Together We Sing | 8/23/26

• Reflection Questions

  1. The pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem didn't just remember the good things God had done — they also brought their dry places honestly before God in urgent, tear-soaked prayer. What are the dry riverbeds in your life right now, the places where you're longing for God to send the waters again?

  2. There's a difference between casually mentioning something in prayer and making an urgent, tear-soaked plea before God. When was the last time you prayed about something with that kind of deep, raw urgency, and what does it tell you about the things you care about most deeply?

  3. The image of sowing seeds in tears is such a striking one — the idea that our prayers and our actions today, even when they feel small or uncertain, are planting seeds that will become someone else's joyful harvest tomorrow. Where in your life right now are you being called to sow seeds even though you can't yet see the harvest?

  4. The sermon makes the point that the pilgrims didn't wait for the dry riverbed to fill up before they picked up their bags of seed and went out to work. Is there something you've been waiting to do — some act of service, some step of faith, some conversation you've been putting off — until conditions feel more certain or more comfortable?

  5. Singing together is described as the way a community remembers and holds onto holy awe and wonder. Outside of Sunday morning worship, what practices or rhythms in your life help you remember God's goodness and keep that sense of wonder alive during the ordinary days of the week?

Transcript:

So I told you all a few weeks back that I love to sing. I love to sing. Back in elementary school, I was always so excited during the months of October and November, because that meant that we would be getting together with all the other children in the school to practice songs for the Christmas concert. We would get to be pulled out of class and taken to the assembly hall, where we would get down to practicing these songs.

Later on in high school, I actually was forced into the choir — that's a story for another time — but I was part of the choir and it ended up being the very best days of my school life. I love to sing. When we went on school outings and all the kids were put on a bus with those poor teachers, or whenever I went to play an away game at rugby and we took a bus for that, I would be the one who was right at the center of the sing-song that would be going along. You're never going to hear the songs that I would have sung on some of those buses, but we did it nonetheless.

And then as an adult, making a journey of faith as one of the people called Methodist — and this Methodist tradition that we are a part of — singing has been at the very core of my faith formation. And I assume, if you have grown up as a Methodist, it must have been at the core of your faith formation too. You see, John Wesley thought that singing was important enough for him to have left Methodists a list of instructions on how they ought to go about singing in church. If you didn't know this, it's like the second page right there at the opening of your hymnal — that's it up on screen right now. In that list of instructions, he said this: "Beware of singing as if you are half dead or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength." That is solid advice, isn't it? Solid advice.

Singing together creates this opportunity to bring many voices together and to form one voice with them. Singing invites us to reach deep into our souls and to release our words of praise and thanksgiving, or to let out our pain-filled cries and laments before God. Singing is an audible sign of God's grace at work in our lives, and singing is something that has been done throughout history by every age and by every culture, including Israel.

In the Old Testament, several times a year the scattered people of Israel would make pilgrimage to Jerusalem for one of the many religious feasts that would take place there annually. And in the same way that we would sing on the school or rugby bus on the way to events or games, these pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem would sing too. Some of those songs have been recorded in the Book of Psalms, and they are known as the Songs of Ascent. The Songs of Ascent. Today's reading is one of those Songs of Ascent. It's Psalm 126.

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy. Then it was said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them." The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negev. May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.

This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Now, friends, the sermon is going to be a little bit different today in that it is going to be broken up at several points with the singing of a verse and a chorus from what I think and hope will be a familiar hymn from our tradition. Now, in those moments, the words will be on screen. You are invited to sing along, or if you prefer to have the singing voices of your siblings in this church family wash over you in that moment, that is A-okay too.

Now, when we read this Psalm, what we have to imagine is this body of people singing it as they make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And as they make their way, they are doing the work of turning their minds to what their focus is going to be when they get there. So they are turning their minds in this moment to the things of God that have shaped them so far in their lives. They are turning their minds to the prayerful cries that they are making to God in this specific season of their lives, and they are turning their minds to their own commitment to the work that God calls them to as they continue to journey forward.

Now, this particular Psalm covers all of that ground, and that means that as these people sing this song, they are reflecting on the past — on the things that God has done in their lives. They are also thinking about the present, raising up their prayerful needs of the present moment. And they are thinking of the future, of how they will be involved in this work of God in the world.

