Singing Art into a Sermon

Text: John 14:15-21

Admittedly, this sermon was shaped less by exegetical art than by a conversation with high school student. She sings in the praise band, so I'll claim music as the mode d'art, but the conversation went like this: "…you say 'we love you God' in your prayers and most of the praise songs talk about our love for God, but I wonder--do I really love God? How can you actually love a God you can't see or hug?" (She didn't know the lectionary texts I had been considering, but her question solidified the text and the direction of the sermon).

As preparation, I spent a good deal of time listening to music--songs/hymns about loving God (or general songs about love that popped into my head).

...and I ended up using a song as part of the sermon:

Father, I adore You

And I lay my life before You

How I love You

Jesus, I adore You

And I lay my life before You

How I love You

Spirit, I adore You

And I lay my life before You 

How I love You

I started with the first stanza, Preached for a bit (pushed the question of loving God. Not just God loving us, but us loving God...is love an action or a feeling?) and then used the second stanza to mark a shift to the sermon body (five ways we can love God: Obey God's commands, wonder and marvel at God, spend time with God, love God's people, and practice the presence of God--recognizing that the Holy Spirit is with us even if we can't hug God). The third stanza beautifully captured and reflected the final image in the sermon.
 

I was concerned about the perception of singing from the pulpit. I didn't want people to think I was showing off, but I also wanted to sing it well (didn't want my voice to crack in the middle).  I'm so used to diving in with some sort of opening line that taking a breath to sing--it felt so strange! Then, once I started singing, I was immediately self-conscious about all kinds of things I hadn't thought through.
Do I look up? Close my eyes? Sing faster? ...is this ME singing to God? Or does the song simply exemplify/frame the message?  Should I have warned people or set the song up? Should I have practiced this?
(I closed my eyes and tried to make it my authentic prayer, slowly settling into my voice and the acoustics).

It felt incredibly vulnerable.

...and it definitely caught people off guard. Some jerked their heads up. Some smiled. (someone later confessed: "at first, I thought you had made a mistake or something.")

The transition from speaking to singing was very strange (I cut straight--no mention or build up… as if the song itself took the place of transitional sentences to the next thought) but it kept me very present in the message.

The song's structure brought out the fullness of the text's  Trinitarian references (Jesus speaks of asking the Father to send the Spirit") and the connection between love and obedience/surrender was absolutely perfect ("if you love me, obey my commands"). I didn't intentionally seek this song out, but it dialogued flawlessly with the sermon I was already writing. This sermon would not have worked if I had decided to sing and then sought out a song…..

...but the best moment of the whole sermon happened in the contemporary service. I sang the final stanza, said "amen" and started to walk off the stage but the music director had me stay. He changed the final song (on the spot) so that the whole congregation sang the song together--expressing and practicing the sermon itself:

"Father/Jesus/Spirit we adore you
And we lay our lives before you
How we love you."

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"When you put biblical truth to the songs used in churches, you’ll have the congregation leave singing the sermon. You’ll have God’s thoughts, things that are God-breathed, stuck in their heads. It’s sad to think about a really catchy tune paired up with bad theology because that could, honestly, do a lot of damage in church." - Laura Story