"Oh, Father, why do we always sing the same five hymns over and over again?" Well we don't. We sing 25 hymns. Yes, out of 720 in the Hymnal -- and that's just main Hymnal -- Lift Every Voice and Sing has 233 more; Wonder, Love, and Praise has 833, and since that is not enough, there are four additional, supplemental hymnals we are allowed to draw on. Now you must know we sing more than even the 25 hymns I just kidded about, but no, we do not sing very many given the number available, 1,788 in just the three main hymnals. It occurred to me you may want to know why, you should know why. This is your worship, your Mass, your Church, and I am your priest. Are these your hymns? Some are, some aren't. Some you like are never sung. Why? I won't always bore you with sermons that are really lectures. But the Scripture Lessons today were going to result in an even worse sermon, so there you are -- my reasoning, such as it is. But really, and very seriously, it seems to me that from time to time, it is right, and doubtless required, that I should account for the decisions I make on your behalf for your main Sunday morning worship. So perhaps today we'll spend the sermon time explaining why we sing the hymns we sing. You may well have thought that our far more musically gifted and educated organist chooses the hymns, but no, I do. And frankly, my dears, most priests do. It is part of our job and our responsibility in way that you might not even dream. There are two things I cannot do without being defrocked, deposed, two things I cannot do and survive as a priest of the Church. And I solemnly agreed to that at my ordination, as required. I cannot publicly teach heresy -- like saying Satanism or witchcraft is a good thing, or denying the Divinity of Christ or the existence of God. And I cannot ignore the tiny italicized directions in that little red Book of Common Prayer. Those two things hardly seem equivalent, do they? But evidently they are. And I for one am not going to test the waters on this one. The tiny little rubrics those italicized notations the church makes so much of, they direct how all parish priests are to conduct the worship of the church committed to their charge and the souls in their care -- which is our principal responsibility and most important ministry -- the People of God's public parish worship -- and if, if, you get that wrong, then you as a priest have mis-presented, and thus misrepresented the faith of the Church, which is heresy, for which you can, and should, be deposed. One of those little directions, Rubrics, we call them, quotes Canon Law and specifies "It shall be the duty of the parish priest, to see that music is used as an offering for the glory of God, in accordance with the Book of Common Prayer and as authorized by rubrics. To this end, the Priest shall have final authority in matters pertaining to music. In fulfilling this responsibility, the Priest shall seek assistance from persons skilled in music." Here at St. Mary's, that Assistance is sweeping, precious, and irreplaceable. All of the rest of the music is chosen, prepared, practiced, and offered by a brilliant musician, a man we are so blessed to have among us. But not the hymns. The hymns are chosen by me. I can stand here and say I think that is best. The Church thinks that is best. And I think that is the most important thing I do in regard to preparing for Sunday worship -- choose the hymns. Because the hymns are the clearest, best, most appreciated, most memorable way of teaching and remembering the faith itself. Not me, not the sermons, not the Collects. The Hymns. Yes the Bible, but I bet you cannot quote the Bible the way you can the hymns. They are what we remember and can easily call to mind. They are the real theology of all of us. They rank with our appointed Lessons and the Prayers of the Consecration itself, and are easier to remember than either, and easier to understand. Yes, we must preserve and proclaim the revealed truth, the Revelation, and we must do that with all the intellectual rigor humans can muster, we need theology that is thorough and comprehensible. Problem is, sometimes. The hymns never are. We need first rank theologians who can craft and refine the highest theology, and we need at least middlin' preachers who can present that faithfully and responsibly, and we need people in the pews who will make an effort to understand and appreciate the official teaching of the Church. And you need to be able to say accurately and well and meaningfully what we as a Church believe as well as what you personally believe. In our Eucharistic Theology, we the Church, believe in the Real Presence, which is we believe, the Sacramental availability of Christ, genuine and actual, though in a spiritual but non-corporeal existence. We further believe that participation in the temporal Mass, draws us into the eschatological banquet -- the ongoing Presence of Christ in the Resurrection life, which, in a sacramental way, has already begun, and we are experiencing a prelude of that risen life. Now you need to know that and understand that, and be able to quote that and defend that. Or, you could say, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine, oh what a foretaste of heaven divine. Which is the same thing. The very same thing. Take your pick. Back to the fully formulated theology. The teaching of the Church is that God is transcendent yet simultaneously immanent. That is, I think, that God is high above all, lofty, lifted up dwelling in light inaccessible from before time and forever, yet also, mystically immanent, dwelling here among us in an intimate though incomprehensible way. You need to remember that. And correctly. Or, you could say, Oh God unseen yet ever near, thy presence may I feel. Same thing, same thing. I know which version I am sticking with. A third and final one, and the all-time, hands-down winner of what is most important, what is utterly foundational in our Christian, Episcopal Theology: Prevenient Grace. In one of those great Collects of the Day we admit: "Oh God thou seest that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves" That admission is called theologically the requisite necessity of prior grace, grace that precedes our faith, which in turn then occasions our justification by faith alone. But first the unearned, unmerited preceding grace -- the essential Doctrine of Prevenient Grace. That grace alone allows us to respond, enables us to accept it, and empowers us to set about conforming our lives to its requirements so that we can honor the commitment we have made to Christian living. But we need that grace first, and his power since we have none ourselves. Remember that -- everything depends on that. If you get hazy on that or forget it, sing out loud and clear: "God of Grace and God of Glory, on thy people pour thy power!" Done. (snap) You get the point. Hymns for Episcopalians are the way we express our faith and the best, maybe the only way we can understand remember and articulate the full range For me, for many of us, it the only way we really do, the only way we ever can, understand the holy mysteries of the faith of the Church as revealed by God in Christ. If you sing 1780 hymns you will never now any of them well, and it is absolutely critical that you know them well, have bits of them memorized. And you can only do that with a few hymns, and the few that are the best and have stood the test of time, and have risen to the level of the most-used, best-loved hymns of all. Granted, there are more than five of them, but not hundreds. A few, great, singable, wonderful, memorable, correct, consistent, concise, and good. The Church authorizes and expects its priests to teach the faith, accurately, correctly, and memorably. Choosing the hymns, those hymns, is absolutely the best way I can do that, the only way I can do that. And that's why, I, do it.