300th Anniversary of Birth of Charles Wesley

Sermon preached at St Mary's Church, Whitkirk, Leeds

Advent 3 (Year A) - 16th December 2007

Where do you get your theology from?  It may be that you don’t consciously get theology from anywhere and don’t miss it much.  But theology is the study of God and put less academically, it is how we put into words the deep faith that powers the hope that is in us.  So, looking at that question again, where do you find the inspiration for that hope?  My guess is various things will be in your list.  One might be the words of worship.  Our Anglican liturgy is rich in its use of the bible and phrases often repeated start to shape the way we think.  It might be that some sermons trigger hope and inform faith, but I suspect they are somewhat further down the list, along with the opening letters in magazines, though I do get comments from some of those who are housebound who appreciate thought provoking reflections.

I expect that for most of us, somewhere in the top two or three sources for how we see our faith will be hymns and songs.  Mark Wallinger, this year’s Turner Prize winner described poetry as being a memory machine, containing within it all that it needs to help it be remembered through prose and rhythm.  Add to that a catchy tune and we have a winner.  The hymns and songs we sing shape so much of who we are and how we see the world.  We have a very rich heritage of hymns and spiritual songs, some of the earliest being contained in the New Testament books themselves.

One of the most prolific hymn-writers celebrates his 300^th birthday on Tuesday.  He wrote something like 7,000 and some of them have become classics.  Our own hymn book contains a mere sample of 21 of them including:

• Christ whose glory fills the skies

• Come, thou long-expected Jesus

•   Hark, the herald-angels sing

•  Help us to help each other, Lord

•   Lo, he comes with clouds descending

•   Love divine, all loves excelling

•   O for a thousand tongues to sing

•   O thou who camest from above

•   Ye servants of God

All except one of our hymns this morning are by him to mark his anniversary and at least one other of those in that list, Hark, the Herald-angels sing, will pop up several times over the next few weeks.  He is of course, Charles Wesley, brother of John Wesley and together the founders of what became known as Methodism.

Charles Wesley was born on 18^th December 1707, the son of a Lincolnshire vicar.  He was the 18^th child in the family, though 9 of his brothers and sisters died in infancy.  This in itself gives a glimpse into a bygone age of such massive infant mortality that affected all families to some extent.  He remained a loyal Anglican all his life and opposed his brother’s moves to increase the separation of Methodism from the Church of England – it was at first a movement within the Church of England.

His father, Samuel, published poetry, though with strange titles like ‘On a maggot’ and ‘On the grunting of a hog’.  This points to a family that was adept at crafting verse and expressing itself through verse.  I remember reading the obituary of the 20^th century hymn-writer Fred Pratt Green a few years ago which said that he spent the first 40 years of his life developing his poetic skills and only then set about writing hymns.  This is not to say that young people can’t do it, but there is something about developing the skill which does not come naturally in our age.  Our language is much more functional and flatter; it lacks the natural poetry of some former generations and some pop songs just beggar belief in the lack of poetry.  My favourite at the moment for a duff poetry award is Kate Nash who manages to rhyme:

You said I must eat so many lemons

‘cause I am so bitter

I said ‘I’d rather be with your friends mate

‘cause they are much fitter’

I suppose even Charles Wesley, with 7,000 poetic hymns to his name, will have produced some duff lines.  What we need today are song writers who can express deep and profound faith in terms that our age can relate to, which is what Charles Wesley did, and also allow the imagination to expand with the images and allusions it carries.  They are around and in time their work will be regarded with the same classic reverence as Charles Wesley’s.

John Bell, from the Iona Community, is one who produces some incredibly profound work.  He manages to mix a deep social awareness with a deep hopefulness in the promise of God’s kingdom.  An awful lot of contemporary worship songs, though, it has to be said are rather thin on content or seem obsessed with telling everyone how rubbish they are, which is not particularly affirming.  They come from the stable that is so conscious of our unworthiness before God that they have overlooked that God’s love and grace lifts us to his very presence.  Psychologically I think when the hymns and songs of today are assessed we will be thought to be a people with self-esteem issues.  The devil, it seems, has got hold of some of the best tunes and has hijacked religious worship to convey the message that we are rubbish and that is not the message of hope that I hear Advent and Christmas proclaiming.  A God who thinks we’re rubbish gets stuck on sending Noah into the ark and does not go on to send Jesus into a stable.

Now there are I think two dangers lurking here and they spring from the central way that the songs we sing play on how we see our faith, how the hope that is within us is shaped.  If all we sing is old songs, ones that were once contemporary and new but are now firmly rooted in an age long gone, then how up-to-date and fresh is our faith?  Is it being equipped to engage with contemporary issues and challenges?  Does it take on board the developments in our understanding?  Does it make sense any more to talk of ascending and descending as if Jesus is a space man?  The twin danger comes from only singing contemporary songs because too many of them are depression inducing and have an over narrow focus on our unworthiness.  We have a rich heritage to draw on too.

So the challenge is to write some new songs that explore the wider reaches of the Christian gospel and tradition.  The challenge is on to find new Wesley’s who will not only help us give voice but in turn help shape the hope that is within us that it may set us free as liberated children of God, not depressed ones with no self esteem.

Both of our readings talked about people being set free from ailments and oppressions.  Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 35) brings the promise of healing and wholeness.  The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame leap about, the speechless sing.  Waters break out in dry places, not even fools will get lost with a celestial sat nav installed.  There will be joy and singing; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.  Jesus draws on this vision when John the Baptist asks if he is really the one (Matthew 11:2-11).  Have his eyes truly beheld salvation, to adapt Simeon’s song?

One sign that we have beheld salvation and that our hearts are filled with hope is in the songs we sing.  Hymn-writers help us find the voice to give God praise.  As we celebrate the 300^th anniversary of the birth of Charles Wesley, we honour him more by keeping that song alive and making sure that it conveys the Advent hope within us; the hope of God’s promises fulfilled.  This is what Jesus pointed John’s question to when he drew on Isaiah’s vision: the hope of God’s promises fulfilled.

© Ian Black 2007