Using hymns and songs as a co-proclaimer during worship

A Synod of the Covenant webinar draws from the hymnody and writings of some of our best-loved musical contributors

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

The Rev. Dr. Catherine E. Williams

LOUISVILLE — How do hymns do theology? How much interpretive work is possible within the limits of poetic expression? How does any of this make for more compelling and memorable sermons?

The Rev. Dr. Catherine E. Williams, Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship and the Director of Chapel Worship at Lancaster Theological Seminary, handled all those questions and more during a fascinating and engaging talk last week as part of the “Equipping Preachers” series offered most months by the Synod of the Covenant. Williams’ 87-minute talk, “Lyrical Theology and Hymns as Midrashim,” can be found here.

With help from the PC(USA)’s 2013 hymnal, “Glory to God,” and the writings and hymnody of scholars and writers including Thomas Troeger, Brian Wren, Ruth Duck and Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, Williams argued this premise during the preaching webinar: the music we sing during Christian worship proclaims and teaches as convincingly as the sermons we preach.

A pianist and singer, Williams began formal music study at age 8 in her native Trinidad and Tobago. She said she entered Princeton Theological Seminary’s PhD program in homiletics “with a view to broaden the understanding of proclamation to include congregational singing.”

“So many of the songs we sing as children and even as adults are the source of what Christians in the pew understand and believe about God,” she said. “That’s where we get it.” Songs and hymns “do theology in a different way.”

When she’s called on to craft a sermon, Williams has a Bible in one hand and a hymnal in the other — a hymnal with a robust Scripture index, topical and tune index, and a lectionary index like the one found in “Glory to God.” She said Troeger, who died two years ago after a long and prolific career, found “a feasible analogy with Midrash” in the way “hymns do their theological work, interpreting Scriptures in ways that give meaning to the lived experiences” of hymn composers.

She defined Midrash as “a unique way of interpreting Scripture,” a word that means inquire or investigate. “A basic function is to interpret a scriptural text so it’s relevant and meaningful to the contemporary situation of its readers,” Williams said.

Rabbis have been “doing this for centuries,” interpreting “based on the news of the current groups of believers,” she said. The Bible itself contains Midrash, such as the places where New Testament writings interpret Old Testament passages. “To this day,” Williams said, “we might accurately say that a great deal of preaching is Midrash.”

Troeger taught that preachers “use their theologically informed imaginations to provide interpretations of a biblical text to help it make sense to the congregation’s life and empower people to live their faith,” Williams explained, which “allows for multiple readings of Scripture in light of contemporary life. The question becomes, how much interpretive work is possible within the limits of poetic expression?”

As an example, Williams selected Duck’s “Womb of Life and Source of Being.” Williams asked: What kind of theological work is happening here? One webinar participant said it’s “inclusiveness and the wholeness of God.” Another said, “She is teaching different elements of how we can understand the Trinity.”

In this hymn, Williams noted that Duck advocates for finding multiple names for God. “She is working with metaphors for God that come from Scripture,” and Williams asked participants to identify passages where those names come from.

“What makes this effective in terms of proclamation?” Williams asked. “How does it preach?”

“We are all part of this lovely Creation,” said one participant.

“It’s not threatening,” said another. “The language is very biblical. It feels familiar and comfortable.”

Turning to the term “lyrical theology,” Williams said it’s formulating “beliefs about God through the songs we sing in church.” We use that approach “because songs, hymns and spiritual songs do theology in such succinct and accessible ways that they make great partners in preaching.”

“You could say that they co-proclaim with the sermon,” she said, noting it was Methodist scholar and singer S.T. Kimbrough, Jr., who first used the term “lyrical theology.”

“It can be argued much of what we understand and believe about God today has been distilled through the theology of the songs we sing,” Williams said. It’s what the psalms produced for worshipers in synagogues in the ancient world, and what spirituals did centuries later for people who were enslaved. “These songs express a range of conditions and responses to life, all against the backdrop of a God who was always there.”

“They gave meaning to national conundrums. They embraced both lament and hope, dreams and despair, tragedy and triumph — all within the structure of poetry and music,” Williams said.

It’s significant that Jesus expressed deep cries from Psalm 22 and Psalm 31 while he hung on the cross. As Williams put it, “Sometimes, when we need to plumb theological depths or soar to theological heights, only a psalm will do.”

The Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick

Asked to name songs or hymns they have used in co-proclamation, participants named “My Life Flows On,” “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and others. The executive of the Synod of the Covenant, the Rev. Dr. Chip Hardwick, said he used to commute to a job he didn’t find satisfying listening on an endless loop to Steven Curtis Chapman’s “King of the Jungle.”

Williams suggested that preachers frame their sermon with hymns or songs that address both the sermon’s focus and function. Drawing from the teaching of the Rev. Dr. Tom Long, Williams said the focus is the point the sermon is trying to make. The function is the why: What will people do as a result of hearing the sermon?

“We preach to do something in the lives of the people we’re preaching to,” she said. “What would it look like if people heard the sermon well enough to put it into action? That’s the function statement.”

Often a focus hymn or song is sung just before the sermon and a function selection just after. How might this approach make for a more compelling, more memorable sermon? Williams offered three possible ways:

• When we connect with “matters of contemporary relevance through music, we are facilitating understanding,” she said. “Jesus was always concerned when he taught that people got it. The music helps the seed of the word to take root.”
• When we purposely align the message of the song or hymn with the message of the sermon, “listeners can self-proclaim long after we’ve spoken our last word. They can continue to proclaim that message we communicated through the words of a carefully selected song or hymn.” That way, “the sermon has life beyond the 15-minute movement.”
• Music lands more deeply in the heart than spoken words do. “It is both the bearer of the message and the message,” Williams said. “It makes sense for us as preachers to find a hymn or a song that will co-proclaim with our message rather than one that will take the listener in a whole different direction.”

Near the end of the webinar, Williams pointed participants toward Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, a Presbyterian pastor and “a classic contemporary hymnwriter who has hundreds of hymns written to familiar tunes,” she said.

“She churns them out quickly when something is going on,” Hardwick noted, especially with events “that capture the national attention.”

Learn more about the Synod of the Covenant’s monthly preaching webinars here. The series is open to preachers living outside the synod.