Rev. Paul Tellstrom                                                  

Irvine United Congregational Church

“We Don’t Need No Hymn Singers ‘Round Here” copyright 2006 Paul Tellstrom                                            

August 20, 2006

Scripture- Proverbs 9:1-6, Ephesians 5:15-20                                         word count: 1,901

            Once in a while you might find yourselves watching an old western, where some rough-and-tumble guy will be speaking to a rather meek, somberly dressed man, and he will say some variation of the line, “We don’t need no hymn-singers ‘round here.” 

            The implications are several: the spirit of people who are fully human and fully alive should not be tamed into submission or hypocrisy by the church or anyone for that matter, there is a perception that there is little life and gusto in those who profess faith, and all of this can be summed up just by visiting the parched lifelessness of a Sunday service after experiencing the fullness of a Saturday night. “We don’t need no ‘hymn-singers’ ‘round here,” says the cowboy, his eyes narrowing to slits as he takes in the man holding the bible against his somber black suit with both contempt and suspicion.

            I visit other churches when I am not in the pulpit, and I have to admit that I know what the cowboy was talking about.  More than that, my visits made me wonder about a few things that are church related:

            --What are some of the reasons people come to church?

            --How do we continue to welcome those people and sustain each other?

            --How do we view worship—is it dry and static, or can it be joyful, Spirit-filled and interactive?

            My parent’s church in Cape Cod has been in operation since the seventeenth century, and I believe I have met some of its original members.  The church would remind you strongly of the Puritan heritage of our denomination.  I grew up in this tradition.  After church, my family had a midday dinner at home and we ate in our Sunday best.  It began with a reading from the Book of Common Prayer under a large painting of sturdy pilgrims trudging through the snow.  (It was more fun than it sounds.)   

            We are centuries removed from these beginnings, and people are now searching for faith and meaning in different ways than when the pilgrims reportedly stepped out onto Plymouth Rock.  The Great Awakening brought people back to churches, after they had initially drifted; people who sat on the edge of their seats for Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  The threat of hell was once a good attendance builder, but it no longer works in the same way.  However, there was an emphasis on being able to have a conversion experience and to tell of it with great openness and emotion.

            And, although our attitudes about worship have continued to change, our ability to reflect those attitudes in how we worship is bogged down in our long history as a worshipping community.  Can there be joy in worship?  Conversely, can we weep openly when we are moved?  Are we condemned to dryness?  Can we show the love that we are commanded to give to God and each other in how we treat each other as a community and can that be reflected in our worship?  Can we get out of our heads enough to feel the Spirit moving through our whole being? 

            The apostle Paul has something to say to us today about how we lift our spirits in music:

            “Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among

            yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God

            at all times and for everything in the name of Christ.”

            In Colossians, he writes: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom;

            teaching one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your

            hearts to the Lord” (Col. 3:16),

            And James writes: (James 5:13)  “Are any among you afflicted?  Let them pray.  Are any

            merry?  Let them sing psalms.”  The NIV reads, “Is anyone happy?  Let him sing songs

            of praise.”

            I once sat in the family pew in Cape Cod, one row behind the organ.  Our sermon hymn was the up-tempo “Standing in the Need of Prayer.”  (# 519)  We rose up, the organ began a dirge-like introduction, and we began droning in an approximation of singing.   

            “It’s me.  It’s me….O Lord.  Standing….in the need of prayer.”

            There were two things of which I was sure.  We were standing.  We were in need of prayer.  What wasn’t apparent was what would compel us to sing this song.  Why were we there?  What were we sharing together?  How was the Spirit working in us together?  Our scripture today brings Paul to us, telling us, “Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves.”  How do we find joy in worship?  How do we leave here feeling uplifted?

            And, we aren’t alone in this.  The Unitarians tell this joke about themselves: “Why are Unitarian Universalists such bad hymn singers?  Because they’re always trying to read ahead to see if they agree with the words!”

            We really struggle to be able to get out of our heads and express ourselves in worship.  We struggle to feel joy or pain—we struggle to let our emotions cleanse us.  We struggle to be spontaneous; we stifle the urges that are impulsive.  The Age of Reason holds us firmly and quietly on its rocking chair, lest we slip off and experience something.

            Again, what are some of the reasons people come to church?  How do we extend an extravagant welcome to those people and sustain each other as a faith community?

