Our annual Choir Recognition Sunday is a day to recognize all the marvelous musicians with which God has blessed this congregation. Our music program is second to none and we are rightly proud and honored and humbled to receive their beautiful musical gifts each week in worship.

I'm going to name them all in a moment, but before doing so, I want us to reflect for a few moments on why it is that music is such an essential part of our worship of God. And to do that in a way most appropriate to the spirit of this day, our Chancel Choir will join me in preaching this sermon-it will be a sermon duet-spoken and sung.

In the Tuesday Bible Study this past week, we looked at just a few of the many, many passages throughout the Scriptures that teach us about music and singing and God. We learned that we make music because God has created us so to do. We make music to be in communion with God. And we make music to sing praise to God. And we make music to tell the world about God.

First, why is music so essential to our worship of God? The easy answer is that we love it so much! And we love it BECAUSE it comes from God's heart and we are God's creatures. Music is the link from the heart of God to our hearts. We are connected to our Creator through the music we hear and sing and love. We make music to be in communion with God, who gives us life.

We sing because we are created in the image of that God, whose heart is love and song. We sing the Lord's song. It is the cry of our hearts. It is the hope of our longing spirits. It is the promise of our dreams. Our music expresses God's love for us and our love of God. We sing the Lord's song.

Hear our choir sing the first verse of a beautiful hymn written by Robert Lowry, who also composed "Shall We Gather at the River" and "Marching to Zion." This one is called "How Can I Keep from Singing." It's number 2212 in The Faith We Sing, if you want to follow along. The first verse asks:

My life flows on in endless song, above earth's lamentation.
I hear the clear, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I'm clinging
Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

You see, when we make music in worship, we're doing several things. First, we sing the Lord's song that is within us. God is singing through us. Our song rises to God and is pleasing to God's ears.

The second thing that happens is that we sing back our praise to God. Our music says to God: I love you. I praise you. I honor you with my whole heart and mind and soul and strength. As the Psalmist said: "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise."

Thirdly, our music witnesses to others about our God. And we Methodists do this big time. John Wesley preached and wrote his theology in prose. But it was his brother, Charles, who put our theology into hymns, that it would be sung and learned by heart. Charles Wesley's hymns teach about who God is and how God loves.

We continue this in all the music we sing and hear. And what do we say? What are we telling others? That God is love. That God is with us through all the good times and the hard times of our lives. That God is not only our Creator, but our redeemer and our sustainer.

You see, each week, even as we come to this time of worship, the music of our life may be a bit out-of-tune, our relationships off key, the world out of harmony. We come to worship to hear again-through the music in this sanctuary-the lullaby of God's love. The harmony of God's abiding fellowship. The aria of comfort and solace. The symphony of praise and the chorus of joy.

Hear verse 2:

Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing.
It finds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?

We Methodists sing our faith: that Jesus relieves the fear and the sorrow of sinners such as ourselves. In him is our life, our health and our peace.

Now, I know that many of you can't carry a tune in a pail, as you say. And there are those of you who sound great in the shower, but not in public. And there are those of you whose singing makes your fellow worshipers cringe. And there are those of us who love to sing but need the extra boost of some great singers to help us sound good.

To God's ears, of course, we all have great voices and musical ears. But just to help out all those of us who are more or less musically impaired, we are blessed here with an incredible contingent of faithful disciples-all our choirs, all our talented musicians-who loyally give of their time and their talent to fill our worship with heavenly sound each week. Their gift of music lifts all of us to the heights of the choirs of heavenly angels. For them and through them we give thanks to God for the amazing bounties of his love for us.

Hear the last verse:

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart, a fountain ever springing!
All things are mine since I am his! How can I keep from singing?

Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can we keep from singing? Thanks be to God for them, each and every one. . . .

© Patricia E. Farris, 2003. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.