Every Time It's a Miracle, Rev. Don Southworth, guest minister, July 31, 2011

Listen to this Homily: It's in the Playlist

Back to the Sermons

Every Time, It’s a Miracle

by Rev. Don Southworth, guest minister

Reading: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery, Europa Editions, 2008. A Choir is a beautiful Thing

        Yesterday afternoon was my school’s choir performance….

        Every time, it’s a miracle. Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size, and there’s this life we’re struggling through full of shouting and tears and laughter and fights and break-ups and dashed hopes and unexpected luck—it all disappears, just like that, when the choir begins to sing.

        Everyday life vanishes into song, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love, and it diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion. Even the singers’ faces are transformed: it’s no longer Achille Grand-Fer-Lemeur or Segolene Rachet or Charles Saint-Sauveur. I see human beings surrendering to music.

        Every time it’s the same thing, I feel like crying, my throat goes all tight and I do the best I can to control myself from sobbing. So when they sing a canon I look down at the ground because it’s just too much emotion at once: it’s too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing. I’m no longer myself, I am just one part of a sublime whole, to which the others also belong, and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life, instead of being an exceptional moment during a choir.

        When the music stops, everyone applauds, their faces all lit up, the choir radiant. It is so beautiful.

        In the end I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song.

Homily: Every time, It's a Miracle

        What a joy it is to be with you this morning and to share in this celebration of music and the ending of this week’s UUMN conference. On behalf of the more than 250 musicians and ministers who met this week, I want to say thank you to the staff and congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington for the hospitality you have shown us this week, with special thanks to your ministers, Michael, Carlton & Linda, for allowing me to share their pulpit this morning, and to your amazing musicians, Bob, Ken and Bea Ann, for leading and making music every Sunday.

        My biggest appreciation goes to the members of the UUMN and especially those who have been here this week with Carol, Janet and Elisabeth who are giving us all the chance to experience the miracle that is music this morning.

        You may be wondering what the Executive Director of the UU Ministers Association is doing this morning getting up to say a few words about the miracle of music. Why have a minister talk when the these amazing voices could spend more time transforming us with their beauty? At least that’s the question I asked when I was invited to preach this morning about the power of music or, maybe even more importantly, why music is so important to the life and ministry of Unitarian Universalism.

        The mission of the 1700+ members of the UU Ministers Association is to nurture excellence in ministry through continuing education, collegiality and collaboration. The mission of the UU Musicians’ Network is to nurture, educate, inspire UU music leaders to create dynamic and transformative music ministries. Our missions are similar and, when we work together, along with our religious educators, we make beautiful music - and ministry together.

        Our reading this morning describes what happens, from the perspective of a depressed 12 year old girl named Paloma, when a group of people full of heartache or hatred or desire, living lives of shouting, laughing and crying, when a group of people, a choir begins to sing. Every time, it’s a miracle.

        Some might say it is a miracle that I am attending a musician’s conference and talking to you about the power of a choir this morning. You see I have only been in one real choir my entire life. On my first day of seventh grade when we picked our electives I met Mrs. Steele. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen and to satisfy my pre-teenager crush I did everything I could to get in her class - which happened to be choir. If I learned anything in that class, other than the reality that teacher crushes are unfruitful, I do not remember it.

        I have loved music since I bought my first transistor radio when I was nine years old and would sing along with every song, but my love for singing has not translated into excellence. This week someone who knows me and was suprised to see me said, with a bit of a raised eye brow, “I didn’t know you were a musician.” Two of my former music directors, who I had the privledge to serve with are here today, they can tell you how much I love to sing on Sunday mornings. And they could also tell you that they both have encouraged me at different times to stand a little farther back from the microphone when I sing. I do not think it was because my beautiful voice was intimidating the congregation’s singing.

        So I guess it’s good that I became a minister and preach more than I sing. But the beauty of being part of a religious community is that I get to both.

        On a rare day like today when we are blessed to listen to a 200 person choir of angels, to music that has the possibility to transform our lives; and we may be overcome with a feeling of solidarity, even love, it is easy to remember, with deep gratitude, those people who make the music. We can sit back, our faces all lit up, with the choir radiant. As a minister, on behalf of ministers everywhere, as a human being whose life has been touched, moved and sometimes even saved by music, I want to say thank you to the musicans, our musicians, people who have not only the gifts, but also the courage and willingness, to share those gifts with us. And who invite, challenge, sometimes even demand that we get in touch with our own musical gifts and share them with others as well.

        Because while all the music directors I have been honored to serve with have been outstanding musicians, performers and teachers, their passion and ministry has been to get more people involved in the music life of our congregations. Paloma laments in our reading this morning, “”It’s too beautiful, and everyone singing together, this marvelous sharing. I’m no longer myself, I’m just one part of a sublime whole...and I always wonder at such moments why this cannot be the rule of everyday life.”

        The truth is it can be and, often times, in our congregations it is. When we sing together, voices like mine, like yours and like these incredible musicians’, sharing our gifts and our imperfections together, something happens and we become part of a sublime whole. Call it radiance, call it transcendence, call it a miracle, call it God. When we sing together something changes, inside and among us. We come together in brotherhood, in sisterhood, in solidarity, in spirit, in love. This is true literally when we sing together, and is also true when we come together to worship, to teach, to do justice, to care for each other and for the world. All we need to do is show up and sing.

        I have wondered more than once this week if we should have taken a field trip over to the capital. Call me an idealist but I suspect if these 250 musicians had a chance to sing for our elected representatives, AND found a way to get them to sing some songs, Congress could have found a way to figure something out by now.

        Alas, for now, we will have to be grateful that we have these amazing musicians, ministers, to teach and lead us how to experience more of the celebration, the joy, the sorrow, the love that is music. When we checked into the conference this week we received our materials in this bag, Music = Life. And so it does. Each a miracle; miracles that we are called to celebrate together and pass along. May it be so. Amen.

Photos of the Service