Why can't we have some honest songs?

Christian worship must be the only time in your life when you are expected to sing in public and mean what you sing. We don’t expect the actors in a West End musical to be sincerely declaring their undying love for their co-star, who they may privately loathe. When a generic pop star sings about how much they want to be with the generic subject of their generic ballad we’re not expected to believe that they are singing about an actual person, are we? Even the most personal and heartfelt song must become less ‘authentic’ after the seventieth performance.

Christian worship songs are different to other kinds of song, of course. They are addressed to a specific person: God. A worship song is nothing more than a prayer set to music. But sometimes I don’t want to say the particular prayer that the leader has chosen. Worse, sometimes I can’t say it. Take My Jesus, my Saviour, which we sang at church this morning:

My Jesus, my saviour,

Lord, there is none like You.
All of my days I want to praise
the wonders of Your mighty love…

Except, I don’t. I’m probably not supposed to admit that as a Christian and a lay preacher but I don’t want to praise God all of my days. Not this morning at least. At the moment I’m not even certain He’s there. So when I sing those words, I feel like I am lying. If I was singing a love song for a public performance or for the sheer joy of singing it would not be a problem. But I am not singing for my own pleasure (God knows my singing would never bring anyone else pleasure!). I am praying to God. Praying with words I did not write and do not mean.

Modern worship songs are particularly guilty of this kind of dishonesty. ‘I could sing of your love forever’. No you couldn’t. You would run out of breath. You would run out of words. You would have to stop to go to the toilet. Facetious? Yes but we often sing things in worship that we would never say in public, let alone in our private prayers.

‘Though I’m weak and poor,

all I have is Yours,
every single breath…’

Do you really mean that? All that you have?

‘You’re altogether lovely,

altogether worthy,
altogether wonderful to me.’

Do you really mean that? God seems wonderful and lovely to you every day; every Sunday; every time you sing that song?

Where are the songs for the people who are doubting? Where are the songs for times of searching and suffering? Do we always have to sing about how great and wonderful it is to know God? What if we occasionally sang about how God feels far away; when we’re not sure if he’s there; when we resent him for what is happening in the world?

The Book of Psalms has plenty of them:

 ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do no answer; and by night, but find no rest.’

(Psalm 22)

‘I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that he may hear me.

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearing; my soul refuses to be comforted.
I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints’

(Psalm 77)

 
‘By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.’

(Psalm 137)

Lamentations, Jeremiah, Job: whole books of the Bible are devoted to times of suffering and darkness, when God seems far from His people. Even Jesus knew what it was to feel God’s absence:

‘Then he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.” (Matthew 26: 38-39)

We have countless songs in our hymn books for Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. Perhaps it’s time we added a few for Gethsemane.

The problem with using these themes in worship is that, although they may comfort, they don’t tend to uplift people. You want to give people hope and good news when they worship on a Sunday morning, not despair and uncertainty. And sometimes singing a hopeful or a joyful song can do just that. But I think our public worship would be more relevant and, more importantly, more honest if we acknowledged that some of the people present are not in a place where they can sing a perky Matt Redman number.

There is space for doubt and lamentation in Christianity but many modern churchgoers are afraid to admit it. Modernity demands certainty from us. The new atheism demands irrefutable proof for the divine. Mystery and paradox are to be discarded, or at the very least hushed up and not spoken of in front of potential converts. But the orthodox, historic Christian tradition has doubt, mystery and suffering at its very core. It’s time we gave it space to breath again. Let’s leave the happy-clappy, ‘Jesus you’re a top bloke’ songs in the cupboard occasionally. Let’s ask God where he is. Let’s tell him our fears and doubts. Let’s mix some laments into our anthems. Let’s keep our worship honest.

‘And the pledge and the vow is you'll find if you seek,

But what if I try and find nothing but bleak....

Turn me tender again, fold me into you,

Turn me tender again, and mould me to new,
Faith lost its promise and bruised me deep blue,
Turn me tender gain, through union with you....’

Turn me tender again, Martyn Joseph