In today's First Lesson, the sacred temple in Jerusalem that had been built by King Solomon in the tenth century BC—that temple is being rededicated to the worship of God some 240 years later. As part of these grand ceremonies, elaborate sacrificial rituals and magnificent choral and instrumental music are being performed by the presiding priests and Levites in the presence of a great assembly of the people.
Now, the tradition of using the sounds of glorious music to accompany the rituals of worship had been authorized by two of God's great 10th-century prophets, Nathan and Gad, and had begun even before Solomon's reign, in the days of King David—who was himself a renowned musician. So on this occasion of the rededication of the temple, Levites are playing their cymbals, harps, and lyres, and priests are blowing their trumpets, while antiphonal choirs sing gladsome psalms of praise—perhaps including one or both of the two I've just read as our Second Lesson.
No one today knows what that music in Jerusalem's ancient temple sounded like. The scales and rhythms and melodies to which the texts of the psalms were set remain a complete mystery to us. But if the music's overall effect was anything like that of the anthems and hymns we're singing this morning, well then that sound truly was a piece of heaven come down to earth.
For nearly 3,000 years—in the houses of worship where God's glory dwells and abides, where God's presence is so palpably felt—people have been singing thanks to God. And throughout most of this time our songs have been accompanied—by instruments tuned for praise, instruments like our church's previous organs and like our new Southfield organ. For as one of today's psalms has been counseling God's people for countless generations (98:4-6):
"Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth....
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,...
With trumpets and the sound of the horn..."
Now, the sacred instrument of praise that we call "the organ" is not nearly so old as 3,000 years, but its age is nevertheless quite venerable. One or another ancestral version of our modern organ has been used in Christian worship since the late Middle Ages, and the organ is now one of the symbols we most associate with "being in church." Indeed, the organ has become Christianity's most distinctive musical instrument.
Interestingly, this circumstance stands as something of a paradox, for throughout almost all of the first thousand years of Christian history, liturgical music was sung only a capella, that is, without any kind of instrumental accompaniment at all. In fact, the literal meaning of "a capella" is "in the manner of the chapel"—which is to say: "in the manner we Christians used to do it."
So when was an ancestor of our organ first introduced into Christian worship? Apparently in the tenth century AD, long before we used any other instrument, save for bells. Up to that time, the organ had primarily been played at the secular ceremonies in the court of the Byzantine emperor, in Constantinople. You see, the grandeur of the instrument symbolized the majesty of the emperor. Then, in the year 757, this Eastern monarch sent one of these organs as a gift to the ruler of the greater part of Western Europe—his name: Pepin I, King of the Franks and the father of Charlemagne. And from that moment, the organ came to be linked to the majesty of these Western monarchs as well. How exactly the organ made its next transition, from being an instrument at court to being an instrument in churches, is not well understood. But perhaps that transition is traceable in part to the fact that the finest early-medieval organ builders were monks, including one of them who went on to become a pope, Pope Silvester II (999-1003 AD).
These medieval organ-building monks, together with some of the theologians of that era, began to think of the organ, with all of its wondrous mechanical and tonal complexity harnessed together into a single totality of sound—these medieval monks and theologians began to think of the organ as an earthly embodiment of "cosmic harmony," as an earthly embodiment of the relatedness and interconnectedness of the vast diversity of being. Thus, by the tenth century AD, the wondrous array of pipes-and-parts-energized-by-wind that composed this single musical instrument known as "the organ"—by the tenth century AD, this wondrously complex yet unified instrument had come to be seen as something that embodied in microcosm the "diversity-within-unity" that constitutes the macrocosm we call "cosmic harmony."
So it is that we find an early 12th-century bishop in Brittany named Baldric writing as follows: "...we regard [organs] as mysteries and derive from them a spiritual harmony; it is this harmony that [God] the Moderator of all things has instilled in us, by putting together elements entirely discordant in themselves and binding them together by a harmonious rhythm.... As we listen to the organ, let us be drawn together by a two-fold charity [of love—by love for God and love for neighbor]." [Quoted in Quentin Faulkner, "The History of the Organ in the Christian Church," in Music and the Arts in Christian Worship, volume 4, book 1 of The Complete Library of Christian Worship, ed. Robert E. Webber (Nashville: Star Song, 1994), p. 399. Other material in this section of the sermon is also drawn from Faulkner.]
So, by the thirteenth century, inspired by thoughts like Bishop Baldric's, most major churches in Europe had an organ that was used for preludes, interludes, and postludes, although not yet for the liturgy itself. In time, however, these organs came also to be used for accompanying the singing of the liturgy. You see, the fashion in church music was shifting progressively away from singing a single line—such as what's found in plainsong—toward singing multiple lines—such as soprano, alto, tenor, bass. And for accompanying such multi-part singing, the organ was quickly proving itself a uniquely helpful instrument.
The organ's Golden Age came during the Renaissance, by which time its mechanics had been greatly refined and improved. Yes, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw an enormous growth in the building of organs, such that not just major churches but even ordinary parishes began to acquire them.
Then came the Reformation. Anglican and Lutheran worship continued the Roman Catholic practice of using the organ. Thus, in late 17th-century Anglican England, we find John Dryden composing a poem that celebrates "the sacred organ's praise." His lines are printed on the front cover of your bulletin (from "A Song for St. Cecilia's Day," 1687):
"But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heav'nly ways
To mend the choirs above."
And early 18th-century Lutheran Germany was the context for the work of the composer and church organist Johann Sebastian Bach, whose contributions to choral and organ literature stand to this day unequaled.
So that's Anglican and Lutheran. But in the worship services of Reformed Protestant denominations—including the services of our Presbyterian churches—organs were at first banned, for they were considered "too Roman Catholic." Still, by the early seventeenth century, some Reformed churches in northern Germany were starting to use organs, having discovered how useful the instrument is for accompanying congregational singing. And by the nineteenth century, Reformed Protestant churches throughout Europe and also here in the United States had begun to install organs.
