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What a terrific choice of anthem [James MacMillan, ‘A New Song’] for this Service in which six boy choristers have been admitted to the Cathedral Choir after completing their Probationary Year.  And how appropriate that today is International Chorister Day.

James MacMillan is a contemporary Scottish composer, two years younger than I am, also a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, whose compositions draw inspiration from his Roman Catholic faith, his political and theological views, and the traditional music of his home country, including the bagpipe player’s Piobariechd [= Pibroch], or ornamentation, and drone, both of which we heard in ‘A New Song’.

Macmillan strikingly sets words from Psalm 96, ‘O sing unto the Lord, unto the Lord a new song, sing unto the Lord all the whole earth’, as a Refrain at the beginning, middle and end of the piece, with two other verses from the same Psalm in between.

Rebecca Hans has written:

Waiting. Anticipation. Our society is not skilled at either…

In his setting of Psalm 96… MacMillan provides a soundtrack for the unresolved and incomplete Christian life.  In his own words, MacMillan’s compositions emphasize the ‘interaction’ of the ‘joys and tragedies of ordinary everyday people…[with] some concept of the Beyond…something that we stretch towards…’  Within this philosophy, MacMillan reimagines the familiar refrain ‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’ as a song of waiting, silence, and incompletion rather than the traditional praise to a victorious God.  This new vision more accurately reflects life on earth, but does not despair of the promise of completion at that time when ‘all the whole earth’ unites in praise.  He anticipates it.

‘A New Song’ is both minor without being sad and major without being triumphant. The result is anticipatory rather than anchored in the present.

[James MacMillan, ‘A New Song’: Silence, Anticipation, and the Incomplete, by Rebecca Hans, https://www.transpositions.co.uk/james-macmillan-a-new-song-silence-anticipation-and-the-incomplete/]

But this ‘New Song’ incorporates silence as well as sound.  Twice, before the return of the Refrain, we are offered a long silence.

The choir and organ fall silent at the conductor’s direction, creating silence that the [listeners] encounter, influenced by the internal sounds of their own memories and experiences.  In this society of ‘not waiting,’ people are frustrated by silence.  Silence is the sound of waiting.

[Ibid.]

As they were admitted, our six new Choristers were instructed to ‘Take heed that what you sing with your mouth is pondered in your heart, and those things that be true shown forth in your life’.

And one of the great treasuries of that truth, for our boy choristers, whether they fully appreciate it now or not, and for our girl choristers, Lay Clerks, regular congregations and occasional visitors, is the Book of Psalms, regularly sung, day by day, month by month, year by year.

It’s said that if you want to embed a new habit, you need to repeat it about forty times – which is why the forty days of Lent are such a good time for getting rid of old habits, and embedding new ones.  Our Boy Choristers will repeat the Psalms at Evensong around forty times during their time in the Choir.  For many others, it will be a lot more times than that.

The chanting of the Psalms offers us the opportunity to ponder on the whole gamut of human emotion and of the interactions between God and us.  It is supposedly St Augustine of Hippo who said, ‘They who sing pray twice’ [Repeat].  The fact that the Psalms are sung at Evensong, and sung so beautifully by the Choir here, gives the opportunity for both singers and hearers to reflect on them, to chew them over in our hearts as we hear them sung, to reflect on God in all his majesty and glory; to ponder our own human condition, with the glory and the horror in the human soul; to reflect on our creation by God, our sustenance by him throughout the whole of our lives, and our return to him for all eternity.

In our Psalm this afternoon, Psalm 144, for example, we are encouraged to think about the shortness of our time on earth: ‘[We are] like a thing of nought : [our] time passeth away like a shadow’ [v. 4]; we’re encouraged to offer praises to God for all that he is and all that he has done: ‘I will sing a new song unto thee, O God : and sing praises unto thee upon a ten-stringed lute’ [v. 9]; to think about the next generation and their care and welfare and spiritual growth, as Dame Floella Benjamin reminded us at the Law Service this morning: ‘That our sons may grow up as the young plants : and that our daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple’ [v. 12]; and about how fortunate we are to have been given the gifts of life and love: ‘Blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God’ [v. 15].

And what is the point of all this pondering?  The clue is given in many places in the Psalms themselves, but also in the words of our New Testament Reading this afternoon from John 15.

‘You did not choose me but I chose you’ [v. 16].  And why were we chosen?  Simply this: ‘I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another’ [v. 17].

To our new Choristers, I pray for every blessing for your time in the choir over the coming years.

To our Girls and Boys and Lay Clerks and Directors of Music, I want to offer thanks for all that you offer in worship, and the commitment to excellence in your musical offerings throughout the year.

And to our congregations, may you be blessed as you reflect on the Psalms – and all the other words in worship – but particularly the Psalms, as day by day we ponder on what God is asking of us in our lives, and reflecting on the joys and sorrows of life as we experience them, and as we offer them to God in prayer and worship.

All of this is summed up in the beautiful Collect for today, once again, based on words of St Augustine of Hippo:

Almighty God,

you have made us for yourself,

and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:

pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,

and so bring us at last to your heavenly city

where we shall see you face to face;

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.  AMEN.