In the opening three verses we read these words: "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy. And then it was said among the nations, 'The Lord has done great things for them.' The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced."

This song begins with a look back in life. The singers are remembering a moment when God showed up powerfully for them — but somewhat unexpectedly. God showed up in a way that made them pinch themselves a little bit to see if it was actually real. It felt like a bit of a dream. In this moment they're referring to, however, it was not at all a dream. And when that reality finally sinks in for these people, they didn't just quietly acknowledge God's work in their lives. No, they laughed aloud, says the psalmist. They sang joyfully. In fact, they were singing so loudly that the surrounding nations couldn't help but notice, and they looked on and said, "Look at what the Lord has done for them."

Singing together is how a community remembers and keeps a sense of holy awe and wonder. That's what singing together does. Many, many moons ago, I worked at a church called East Belfast Mission in Northern Ireland, where I was employed as their youth director. That's what it looked like when I was there, and it looks very different these days, let me tell you. I was asked to come and talk to one of the groups early in my time there, trying to get to know that group. And so I'd been asked to come along and meet with the Senior Ladies Midweek Fellowship. Yes, the youth worker was invited to go there for that. And I arrived at the start of their gathering and they were being led in song by my colleague Heather, and she was leading them in some simple Sunday school songs that they all would have sung decades before as children.

Now, that day I got to listen and to watch on as these women — who were of varying ability when it came to memory, right — I watched and listened as they each recalled every single word and every single action of the songs of their childhood. They sang together in perfect unison, and their singing together was an invitation to one another to recall the goodness of God across the years of their entire lives — a goodness that was still, to that day, bringing them together and sustaining them in fellowship with one another.

And then during just the last week, I got to go up to Atlanta, where I was part of the United Methodist Boards of Ordained Ministry mid-quadrennial training. Yes, it's as exciting as it sounds. Yes it was. We were there for some training on how conference boards of ordained ministry can take a lead in the important and much-needed work of improving clergy wellness, which is a real challenge facing our denomination and many other denominations today. During our time together in Atlanta, we worshiped with one another. We opened our mouths to sing together of the goodness of God and of the richness of God's grace. And in our singing, we were then reminding one another in that space of who God is and of the things that God has done. As our voices joined together, we were sharing in a deep sense of joy with one another. We were remembering together that before we are anything else, we are a people whose lives have been transformed by the goodness and the grace and the mercy of God.

You see, that's what we do when we sing together. That's what we do when we sing together. We look back and we remember God's goodness, God's grace, and God's mercy poured out lavishly on our life together as a church family.

Now, when we look back at our own stories, when we look back at the story of this church family, I think I am right when I say that we too are a people who can sing right along with the pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem — "The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoice." The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoice.

Now tell me, church — am I wrong about that? Am I wrong to assume that we can actually sing that with these pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem? You're quiet today. Am I wrong about that? No, I'm not. Think about that for a second. Just think about it for a second. Think about the outpouring of God's goodness and God's grace and God's mercy on your life to date. Think about the great things that God has done in your life, and then in the life of this church family. Think about those things. Hold to that good memory, and as you do so, maybe you will sing this hymn with me.

[Hymn — UMH #99. My Tribute (To God be the Glory) ]

Great things God has done in our lives, church. Amen. Great things God has done in the life of our church family. We hold to those things, and we allow them to be that which sustains us as we move forward.

Now, as we go into verse four in this Psalm, the song shifts, because the pilgrims don't dare get stuck in the act of just looking back and remembering. Their song pivots in verse four to look squarely at the present moment, and together they sing on that road to Jerusalem: "Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negev." Now, that phrase — "the watercourses in the Negev" — is a geographical picture that might make absolutely no sense to you or to me, right? But it would have made absolute sense to these pilgrims. Let me explain.

The Negev is a desert — a bone-dry landscape. And most of the year it's dry. Riverbeds are just empty channels of dust and stones. But when rainy season comes, sudden flash floods rush down those dry channels, transforming them into roaring rivers. Can you get the image in your brain? Dryness — and then the water comes and it's transformed. So as these pilgrims sing the words of verse four, we can imagine them starting to think about the dry places in their own lives, the dry places in their community or nation or the world around them. And then as they think of those things, they are crying out in song, "Lord, do it again. Lord, do it again. Send the waters and fill these dry channels again."

