Death sometimes has a way of bringing things into focus. The death of Stephen Sondheim last week, has certainly done so for many of us who loved to be drawn into his songs, his music, his words, his rhymes, his stories. The NY Times video obituary for Sondheim tells us that as the great composer-lyricist developed his own style, he “fractured the narrative, [and] told the story in a non-linear manner.”* This approach to story-telling was a departure from the old pattern of musical theater that led you from the beginning to the middle and then to the end of a story on stage. Let’s admit that Sondheim did not single-handedly re-invent story-telling. But he artfully revised the old forms, and gave us something new that made us want to hear his stories the way he told them.
Today, films, novels, TV shows, comic books (for all I know), and everything else, all tell stories with fractured narratives in a non-linear manner. But it catches us very much off guard when we encounter this approach to narrative in church, and in the pages of the Bible.
To begin with, we have started this new church year with a passage very near the end of Luke’s Gospel - only three chapters from the end. We’re not quite reading the story backwards, but next week, we’ll jump back eighteen chapters to the beginning of Chapter 3, where we’ll meet the adult John the Baptist. The week after that, we’ll move forward in Luke (further into Chapter 3), to hear more from the cousin and fore-runner of Jesus. The week after that, we’ll skip back again, further this time, to Chapter 1, before either John or Jesus was born, to visit with their pregnant mothers as they visit with each other. Then on Christmas, we’ll eventually arrive at the birth narrative in Luke, Chapter 2, having made those stops in Chapters 21, 3, and 1, along the way, in that order. Maybe we have learned something from Stephen Sondheim.
Or have we? At first glance, there appears to be much to object to in the passage from Luke 21 that we heard today. Not only is it ominous and melodramatic - what with signs in the sun and the moon and the stars, and distress among the nations; with people fainting from fear and foreboding, and the powers of heaven shaken - it also appears to be misguided. In verse 29, Luke, says, “Then [Jesus] told them a parable.” But what follows is not much of a parable; it’s more of an observation of nature: just as you can see natural processes unfolding in order, with the seasons, so you can see how God’s intentions will unfold in order, for anyone to see. But the information provided by the parable has never really proven to be useful. Remember that a parable is supposed to illustrate what God and God’s kingdom are like. But the problem with this parable is two-fold: either it’s impossible for us to tell when God’s processes are actually unfolding (on the one hand) because we constantly feel as though we see ominous and foreboding signs; or God’s processes are constantly and repeatedly unfolding (on the other hand), for the same exact reasons. And in either case, the ripening cycle of figs in the Middle East doesn’t seem to have provided us with very much useful information, as far as knowing when God’s will is going to be accomplished, when God’s kingdom is at hand, or that the end is near. Maybe this is narrative being fractured, and told in a non-linear way, but where is it leading us?
Back to Sondheim, who, talking about his work said this, “One of the first things you have to decide on with a musical is, why should there be songs? You can put songs in any story. But what you have to look for is, why are songs necessary to this story. If it’s unnecessary, then the show generally turns out to be not very good.”
At the beginning of every new church year, I am reminded that songs are actually essential to this story we tell. We may not know what to make of the parable of the fig tree, for instance, but we do know how to sing, “Lo, he comes with clouds descending.” And singing, we can believe.
One resolution people sometimes make at the beginning of a new church year is to read through the Bible from beginning to end. Many people will advise you to do this, and I suppose it could be helpful. But a far more useful resolution, if you ask me, would be to sing through the church year from start to finish. The story of salvation, after all, is going to unfold in a fractured and non-linear way. One of the only ways to stick with it is to sing through it: to take up the hymns, and the psalms, and the anthems, the spiritual songs… and sing. Sing through the broken, fractured narrative of a life that might lead only to death and the grave, and see if the songs are necessary; see if the songs change anything.
Without the songs of faith, I would say, any version of the story of life will turn out to be not very good, because the songs are necessary. For me, singing has nearly always made the difference. Maybe it will for you, too. The version of the story of life that we start to sing about today turns out not only to be very good, it also turns out to be true! That Jesus came to us to save us; that he comes to us still, while we wait; and that he will come again.
At the end of the Times’s video obituary of Sondheim, the interviewer asks what Sondheim would like his legacy to be. The composer replies: “ Oh, I would just like the shows to keep getting done, whether on Broadway, or in regional theater, or in schools, or communities, I would just like the stuff to be done. Just done and done and done and done and done.” That is to say that he wants the stories to be told and told and told; the songs to be sung and sung and sung and sung.
Although narratives might be fractured and non-linear, meaning is revealed as we tell stories over and over, and as we sing songs over and over. And we discover that the songs were always necessary, and always will be. Sondheim is absolutely correct about this. Jesus put it this way: “heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
What if life isn’t nearly as linear as we think it is? What if life is as fractured and non-linear as a Sondheim musical? What if the only way to make any sense of God’s unfolding kingdom is to sing about it? What if songs are absolutely necessary?
What if the best we can do as we face another year without knowing precisely what God has in mind, and easily mystified by what’s going on around us, we determine to just keep singing? Because the songs are absolutely necessary. Which songs? All of them! Any of them!
Life is fractured and non-linear, and so is God’s unfolding work in the world.
I wish Sondheim had written a song about a fig tree…
…sprouting leaves,
as they do;
so we could see for ourselves,
see clearly for ourselves,
and know that summer is near.
Be on guard!
Be alert!
So your hearts
are not weighed down
with the worries of this life!
Like a trap!
Be alert!
At all times!
Praying for the strength
to escape,
and to stand
before the Son of Man!
When you see these things taking place,
you know that the kingdom of God is near.
Yes, I’d say the songs are necessary. I’d say the songs are absolutely necessary.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
28 November 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
Mervyn Rothstein, Obituary: The Last Word: Stephen Sondheim, in the New York Times online, 26 Nov. 2021. The Sondheim quotations are from the same source.
