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Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people,
to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.[a]
9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
12 The Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness will go before him,
and will make a path for his steps.
Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
6 A voice says, ‘Cry out!’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
9 Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;[a]
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,[b]
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
‘Here is your God!’
10 See, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.
For those of you who weren’t catching the English translation and just listening to the music (before the sermon), for much of that last choral piece, the choir just sang over and over again, “I will the name of God praise.”
“I will the name of God praise with a song.”
“I will the name of God praise with a song.”
“I will the name of God praise with a song.”
“I will the name of God praise with a song.”
Why would we do that? Say it over and over and over again?
I think, perhaps, those of us who are in the liberal Protestant post-enlightenment church, are the ones who have the hardest time under-standing why we would just repeat a phrase like that over and over again, because we so highly value what our Prof. Douglas John Hall calls “thinking the faith”. We use discursive rational thought associated often with the left brain so much that we lose something necessarily, but we can get it back.
How many of you have been present to Muslim worship, or of talk in a Muslim context when they make reference to the prophet Mohammed? What do they always say right after?
Peace be upon Him. That’s a tradition that knows the power of a name.
Do you know what they say in the Muslim tradition when they speak the name of the prophet Jesus?
Peace be upon him. There’s something powerful in a name that’s easy to find in most traditions.
Who’s ever been to a Kirtan service or an instance of singing Kirtan – that’s the music often chanted along with yoga in a Hindu ashram or a yoga centre. So, you’ll often hear, in a context like this, a phrase like, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Hare Hare Rama. Or Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare, Hare Krishna… what is happening there is they are evoking the names of the divinities to draw us towards them. You might say, to draw them towards us but frankly, I think it goes the other way.
I think the Divine, in all of her names, is a field that is eternally present to us. To use the language of physics, it’s non-local but it’s local everywhere! So, what we’re doing, when we repeat a name over and over again, is we’re quieting the discursive mind that thinks the faith.
Now, some traditions try to squash that and quiet it permanently. This is not our tradition. This is not what I advocate. Thinking the faith is there for a good reason because when we don’t think the faith, we get ourselves into real trouble. But there’s a time to quiet that side of the mind, and when we do it, the veil over the mystery starts to be lifted, and that field of Divine presence that some people try to evoke – by saying Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Krishna, Krishna Rama… or speaking of Mohammed, peace be upon His name – it starts to unveil itself just a little bit or maybe a lot, so that we can be drawn into it.
We are entering, friends, into the time of year – the winter solstice – with the long, dark nights against which light stands out so brightly, where a practice like this can really affect us and transform us.
I invite you, in moments of thinking, in moments of pondering, to think about the name that you might like to evoke as we transition through Advent. Or names. Or what practice you might engage in.
Names are powerful. Emma and Michael know this because with the arrival of Colleen, they’ve decided they’re changing their names in a sign of unity, a sign of oneness, this kind of familial trinity, if you will, all named Pravish, it’s powerful.
Maybe what we should be doing, through the course of the next year, is whenever we see Colleen, say, “Hello Colleen, peace be upon you.” Or whenever we speak of her, recognizing that the Divine is alive in her life, we say, “Colleen Pravish, peace be upon her.”
Now here’s an even more challenging practice you might engage in. When you are talking about people whom you don’t really like, or who trouble you, what if you just tried it out for the season of Advent and Christmas and you said, “So and so, peace be upon her.” “Donald Trump, peace be upon him.” That’s a hard one. If I say, “Donald Trump, peace be upon him,” it changes me, and it might just open a crack in the world.
As you listen to the rest of the Cantata, and as we move through this season, remember the power of names and the practices that go with it.
Friends, peace be upon you.
