Time for an unpopular opinion, pastor.
Of those positions I've staked out so far, I suspect you will find (among pastors generally, or among particular congregations) advocates for and against each. There will be some who complain and some who celebrate singing old or even ancient hymns, new hymns, or songs from the global church. But I'm going to guess that there will be very few who advocate for singing something "blue."
No, I'm not talking about hymns with profanity in them. Sheesh, get your mind out of the gutter.
No, I'm talking about singing songs and hymns that are "blue" in the sense we speak of a particular genre of music as the blues. I'm speaking of songs that contain an element of lament or sorrow.
I can literally hear faces scrunching up in disgust even as I type.
"I don't go to church to be sad."
"I thought Jesus was supposed to make everything better."
Here's the thing, though; the most biblical warrant we have for singing together as God's people contains plenty of lament. I speak, of course, of the Psalms, sometimes known (exaggeratedly, but not too much) as "the Bible's songbook."
Even Protestant reformers who were leery of congregational singing (looking at you, John Calvin) found the Psalms an acceptable outlet for congregations to sing. And the Psalms, as you might know, contain plenty of lament. Some of them are pretty heavy, some of them are even more angry than lamenting.
Take Psalm 137. You might recognize its opening; "By the rivers of Babylon -- there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion." The tone is set, and it doesn't let up (unlike many lament psalms that include brief interludes of praise, or at least attempted praise. This one starts dark and turns darker. I'm not necessarily going to recommend going quite as dark as those last three verses of the psalm, but it is clear here that the psalmists recognized lament and sorrow as being as much a subject of song in worship, as much a subject to be brought before the Lord, as our praise or our petitions.
(And this isn't even mentioning there's a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations.)
Where this gets tricky, though, is in the practical challenge presented here, one even I can't do much about. There really aren't a lot of such hymns out there these days.
That hasn't always been the case. I was at a Sacred Harp sing a few nights ago, and perusing the printed collection (and a few of those chosen for singing) I was reminded that lament was very much a part of the songs creaded in the shape-note tradition. They sing about suffering, they sing about dying, they sing about parting. They sing songs of weeping and mourning.
We're not really accustomed to that, we mainline moderns. We have our reputation for excessive moderation (yes, that phrasing was deliberate), and while that mostly gets blamed for keeping out more exuberant songs, it also reins in our singing experience in the opposite extreme.
How to bridge the gap? A hymnal that includes a psalter (settings of Psalms) is a start, as at least some of the lament psalms are going to be included. A very few hymns that provide for lament for specific conditions have made their way into newer hymnals like Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (and that collection does come in an ecumenical version that doesn't have the word "Presbyterian" in the title). But the repertoire of lament hymns isn't large.
Still, it matters to make some space for singing lament for a similar reason that it matters to welcome songs of the global church: it becomes a means of including. Inevitably somebody in your congregation is going to be in a condition of lament. Maybe it's a short-term thing, maybe it's a more ongoing condition. They are there, in your congregation. Is there any part of the service that gives voice to their sorrow and encourages them to lift that sorrow up to God? (You might be thinking of intercessory prayers, but those are so often targeted towards those specifically suffering physical illness, which isn't always the case for those in need of lament.)
So I'm asking you (and asking myself) to do something that is not merely emotionally or intellectually hard to do, it's practically difficult to carry out as well. But there is a place for it, not every hymn (again those reversible caveats apply--not everything that is sung should be "blue," not everything that is "blue" should be sung), but some space for worshipers to lift up their grief not merely in a formal, constricted space of public prayer, but in the viscerally physical act of singing, and singing together.
Maybe this is a call for new hymns. Maybe I'm unwittingly calling for radical change in how we think about worship. Either way, all those Delta bluesman weren't wrong; sometimes you gotta sing the blues, even (or especially) to God.
So yeah, sing something old, and sing something new, and sing something borrowed, and sing something blue -- something that lifts up our sorrows as well as our joys. Don't be a separatist. Sing with all of God's children, even those whose voices are more likely to cry than sing, and remember who we are and whose we are, and that sometime the one in need of a song of lament will be you.
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