For in the days of David and Asaph long ago there was a leader of the singers, and were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.

The people of Israel were coming home and they had forgotten how to sing.

For half a century they had been in Babylonian exile and, as we find in the Call to Worship, they had lost their will to sing. And I almost understand that, don’t you?

It is a hard thing to be able to sing in the midst of sorrows, to sing when you are cut off from all of your roots, all of your history, to listen to the taunters who knew that once you were a people of joy and now you are a people crushed and songless, it is a hard thing to sing when you have no vision, no hope, no dreams. And we’ve all been there, the dream we prayed for is denied, the job we worked for evaporates, the love we offered is rejected, the trust we gave to someone is abused.

And so the people of Israel in exile had hung up their lyres and said “we cannot sing the Lord’s songs in this strange land.”

And the music died, it was bye-bye Miss Jerusalam Pie, years went by and they forgot how to sing.

I almost understand.

But only almost, for I have learned to never stop singing.

I know what some of you are thinking, you wish I would stop singing at times. One of the great proofs of God’s sense of humor is that she has given to me a deep and passionate and diverse love for music, coupled with a complete inability to produce it, either with an instrument or with my voice, in a manner that anyone could possibly appreciate.

I have been collecting, as you know, stories and memories that people have of life here as God’s people in Clover Hill. One such story goes like this: there was a family who normally sits toward the back of the sanctuary and they had gathered for a funeral, far too soon, of a parent. I will let their words tell the story, changing a little just to protect the guilty, here is what they wrote:

At the funeral we were both trying to keep it together. Then came the point in the service where we sang “Amazing Grace” which is such an emotional song anyway. You began to sing, loud and clear, and, for the first time ever, we could hear you sing. We looked at each other and our tears of grief turned into tears of laughter and it was all we could do to hold back the uncontrollable laughter. Thank you for that and don’t ever stop singing! As a member of the tone deaf choir myself, it gave me the courage to sing a little louder each Sunday as well.

Well, good, glad to be of service and I think there is a compliment in there somewhere.

But you see my problem?

Or to put a finer point on it, you see Velma’s problem for all of those years? And Debbie’s problem, before Velma and currently?

They have to put up with me.

I love music and I know just enough about it to be dangerous, like people who know a little bit of Theology and can’t wait to set everyone straight on God, including God.

So it is good that we take time today to thank Velma for all that she has done for us and with us, despite the burden of having to deal with me and my little bit of musical knowledge and my non-existent musical gifts.

But I want to go back to those exiles in Babylon who couldn’t sing.

We don’t fully understand them, because we sing in our sadness, don’t we?

Didn’t we sing in our sadness yesterday as we said our last formal goodbyes to Chet Wozniak?

Didn’t I sing in sadness when I inadvertently lifted the grief of a family with my booming, off-key rendition of Amazing Grace?

Didn’t Elton John have it right when he sang: Sad songs, they say so much?

These are the songs they should have been singing in Babylon, the sad songs, so why weren’t they?

Well let me suggest at least one reason: they didn’t know about Easter. You may say, well of course they didn’t know about Easter it was centuries away. But that’s just the point. That’s what we have that they didn’t: Easter.

We know that whatever pains we are going through, whatever losses we face, whatever disappointments come our way, whatever deaths – physical, fiscal, relational or vocational, and there have been a bunch of all them around, haven’t there – whatever deaths we experience, we are Easter people. God has, does and will conquer all.

And so we sing.

Yes we sing sad songs, yes we get the blues, yes we live at times in such loneliness and sorrow and pain and failure that it is crushing, but we are Easter people and so we sing and the sad songs bring us home.

For in the days of David and Asaph long ago there was a leader of the singers, and were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God. They had to learn how to sing all over again when they returned to Jerusalem, under the leadership of Nehemiah, but at least they were able to remember that centuries ago there was praise and thanksgiving and so there would be again.

There always have been the leaders of singers and we need them to remind us, even in the darkest of times that there are songs of praise and thanksgiving to be sung. And Velma has led us in some extraordinarily dark times, moving us from the sad songs to the songs of praise and thanksgiving.

But there is another song that needs to be sung.

It’s the one that Steve and Jen hear at 3 am when Mason is hungry or wet or just bored.

It’s the song of the demands of the moment and of the future.

The song that our children and their children are singing.

The song that is being sung from the poverty of Latin America and the disease and war infested nations of Africa and the deep hatred of all things Christian and American in the Middle East.

We don’t know all the words to these songs, the tunes are unfamiliar, but we need to find ways to make them our songs, part of our repertoire.

I’ll be honest, I don’t want to.

I like the songs I know, I like the songs that have shaped my life, songs from Brian Wilson, and Lennon & McCartney and Bruce & Jon, the real Jersey guys, and that crazy man from Pascagoula, Mississippi who has written the sound track of my life. I don’t want to learn new songs, I just want to keep eating that Cheeseburger in Paradise . . . but God has new songs for me, for us, to hear and to respond to and ultimately to sing.

And what are they?

I don’t know.

Just as we don’t know where Mason’s life will take him, so we don’t know where God is taking any of us.

But we do know that God knows.

The story of Nicodemus is helpful here.

Nicodemus was an older man, a respected leader in religious circles and he probably thought that he had seen it all come and go and had it all figured out.

Then along came Jesus, singing a new song of peace and love and of joy and of forgiveness and of acceptance. I guarantee you Nicodemus wanted no part of that.

Except that he heard the song and needed to know more.

So he went, by night, to see Jesus.

And he caught the rhythm and he was captured by the lyrics and he tried to resist. “What do you mean ‘born from above’? Should I become an infant again?”

As I picture the scene in my heart, Jesus smiled at him, and the darkness faded, and Jesus said: “The wind, or spirit blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

God’s songs are always songs of change, shaping us, strengthening us, blowing us where he will – they are the songs of our souls and they can be classical or country, rock or rap, oldies or new age, whatever songs bring you joy when your heart is filled with delight, sing them; whatever songs bring you peace when you are troubled, sing them; whatever songs bring you comfort when you are sorrowful, sing them.

Sing them together.

Sing them to each other.

Sing them when you are alone.

Pay attention to the soundtrack that makes sense for your life, for these are all the songs of the God who has created all things and declared it good and then created us and placed us in the middle of all things and called it very good.

Remember the songs of Velma, anticipate the songs of Mason and sing the songs of your heart today!

For in the days of David and Asaph long ago there was a leader of the singers, and were songs of praise and thanksgiving to God.