This my third and final reflection on music sung one year ago: the last time I directed choral music in a service of worship at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, St. Louis.
The church was in a quiet state of preparation before the funeral. There was an ornate fair linen on the altar, not the one that we normally used for the burial of a man. (I had just learned that St. Paul’s, Richmond had two linens for use at weddings and funerals: one adorned with lace for use at weddings and the funerals of women, and a simpler one for the funerals of a men).
The church was in a quiet state of preparation before the funeral. There was an ornate fair linen on the altar, not the one that we normally used for the burial of a man. (I had just learned that St. Paul’s, Richmond had two linens for use at weddings and funerals: one adorned with lace for use at weddings and the funerals of women, and a simpler one for the funerals of a men).
But an exception was being made for the funeral of Jim. His daughter was to be married in the church in only a few months, and the Altar Guild thought it would be meaningful if the same fair linen was being used for both services.
Jim was a very kind, dear man. He had gone out of his way to welcome me to the church. He had been retired for a matter of months. His cancer was quick and aggressive. He was dead before the parish had really even realized he was sick.
I was looking at the cloth on the altar and then turned to walk through the church. Suddenly, I became fully aware of what the organ was playing:
“When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?”
From up in the loft, the assistant organist was practicing the accompaniment to strains of Herbert Howells’s splendid anthem setting of Psalm 42, “Like as the hart.”
Hearing that anthem in connection to preparations for a funeral made me think about longing and the presence of God in a new way.
I know of no other piece of church music with so great a sense of longing and desire — what the psalmist likens to thirst.
“Like as the hart” is the last anthem the choir of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, St. Louis sang together on March 15, 2020. Many churches had just closed down. Amid the new bottles of hand sanitizer, there was a genuine sense of nervousness. The congregation largely stayed away from that final choral service.
When shall we come again to appear before the presence of God?
The strains of this music and of this psalm have been ringing in my ears ever since the last time we sang them
We still have access to scripture and prayer. But to not be able to meet and sing together in worship has been profoundly difficult.
Until we are truly able to come together safely and without anxiety, it may be that this unexpected and indefinite time of separation continues to sharpen our desire.
Psalm 42 is sung from the point of view of a singer. If we read it closely, how much of our perspective is reflected in these ancient words?
I pour out my soul when I think on these things; *
how I went with the multitude
and led them into the house of God,
With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, *
among those who keep holy-day.
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God; *
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
Here in Lent, I can't help but reflect on how the church year is constructed so that Easter itself is the center of our longing. We begin picking up the breadcrumbs of Easter three weeks before Ash Wednesday when we sing the Introit for Septuagesima: “The sorrows of death came about me.” (... and did they ever)
But through death and through self-examination, we see that God is faithful and awaits us at our journey’s end. The Easter Vigil readings in the Book of Common Prayer bring this reality into focus: God creates life and leads the way through the waters.
God separates the waters to make the earth. (Gen. 1)
God leads Noah through the flood. (Gen. 7)
God parts the waters of the Red Sea. (Exod. 14)
God invites everyone who thirsts to the waters. (Is. 55)
God can restore life even from things that are bone dry. (Ezek. 37)
God will restore us and bring us home. (Zeph. 3)
And God, through the waters of Baptism, has made a promise to us. God desires us. We sing Psalm 42 on the way to the font at the Easter Vigil because we desire God.
We are longing for home. And God is longing for us to come home.
“At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;” (Zeph. 3:20)
The last words we sang together as a choir were about longing to come before God. So, one year later, may I ask you to examine your own sense of longing?
Because it’s holy. And it will help lead us to Easter whether we are meeting and singing together or not.