Therefore, their song — this Psalm — is not just a look back at what God has done in the past, but it has become a declaration of their hope in the faithfulness and goodness of God for that particular moment. They have an expectation that God will move again in their present season.

And again, I think it's very fair for me to assume that all of us here — all of us — have come to church today with some version of those dry riverbeds in our own lives. It might be some personal grief, or it might be a health challenge, maybe some uncertainty about the future. Maybe when we think about those dry riverbeds, we're thinking on a community or national or global scale as well. These are all about uncertainty about the future. And as a church family here at Trinity, well, I've said it a few times — we all know that we're in a season of transition, and many of you might be giving in to the temptation to wonder how it's going to go with that funny-talking new lead pastor.

All of that is understandable. All of that is understandable. It is very, very human to consider such things and to dabble in uncertainty. But we are also followers of Jesus Christ, the risen Lord. Amen. And as such, we know what we are to do. We sing together. We sing together. Because when we sing together in moments like that, we aren't pretending that the desert isn't dry — we know that it is. But we also know that God is always on the move and is always at work in our midst. And so we then offer a collective prayer-song of expectation. We sing together a song that says something like this: "Lord, you did it before — we saw it, we've seen it and we remember — and we trust you to do it again. Lord, do not pass us by."

[Hymn - UMH #351. Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior ]

And at the end of the Psalm, verses five and six: "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves."

These tears that we're talking about actually connect back into verse four, because when these pilgrims cry out, "Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negev," that is not a casual, polite prayer that they are making. They are making an urgent, tear-soaked plea for God to move in these dry places that they are thinking of. And so in verse five, we begin to see what happens next. Those same tears of prayer become the waters that nourish the seeds that they are planting. Their weeping is not despair — it is the deep, passionate urgency of a people who care so intensely about God's kingdom that they carry their prayers right out into the field with them. They don't wait for the dry riverbed to be filled before they start working. No, they pray with urgency and then they pick up their bags of seed. They step out the door and they begin to extravagantly and widely sow seeds with hope and with great expectation.

And I want to say this to you today, Trinity. I believe that it's a similar work that we are called to here ourselves — when we pour our time, our energy, our resources, and our hearts into creative new ministries and into children's and youth ministries, into the justice ministries that we're a part of, and to serving our neighbors here in Gainesville, and to sharing the gospel. When we do all of that, we are sowing and planting seeds, and we get to do that with a holy urgency. Because we care so deeply about our neighbors in this community that we refuse to sit on the sidelines. Amen. We refuse to sit on the sidelines.

We don't scatter this seed extravagantly because we can guarantee the harvest by our own cleverness, or our own strength, or our own resourcefulness. We scatter this seed of great hope because we love and serve the Lord of the harvest. We sow in faithful, urgent prayer, trusting that the seeds planted today through our prayers and our actions will become the joyful harvest of tomorrow.

So, church, I have said this multiple times in the last four weeks, and I'm going to say it one more time. We are right at the very beginning of our journey forward together. So I say this to you today — let's keep singing, church. Let's keep singing. Let's sing to remember the past wonders of how God has shown up — let's remember them with holy awe. Let's sing as we bring these dry places of our lives and that of our community and world before God in urgent prayer. And then let's move out into the field with that same sense of urgency, picking up our bags of seed as we go and singing hopefully and expectantly as we extravagantly scatter that seed as broadly as we possibly can. Let's sing the story of God's great love all the way, because it's a story that has made a difference in our lives. Amen. Well then, let's sing that story.

[Hymn — UMH #156. I Love to Tell the Story ]

We sing together the story of God's great love poured out upon the world and made available in Christ Jesus to every single one of us. By the power of God's own Spirit, we sing together. So may we never forget to sing that story joyfully and with memory of all the things that God has done. And may we never forget our call to join in on the work of God in the world — that is, to scatter seeds of the gospel in word and in action as broadly as we can. Let's sing together, Trinity. May it be so in your life and in my life. May it be so in our life together. Amen.

Let's pray together. Gracious God, for the song that you have placed in our hearts, we give thanks — for a song which is rich in grace and love and your mercy. We rejoice and we give ourselves to the ongoing work of singing together the story of your goodness in this world. Would you grant that as we sing, we would sow seeds of the gospel in all of the ways that we can, in all of the places that we can. We ask it through Christ our Lord. 

Amen.