            I am using today as a bridge to something I am going to start next week.  Next Sunday, I am going to preach a sermon that I think best reflects where I am coming from theologically—telling why it is that I believe in the church and why I serve it.  The week after that will be a big celebration Sunday—baptisms, balloons, a special coffee hour and new members.  For five weeks after that, I will be doing a sermon series on how Christians view faith differently, and during that time I will be asking you to reflect on what makes you “tick” in terms of faith.  What is it about this place that is important to you?  What scriptures do you think resonate with this congregation and with you?  What is important about our music, including our hymns?  What touches you during worship?  All these questions will be on an insert in your program, and I invite you to write down some thoughts and we will have a place to receive them.  On the fifth Sunday of this series, I will put together a sermon based on what I hear you say about your collective faith journey, and we will reflect upon that.  What is both Christian and so unique about your church that makes you so sure that this community needs IUCC so much at this time and in this place? 

            We come here to find community, to find faith, to strengthen it, and to share it with others.  We come here to learn more about ourselves and our relationship to God.  It’s all about connection.  But something makes us feel awkward at the same time about how we color outside of doctrinal lines, about feeling on the outside of the Christian discussion going on in our country, even to hiding our light under a bushel.  Wisdom calls from the highest places, “Turn in here…live, walk in the way of insight.”

            Why do people come to church, and how do we welcome them?  How do we sustain them and each other?

            I went to the church I attended as a child in upstate New York one Sunday.  No-one said “Hello.”  I walked past the people congregating outside the sanctuary.  I was invisible.  I walked down to the altar.  I walked right up to the Allen organ on which I had played student recitals.  I turned around.  No-one in the sanctuary had paid any attention to this man who had walked right up into their chancel and showed such interest in it.  I thought, “Maybe if I tap-dance on the altar someone will see me.”  I chose not to.

            I walked into the fellowship hall.  A man bumped into me and muttered something.  Finally, a woman made eye contact with me—I did exist after all.  She held up a plastic thermos as I approached and simply said, “There’s no more coffee.”

            That was it—the only words spoken to me.  I went out through the gauntlet of inhospitable Christians to the car and shook the dust from my feet.   

            Every week someone comes into this church because they need to hear that they are loved.  That they are not alone.  That tough times hit us, and there are eyes filled with compassion and warmth that will surround and steady them.  Sometimes the strength gathered to propel them through a set of church doors is not enough to sustain them once they are here, and they will leave as quietly as they came. 

The people who come through our doors need to know that there is someplace where they can feel the extravagant welcome of God in a community touched by a true sense of spirit and led by the love of God and neighbor taught by Jesus Christ, and expressed in how we keep Christ in our midst.  I don’t know who it is, but I can guarantee that there is such a someone here today.  I can also guarantee that there are people among us who have been beaten up by the church for a number of reasons.  This is one of the reasons I came here, to this particular church.  You are a faith outpost in a Christianist wilderness.  You have a purpose—a purpose that I believe in.  You are the church as it should be.  Extending through your own expression, God’s radical, inclusive, open and affirming, just-peace love to a community that has been too long held captive by those who have too narrowly defined the circle of God’s love.

            We need some hymn-singers ‘round here!  We need some folks who are not afraid to get up and express the joy they feel at being a part of the mission of their church.  There is no reason why we shouldn’t be filled with gratitude for being in this place at this time in our history.

We need to share with and welcome the person who arrives perhaps at a time of life when he or she is experiencing a deep need for community and faith-building,

            We come here to find community, to find faith, to strengthen it, and to share it freely with others.  It is just possible that we can do that while expressing ourselves.  (Can I get an Amen?)

            We come here to be community—it is possible that we can give our love unconditionally to each other so that this is a safe and accepting place to be just who we were born to be. 

            It’s possible that we can feel joy as well as deep emotion in our worship, wonder and intellect can co-exist— and it is possible that we can all stand and put ourselves into the business of lifting our spirits in our worship?            We need some real hymn-singers ‘round here.  Please join me in singing.  Really singing.  Amen.

Scripture for Sunday, August 20, 2006

Proverbs 9:1-6

Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars.  She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.  She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, “You that are simple, turn in here!” To those without sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.  Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

Ephesians 5:15-20

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.  So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.