Our own Rutgers Presbyterian Church was founded at the end of the eighteenth century, in 1798, some 207 years ago. And please note that for the information which follows I'm drawing on the history of our congregation that was written by our own beloved Dr. Vera Mowry Roberts. [The Story of Rutgers Church (self-published by the church), 1998]
Back in 1798, we were located on the Lower East Side, at Rutgers and Henry Streets. During the first forty-seven years of Rutgers' life, organ-use was strictly prohibited. The music-making for our services was at first just the congregation's unaccompanied singing of psalms and other approved liturgical texts, led by the pastor and then, after some years, by a hired "chorister." Then, slowly but surely, Rutgers' music-making began to evolve from unaccompanied congregational singing to making use as well of an a capella volunteer choir, to training that choir, and to finally allowing singing to be accompanied by a bass viol. Still, it was not until forty-seven years after our founding that the Session finally decided, in the year 1845, that using an organ might not be "too Roman Catholic" after all. So Rutgers hired a man named John Robjohn to build its very first organ.
Back then, Presbyterian churches in the U.S.A. were divided between those called "Old School" and those called "New School." Rutgers was "Old School," and we actually had the distinction of being the very first of the "Old School" Presbyterian churches in this city to permit the use of an organ in worship. For example, Fifth Avenue Church didn't allow organ music until ten years later, in 1855, and the First Church in Manhattan didn't allow it until thirty-one years after that, in 1886! So for an "Old School" church, Rutgers was actually relatively progressive! We got our first organ as early as 1845!
The Rutgers congregation moved to its third geographic location—Broadway and 73rd Street—in 1888, whereupon we proceeded to build a large Romanesque-style sanctuary that faced onto Broadway, where the Chase Bank now stands. When the first service of worship was held in that sanctuary, in January, 1890, the music was accompanied by a brand new organ, which cost the then-princely sum of $5,000. Its cost had been completely covered by contributions from the women of the congregation, and it was made by one of the most prominent organ builders in the city, Frank Roosevelt. The organ façade that you see here in our chancel today, together with some of the pipes both outside and inside, having now been completely restored and re-voiced—these are some parts preserved from that old Roosevelt organ.
In 1924, the church structures that were first built at this location were demolished, and the sanctuary in which you are now sitting was erected. The first worship service was held here on November 29, 1925, but the new organ that was being built by the Möller company, reutilizing many of the parts from the old Roosevelt organ—that organ had not yet been completed. Therefore, the Möller organ was dedicated somewhat later, on Sunday, March 14, 1926—some seventy-nine years ago. Then, two days after that, on Tuesday night, March 16th, the dedicatory recital was played by the new Rutgers Church organist, Charles Henry Doersam.
Among the organists who played that Möller organ after Doersam were Charles A. Baker, Lyndon Woodside, Marshall Williamson—who is our Minister of Music emeritus—and most recently, George Davey. And as you by now know, the Session, inspired by a generous matching grant from Edward Alley and Nancy Williams, has named the Antiphonal Division of our new Southfield Organ—up there in the balcony—for Marshall Williamson, who led the Rutgers musical program for thirty-five years, from 1967 until his retirement in 2002. Marshall, won't you please stand so that we may now express our appreciation to you?
And among the great singers who were accompanied by that Möller organ were five whom we today commemorate by dedicating in their honor the Trompette en Chamade of the new Southfield organ—a rank made possible by a generous gift from Edward Alley. One of these five singers is deceased, Edmond Karlsrud. He sang with the Rutgers Quartet for thirty-six years, from 1957 to 1993. However, the other four are very much alive and with us here this morning, and I would ask each of you to stand as I lift up your name: tenor Joseph Sopher, who sang here for forty-one years, from 1962 to 2003; soprano Nancy Williams, who sang here for twenty-seven years, from 1972 to 1999; mezzo-soprano Bronwyn Thomas, who joined the quartet in 1984 and is still with us; and baritone Duncan Hartman, who has sung with us from 1994 right up to today. These five singers when taken together have offered a total of 136 years of singing to the glory of God right here at Rutgers Church.
It was in 2002, during the process of calling a new organist and choral director to replace Marshall Williamson, that the Session came to realize that our Möller organ was collapsing quite rapidly and was facing an imminent death. So a search was launched for an organ builder who could provide us with a magnificent new instrument while salvaging some things of value from the old Möller and Roosevelt organs. David Melrose and his company, Southfield Organ Builders of Springfield, Massachusetts, were engaged, and the result is this state-of-the-art seventy-rank organ that we are dedicating today, the Southfield Organ, which since Easter Sunday has been enriching the worship life of our congregation so immeasurably.
Before 1845, there was no organ music at the Rutgers Presbyterian Church. But by 1925 the role in Presbyterian worship of the organ and of other instruments had become so secure, that the builders of this sanctuary were led to create and install there on the east wall of this chancel, hovering above the heads of our choir and visible to those of you out there on the far west side of the congregation—they installed there a stained glass window that portrays six angels playing their musical instruments: a bell harp, a drum, cymbals, a trumpet, a psaltery, and—right at the top, in the middle panel—a portable organ.
Accompanying our Presbyterian songs of praise with the music of the organ has long since proven its power to lift our spirits to the very throne of God. So we who are assembled here today rejoice at having the opportunity to play a role in upholding the musical tradition celebrated in this window. We who are here today rejoice at having the opportunity to ensure for generations to come in this house of God "the sacred organ's praise."
Let us pray:
O God, we thank you for this organ and those who have made it, and for the gift of music and those who lead us in it. Through Christ, we pray this. Amen.