably don’t need a homiletics degree to see where I am going with
this. This morning we are celebrating
the thirty-five year contribution of Paula Kubik to the worship of God in the
midst of this holy people in this holy place.
For good or ill, we aren’t able to add her name to a list of musicians
in the book of Second Chronicles or to give her her own Psalm. They also talked me out doing the entire
sermon in plainsong chant in her honor.
And, probably to Paula’s relief, most of the good stories about her
occurred before I got here, so I’m unable to share them with you this morning,
although I trust that you who have known Paula longer will take full advantage
of our time together in the air-conditioned Allen Hall during the reception
following our worship.
Now,
the gifts we are given to equip the saints for the work of ministry and to
build up the Body of Christ contain a corresponding obligation. Remember the parable of the talents. In ancient times, talents were huge amounts
of money, containing something like seventy pounds of gold. Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a king
who gives some of his servants talents to work with, and then goes away on a
cruise. Coming back, he requires an
account of them, and the ones who were productive with his gifts, he commends,
“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
The one who wasted the gift didn’t fare as well.
St.
John’s has been blessed for thirty-five years with someone who has been given
significant gifts for the building up of the saints for ministry. Our many choral guests, as well as some of
you in the congregation, are here because those gifts have touched your life in
meaningful ways. Thousands have
worshipped at St. Johns and been moved into the nearer presence of God on the
wings of soaring anthems, echoing hymns and a rich tapestry of organ harmonies. At least dozens of children have learned
basic music skills, piano, organ, and carillon, and many have offered vocal and
instrumental solos to the glory of God in this place. Special concerts, choral trips, a record
album, recital series, festival worship services and other grand musical events
have all been occasions when valuable gifts invested have garnered a
significant dividend. Numerous
marriages have been begun, and the departed have been commended back to God,
with appropriate music touching heart and soul.
We
could say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and end here. But if we did, we would miss the point of why
Paula has spent countless hours rehearsing the choir and various musicians,
selecting music, completing necessary administrative tasks and doing her own
practicing. (In fact, Paula has spent a full year of her life just practicing
since she has come to St. John’s if she practices the 40 minutes a day she
commends to her piano students.)
No,
we also need to think about how this gift of music is able to move us in
worship to the very throne room of God. Paula
has, rightfully, spent her ministry so that together we can glorify God and
benefit God’s people in this place.
Paula’s work has been to help us live into the psalms’ instructions:
·
To
sing to the Lord a new song and to sing his praise in the congregation of the
faithful;
·
To
sing praises to God while we have our being;
·
To
come to sing to the Lord, to shout for joy to the rock of our salvation; to
come before his presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to him with
psalms;
·
To
praise him with the blast of the ram’s horn, with lyre and harp, with timbrel
and dance, with resounding cymbals and loud clashing cymbals;
·
To
sing to the Lord with the harp and the voice of song, with trumpets and the
sound of the horn;
·
To
sing to the Lord and bless his Name; to proclaim the good news of his salvation
from day to day;
·
To
worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
Music
is a primary way that we praise God for a number of reasons, not the least of
which is that these and numerous other scripture passages instruct us to. Yet, God also seems to have provided us music
and song as a particular means to give him glory. Our human make-up and the very structure of
the cosmos speak to the important place of music not only in our own lives, but
in ways that resonate into the very heart of God.
Of
all our senses, hearing, which allows us to experience music, is unique. Hearing offers the capacity to receive
simultaneous input from multiple sources in a way that allows them to be heard
together and distinctly. Think about
sight for a moment. When you put
together a bunch of varied and odd colors, you end up looking at an ugly
brown. But when you hear a bunch of
varied and odd notes, you get jazz. This
aspect of hearing means that harmony is possible, because two people can sing two
different notes and our ears are able to hear them in ways that allows the
whole to be more beautiful than the sum of the parts. Yet even in the midst of the most complex
harmonies, not a single note is lost.
This
capacity for harmony is probably why the philosophers talk about the music of
the spheres and see the entire universe as being filled with song. Nobody really expects that as Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn revolve around the sun they are whistling Bach, or Holtz, or Lady
Gaga for that matter, but they are able to come together with a beauty and
purpose that gives glory to God while each maintaining its own grandeur in a
way that is most analogous to musical harmony.
Music is how we can conceive of all creation coming together in praise
of its most blessed creator.
Singing,
in particular, is commended to us as a way to glorify God because it uses our
breath and our bodies. Everyone who has
ever sung knows that one of the most important pieces is breath control, and
that when we get nervous singing in public, breathing right will help many
other things fall into place. Breath is
important because when we breathe we are not just using our breath, but we
breathe God’s breath. God blew it into
us at creation, and praising God in song blows it back out to him. Breathing isn’t the only component in
singing, however, and in order to sing we coordinate our breath and our minds
and our muscles and all the pieces that make us up. Singing is an embodied way of offering our
whole beings back to God.
Scripture
uses singing as a way to describe the activity of the heavenly courts before
the throne of God. The angels and the
saints before the throne of the Almighty are embodied creatures who give praise
to the God. Now I have no idea whether
the flaming Seraphim have eardrums that an audiologist would recognize. But I know that they have something that
allows them to participate in everything music allows us to do on earth, only at
an even higher level, and that eventually all of us will share in what they are
doing. The choirs of heaven are
understood as such because no better understanding of an eternal purpose exists
than singing praises to God. In the
heavenly choir each and every one of us comes together with the entire Body of
Christ simultaneously, but each of us brings our own gifts, our own tune, the
pitch and timber of our own existence.
These unique qualities are not lost but offered up to harmonize with all
creation into a song of such beauty and richness that only God could bring it
forth. Our song offered is not just as
the reading of an alto line or the finding of a tenor descant, but the singing
of who we are from the very core of our being, allowing our entire bodies,
minds and spirits to vibrate with the resonance of our lives into the midst of
God’s own self. We won’t just be singing
with the breath God gave us, but we will be able to offer back our entire being
that God has created and we have shaped, sustained by the breath that is not
the transitory mortal breath of this existence but the undying breath of
eternal life.
We
are even able to conceive of this eternity because we occasionally get a small
taste of it in this life. Maybe when an
anthem takes us beyond ourselves. Or when
a postlude buoys us out to go forth in mission.
Or when choral harmonies resonate with our deepest and often hidden
feelings. Or especially when we give
ourselves over to singing our hearts out to the glory of God. And even more when that singing speaks to our
souls in ways that we could never express in words alone, but which connects us
profoundly both to God and to God’s people singing their hearts out alongside
of us. At those times, when the depth of
our desire to praise God is matched by the beauty and power of the music expressing
that desire, heaven momentarily opens up and we hear cadences of the overture
of the Kingdom of God whose music we are invited to accompany for all eternity.
When the psalms exhort us to “Sing to the Lord,” God is actually calling us to
come closer to his courts than any other way given to us in the natural order
of things.
Paula,
you have spent the last thirty-five years using the many gifts God has given
you to help us experience those musical moments at the threshold of the throne
room of God. And, by the grace of God, we
have experienced such blessed times. We
thank you, Paula. Well done, good and
faithful servant.
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