FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF SANTA MONICA

Rise Heart; Thy Lord is Risen. Sing His Praise Without Delays

Sermon preached by the Reverend Patricia Farris

May 16, 2004

Scripture: Psalms 150

As you know, the church has long needed much more than just the one day of Easter Sunday to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord, to sing “Alleluias” and to live into this incredible new life that he has opened to us all. We have the whole season of Eastertide, stretching from Easter Sunday to the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. So, on this day, the sixth Sunday of the season of Easter in the church, I take the title for my brief remarks from the first line of a poem entitled “Easter” written by George Herbert, a 17c. poet and priest in the Church of England.

“Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise without delays, who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise with him mayst rise…Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part with all thy art. The crosse taught all wood to resound his name, who bore the same. His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key is best to celebrate this most high day…Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song pleasant and long….” Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.

The truth of the risen Christ is known in the heart. Oh, there’s a lot our minds must consider and think through and many of us, especially in this congregation, delight in becoming more knowledgeable about religion. That’s good, but at some point, something much greater takes hold of us as we enter in to God’s resurrecting power. We feel the claims of the Gospel upon us. We experience the amazing grace of God’s love in our lives and from the depth of our being we want to love God in return. And the depth and power of that love is summed up for the poet just as for the Psalmist in the word “heart” which holds together all the emotion, all the thought, all the devotion we experience. Rise heart, thy Lord is risen!

Our hearts are lifted up because our Lord is risen. So, whatever life throws us, however bleak the world appears, whatever manifestation of evil and violence wound and horrify us in the events of our day, whatever measure of sorrow and disappointment we bear, we say: “Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.” We know that we are carried in a love so great, so powerful, so awesome as to overcome all the sin and sorrow this world can reveal. We lift our hearts to the Lord.

Likewise, musicians, it seems to me, make music from a similar place, from the heart. That’s not to say that making music well does not require countless hours of practice, training and rehearsal. There is tremendous dedication and work required for mere mortals to arrive at a place of resembling the heavenly choirs of angels. But that work must be driven by heart, by a love of music itself that is difficult to put into words.

When we hear such music, what is it within us that causes us to respond as we do to the great swell of the organ, to a sweet song from children’s’ lips, to an oboe or trumpet carrying us to a place of mystery, to an anthem bringing us to tears or to holy silence or to shouts of praise? It is our heart that responds, our heart that connects. So, rise heart, and sing your praise to music and to the Lord who is its source and final purpose.

This church is known for its music. Although we do thank these folks throughout the year, there is, I’m sure, a temptation to take this level of music for granted. So, annually, we set aside this day to remember just how fortunate and blessed we are, to thank and to honor the many musicians of this congregation who lovingly dedicate countless hours, blood, sweat and tears, to direct and participate in our various choirs and groups. Several of them have pointed out to me that there is a certain irony in asking them to work extra hard on the very day we thank them. Might it not be more appropriate to give them the day off?

But oh, how bereft we would be, how flat and sterile our praise. Instead, we offer a super-abundance of music on this day, precisely to bring home the obvious point that it is music that lifts our hearts and carries our praise to our Risen Lord. It is music that shapes and animates our worship. It is music that carries us to those places of the heart far beyond where our minds are able to go.

Our faith is filled with music and our Risen Lord puts the song in our hearts. Ours is a faith of melody, of anthem, of alleluias. Christ is the song in our hearts, the music of our soul. And all the best efforts of our musicians feed our souls and lift us up and help us each week to praise God in the way that God loves. Praise God in his sanctuary! Praise him according to his surpassing greatness! Praise him with a new song!

Today it is right to give special thanks to our musicians, from the bottom of hearts. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the God-given gifts you share with us in your music. And for helping us all, week after week, to grow in faith, to love God more deeply, and to lift our hearts in praise to our Risen Lord.

Notes: I am greatly indebted for the Herbert insights to a sermon preached at the Truro Cathedral in June 2000.