Sermon - What are we doing here?

The Choir Singer, Allan Rohan Crite, 1941

A homily given at Choral Evensong at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 19th November 2023 based on readings from 1 Corinthians 14.6-19 and Psalm 96.

What are we doing here?  

In our second lesson this evening Saint Paul encourages members of the early church to think about what they are doing when they worship. 

In Corinth, our ancestors weren’t gathering for a service of Choral Evensong. People wouldn’t begin to do that for another sixteen hundred years.

But their worship had developed, it seems, in an equally particular - some might say equally peculiar - way. The ability of a gifted few in the congregation to speak in tongues – in a mysterious and divinely inspired language – had apparently become a significant feature of the worshipping life of the Christian community there.

While explaining that he speaks in tongues himself, Paul cautions against its dominance in worship. Because most people simply wouldn’t be able to understand what’s being said.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, he highlights the importance of active engagement by all. Everyone in common. A congregation of spectators witnessing a performance by gifted individuals is not worship. Worship is about actively entering into a transformative relationship with God together - as a community.

Saint Paul goes on to suggest that by privileging speaking in tongues - that gift of the spirit - in its worship, the church in Corinth was restricting the nature of that transformation. Our worship cannot just be about the spiritual or mystical – it must also be about the material. It must engage with (and effect change in) our lives here and now.

Paul’s holistic understanding of worship – the indivisibility of the spiritual and material - the seen and the unseen – echoes an understanding of reality we find at the heart of many African cultures.

Where sound, for instance, is understood as having an innate physical property. Words, stories, proverbs, songs, are conceptualised as permanent extensions of the person who spoke or sang them. The spoken word is not merely a vehicle for conveying meaning at a particular moment in time. The sounds we sing or speak are a living part of us and remain so after they’ve left our mouths.

It’s a concept that is not completely alien to European culture. Have you ever seen pieces of medieval religious art? Often such paintings will show what are called “banderoles” – medieval speech bubbles that look like ribbons emerging from the mouths of people, prophets and angels, twisting and turning through the air. Sometimes characters are depicted holding these ‘speech scrolls’ like a flag. The sung or spoken word is given form - substance – and physically connected to the one who utters them.

There’s something rather wonderful about imagining that as we have been singing together, this entire space was being filled with our speech scrolls – we are wrapped in the warp and weft of praise. 

 

What are we doing here?

Last year, Dr Kathryn King of the University of Oxford published the results of her research that sought to answer that question. What is going on when we attend a service of Choral Evensong?

There are those who dismiss the liturgy – drawing on St Paul’s criticism of worship in the Cornithian church. They argue that Evensong is for the most part a passive experience. A concert in all but name, which requires little engagement from the congregation. They criticise the use of archaic language, which they claim is intelligible only by the privileged few.

And yet, up and down the country, attendance at services of Choral Evensong is on the rise.

Dr King’s research sought to understand why.

Like St Paul, she knew this meant investigating not just the mystical and musical but the material and physiological effects on congregations too.

Using an immersive Evensong experience – a three-dimensional recording from Merton Chapel, Oxford experienced through a virtual reality headset, participants in Dr King’s study had their heartrate and eye movements monitored and gave a running commentary of their thoughts and feelings as the service unfolded. This was supplemented by data from over 1,000 survey responses and one-to-one interviews. It is the most extensive research of its kind ever undertaken.  

The results showed that far from being a passive experience, attending a service of Choral Evensong has significant physiological effects which often go undetected. The somatic sensation created by the rhythm of the psalms and music is reflected in changes in our eye movements and heart rates as the service unfolds.

Feedback from the study revealed the active participation of attendees.

The ancient prayers were described by many as a bridge across generations – transcending our historically limited existence. Binding us together, like the medieval banderoles. A means of expressing our individual and corporate identity. The warp and weft of the liturgy a place in which our lives are held alongside those of our ancestors – a moment of unity, stability in a changing world.

Perhaps one of the most significant findings emerging from the study is that nearly half of those who attend Choral Evensong up and down the country have had some experience or interest in singing in choirs at some point in their lives.

Proof positive of the importance of continuing to invest in church music – both with our encouragement and financial support.

Our very presence here – in choir and congregation – is evidence of the enduring connection between the material and the spiritual world – and its transforming power.

That’s what are we doing here. We're being transformed.

Image: The Choir Singer, Allan Rohan Crite, 1941