Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
Plato wrote that “Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.” Plato believed that music could cultivate both virtue and vice. Some music inspires and strengthens courage and resolve; other music brings gentleness and warmth. Because he believed music formed the soul, he believed it could dispose one toward different kinds of actions like courage in battle and tenderness in love.
Music reduces stress, affects our emotions, improves our physical health, and synchronizes us with other people as well as with the natural world. In worship, music increases feelings of transcendence, gives us a greater sense of meaning, strengthens resilience in times of hardship, and nourishes our communal identity as Christians and as Episcopalians. Studies have demonstrated the power of group singing to increase feelings of trust and belonging, release dopamine that brings pleasure to the brain, and improve attention, memory, and connection with others.
We often think of music as something we do during worship. But I wonder if the opposite is even more true—music does something to us. It shapes us, calms us, strengthens us, and binds us together as one. Long before researchers or science discovered the power of music, the Church understood sacred music and singing as one of God’s ways of forming his people.
Hildegard von Bingen was a Benedictine abbess in the twelfth century and one of the great spiritual voices of the Middle Ages. She understood music as an expression of God’s life. Just as spring causes the earth to bloom, sacred music causes the soul to blossom. When the Church sings, the soul becomes “green” again—it is renewed, vital, and life-giving. Silence imposed by fear or oppression is a kind of spiritual winter. Song is springtime.
Hildegard believed that music restores the soul’s harmony and participates in heaven’s praise. She described the soul as “symphonic.” She believed that before the Fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden, we lived in perfect harmony with God. After sin entered the world, we lost much of that harmony, but our souls are still made to resonate with God—one great symphony.
Therefore, singing is not simply an expression of faith; it is one of the ways God forms us and gives us life. When we sing together as Christians, we join our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, joining in the worship already taking place in the eternal realms.
Hildegard often described the whole cosmos as singing. Birds, rivers, stars, saints, angels, and human beings all have a voice in God’s great symphony. When we sing, we do so with all creation, joining in praise before the throne of God. When we sing in church, we are not merely making beautiful sounds; we are recovering something of the harmony for which humanity was created. Every anthem, every hymn, and every psalm is not just music—it is the Church remembering who she truly is.
Our psalmist today directs us to sing praises to God and speak of all his marvelous works. In Eugene Peterson’s contemporary version of the Bible, The Message, he translates this psalm this way:
Thank God! Pray to him by name!
Tell everyone you meet what he has done!
Sing him songs, belt out hymns,
translate his wonders into music!
Then, after the portion of the psalm we did not hear today—the portion that continues the story of Joseph and tells of Moses, slavery and exodus—the psalm concludes:
Remember this! He led his people out singing for joy;
his chosen people marched, singing their hearts out!
The psalmist understood that music was essential in praising God and remembering the story of God’s people. Like all sacred music, it reminds us that we are his—the words and notes and harmony of his song.
Hildegard connected music with water bringing forth life. The life-giving vitality of God at work through creation she called viriditas—the greening power. For Hildegard, green is the color of God’s life.
In the Middle Ages, people watched the landscape closely. After the barrenness of winter, the first green shoots of spring were a sign that life had returned. They had survived the winter when food was scarce and life uncertain, and the greening of the world gave them hope and reassurance of God’s sustaining presence. Viriditas was the divine energy by which God continually creates, nourishes, heals, and renews all things. It is the Holy Spirit as the life of life itself.
One of Hildegard’s antiphons begins:
O fire of the Spirit, Comforter,
Life of the life of every creature…
Every flower that blooms, every river that gurgles, every child that laughs, every person that sings, every act of compassion participates in God’s renewing vitality—life of the life. This is true incarnational theology. Salvation is not an escape from this world; it is the renewal of this world. And all of creation sings the song of our salvation.
Hildegard believed that Satan could not bear sacred music because it recalled the harmony of heaven he had lost. This belief and her willingness to allow the burial of a man who had been excommunicated but had received reconciliation prior to his death got her into trouble with church authorities. She and her community were placed under an ecclesiastical interdict by the archbishop of Mainz that prohibited the sisters from singing the Divine Office. Hildegard protested vehemently, arguing that silencing sacred song was to deprive God of glory. She insisted that sacred music was essential to the Church’s worship and to the life of the soul. To silence that through restriction, punishment, or oppression is an effort to silence God.
Hildegard died in 1179 at the age of 81. Almost a thousand years later, in 2012, she was formally recognized as a saint and declared a Doctor of the Church—one who has made an enduring contribution to Christian theology. She integrated faith, reason, and the conviction that all of life can become an offering of praise to God. She reminds us that theology is not merely something we think about—it is something we sing, cultivate, and live.
The beauty of liturgy and music teaches us a holiness that is not about becoming less human but becoming more alive. The Church is called not simply to preserve what is, but to cultivate new life whenever the world becomes dry. That is the essence of viriditas—new life that flows so freely from us that everyone around us begins to flourish as well.
That is the gift Becky Taylor has given this church and this city for over forty years. She has “greened” us through her music—always offering new life and remaining faithful to her convictions even when it was not popular to do so. She has been a stalwart companion and a faithful presence, healing us after a split, nurturing us through music and art, creating joy, and cultivating justice and compassion. Through her gifts and her song, she has helped us become more alive.
Music has the power to shape the human soul; it echoes the very song of heaven. Thank you, Becky, for all the years in which you have helped to shape our souls and to sing heaven’s song. Keep “greening” the world.
Amen