Question: what are we doing here today? You may be passionate about the sound of a great pipe organ; we’ve just heard it in full flight. You might enjoy liturgy well done, with lots of processions. You may have come to meet friends from previous SCFs. Perhaps you’re here out of loyalty.
Most of us, I suspect, will have come here this morning, at some level, to experience great church music in this remarkable house of God. And if so, we’re not alone. Of 26 cathedrals that provided attendance data from 2019, 13 saw a rise in numbers at Christmas services from pre-pandemic figures. Why? According to Canon Michael Rawson, Sub-Dean of Southwark: “Live music in a stunning building, the quality of welcome where people feel that they will be noticed and looked after, and the way that the services are put together.”
But we’ve got to go further than that. Because what we’re really doing this morning is worshipping God. Now, quite the toughest interview I ever had was when I was being examined, shall we say, to see whether I might do as Precentor here. And Alec Knight, who became a close friend and valued counsellor; who retired some years ago as Dean of Lincoln, but before that was a great servant of this Cathedral and Diocese; Sadly, Alec died last autumn – Alec gave me the sharpest interview I had in my life. ‘Who is the worship for?’ Five words; with no hint of anything from which to construct an answer. The answer, of course, is ‘we worship almighty God’, first and foremost; though we aim to do so, or rather to provide the context by which worship can happen, so that those who are present may also have an encounter with the living God. And we’re doing it this morning and in this festival in a way that features the gift of music.
Now, let’s be clear: worship with music of excellence is not the only way to worship God; but it is the pre-eminent way that’s been discovered to be blessed ‘in quires and places where they sing’, whether Cathedrals, such as our three, or Christchurch Priory, where I have the honour to serve. And also, it would appear, in Solomon’s Temple.
Normally when we go to 2 Chronicles, we don’t go to that chapter; we go to bit where Solomon prays, ‘Hear the voice and prayer of thy servant …’; and I can almost hear the Lay Clerks smiling, because they’ve sung it in Tallis’s setting. But not today. What we heard was the range of ministries associated in the Temple’s dedication festival. Notice, it wasn’t just the priests, plenty of them and they’re not named; but also the Levitical singers, and some them are; together ‘their sons and kindred, arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps, and lyres,’ together with [wait for it} one hundred and twenty priests who were trumpeters’ – now there’s a thought! – I dread to think what they’d have done with a great pipe organ. But the point is, all of them were there for a common purpose: they were praising the Lord, whose Shekinah glory, the cloud, soon filled the house, so that they couldn’t see where they were going.
Now, what we learn from 2 Chronicles, and from other Old Testament passages, is that music was clearly seen as a specific ministry. Choral foundations in English Cathedrals, and many Major Churches, have aspired to reflect that same understanding. And while the leaders in our choral foundations may at times have been called Organist, Master of the Choristers (can’t use that now); or, more recently, Director of Music; yet I just wonder if those churches, and many of them are in the States, that call their lead musician ‘Minister of Music’, haven’t got that right in a thoroughly Scriptural way. From four years working with him closely, I know that ‘Minister of Music’ describes Andy Lumsden to a T.
It’s good to acknowledge also that ministry in music is a high calling. Reflect for a moment: the training involved to reach the standard required for musical leadership in cathedral choral foundations is more prolonged, and probably more costly, than what the CofE requires of its clergy. At its best, music ministry is also characterised by servanthood. On St Cecilia’s Day, 1998, in her address from this pulpit, Dame Janet Baker said this: “Musicians are servants; we serve our art and we serve our audience, having an equal responsibility to both. The performing artist who re-creates the work of the genius, acts as a bridge between the composer and those who come to listen.’ Later, echoing the role of those same Temple musicians, she said unequivocally, ‘we must give the glory to God.’
So, this morning, like those Greeks in John 12, we have come to worship God at a Festival. They came to the Temple at Passover, with a request to Philip, the disciple with a Greek-sounding name: Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Which, thanks to Philip and then Andrew, they did. We have come to this Cathedral this morning, to worship the same Lord in this Eucharist, the central act of worship of the Church of England’s premier Festival of Church Music. Wishing to see Jesus in the terms that they meant it, physically wishing to see, may not have been in our thoughts as we came here this morning; but I hope we came to this service expecting to encounter the living God, in word and sacrament, in speech, in silence and in music. Like every Eucharist, this service is an expression of profound thanksgiving; and this morning we add to our Eucharistic thanksgiving, gratitude that worship can be offered in places such as this through our choral foundations, whose offering of music has power to bring us to a deeper engagement with God and with self. Great music, great art, can communicate what language is inadequate to express, and call from us the truest responses of the spirit.
And please don’t think this only happens at great festivals. It happens on the mythical (perhaps, but I’ve experienced it) ‘wet Tuesday in February’; on a day which has nothing to commend it whatsoever. There’s a small, bedraggled, damp congregation; and Evensong happens. And you’d have thought the Queen was there! We know from athletes, we know from the Tour de France, if you’re into that, that the race isn’t won on the day. The race is won with the day by day by day focus, concentration and commitment, which makes possible the grand day offering possible But without those wet Tuesdays in February, it wouldn’t be there.
And this may explain why places such as our three Cathedrals, over centuries, have devoted so much resource, not to music for its own sake, but to music in the service of worship. It helps explain why we call them Choral Foundations, and not Choral Optional Extras. Ministry in music is not all we do, of course not. At Christchurch Priory, for example, we have found the principles of the HeartEdge movement invaluable in providing a framework, in which, alongside building up the congregation, unapologetic space is given for commercial activity, run on Kingdom of God principles; to compassionate, pastoral care that doesn’t patronise; and to seeing culture, using art, music, and more besides, to open up the imagination to beauty, and encouraging people to look up, and aspire. Underpinning all this, however, and enabling it to flourish, is the music in worship which remains ‘core business’, if I can put it like that. We forget that at our peril.
Daniel Barenboim, in the last of his 2006 Reith lectures, took this further: “Because music only expresses itself through sound and takes place in a given time, it is by its very nature ephemeral. What is difficult in real life is something that is essential in music, that is, to be able to start from scratch each time we play something. [And here’s the point:] Because what we did yesterday and what we did this morning is gone, and we must start over as if for the first time, but with the knowledge of the last time. It is very difficult for the human being to truly have the courage and the ability to start from scratch, to start from zero, to take experience from the past and yet think it anew. And yet this is essential, in music as well in life.”
To which we can add, ‘as well as in faith’. To apply what Barenboim gives us, music can serve as a metaphor for the life of faith; how, at a deeper level, worship through music can reflect the discipleship to which Christ calls us, each new day. For yesterday is gone; it won’t come back. Today and tomorrow, on Festival days and ordinary days, we start over, in faith, and, hope and love, as if for the first time, yet with the knowledge of what has been before, with the knowledge of God’s faithfulness, which has been before; and, please God, with the ears of the spirit ever open to hear the unchanging call of Christ: “Follow me”.
When those Greeks found Philip at the Festival, their hope was simple: Sir, we wish to see Jesus. May that be our wish also, whether you’re here in the Cathedral or watching on the livestream. May our worship, and the music offered at this Festival, open our hearts, minds and spirits to a fresh encounter with the living Jesus, who calls us to follow, and to serve. He brought both together, when he said, whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. May it be so. Amen.
© Charles Stewart, 13 July 2024