Sermon: Expectans expectavi

            May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts,

be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

On 15^th September 2002, I preached at Choral Matins on the occasion of the Installation of Gilly as Succentor and Sacrist, and so it seems appropriate that as Precentor I should also preach on this her last Sunday in that particular post.  There will be a congregational reception after the Sung Eucharist this morning, but may I take this opportunity, on behalf of the Matins congregation, to thank Gilly for her work and ministry, not least in officiating and singing each week so beautifully, and to extend to you and to Duncan our very best wishes as you move to Manchester, and in your new role as Canon Precentor of Manchester Cathedral.

So there is a real sense of farewell today.  But for this sermon, it was another farewell this week that came to my mind through happy coincidence.  On Thursday past, we also said farewell, but in a very different context to today: we said farewell to Phyllis Richardson at her funeral here on Thursday afternoon.  It was a great occasion because Phyllis was by any account a quite extraordinary person.  She left very precise details about her funeral, and it was based on that of her late husband Alan's, who died, while holding the office of Dean of York, during the course of Evensong at York Minister in 1975.  So at both services, the anthem Expectans expectavi was sung.  And this is where the happy coincidence falls, because that title is in fact the Latin title of this morning's Psalm, Psalm 40.  The Prayer Book retained the Latin Psalm titles of the Vulgate, hence for Psalm 40, Expectans expectavi, I waited patiently for the Lord, in the sense of a deep longing, I waited, waited, waited for the Lord.

The anthem was set to music by Charles Wood in 1919.   The words are taken from a poem by Charles Hamilton Sorley, written in May, 1915, and published in a volume entitled A Treasury of War Poetry edited by George Clarke in 1917.  So the First World War is the backdrop.  Wood drew on the final two stanzas, but let me quote the whole poem:

            From morn to midnight, all day through,

            I laugh and play as others do,

            I sin and chatter, just the same

            As others do with  different name.

            And all year long upon the stage,

            I dance and tumble and do rage

            So vehemently, I scarcely see

            The inner and eternal me.

            I have a temple I do not

            Visit, a heart I have forgot,

            A self that I have never met,

            A secret shrine - and yet, and yet

            This sanctuary of my soul

Unwitting I keep white and whole,

Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care

To enter or to tarry there.

With parted lips and outstretched hands

And listening ears Thy servant stands,

Call Thou early, call Thou late,

To Thy great service dedicate. 

It's poignant to read this poem in context; for in 1915 it must have seemed as if the world as that generation knew it was falling apart, and for those on active service, the words call thou early would have frightening fulfilment, and indeed, Sorley himself was to die at the Battle of Loos in 1915.  And yet, these are great words of faith - standing before God open - parted lips, outstretched hands, listening ears - all this to thy great service dedicate.

Wood's magnificent setting of course rises to a moving crescendo for the words ‘to thy great service dedicate', but then in stunning contrast, the pianissimo repetition of the words ‘my soul, keep white and whole', bringing the setting to a sense of completion, and in itself recapitulating the sense of dedicated waiting, of self-offering.  Certainly, it could be said of Alan and Phyllis Richardson that that most precious gift, the gift of our lives and talents, they did indeed ‘to thy great service dedicate.'

But behind it all is Psalm 40, a Psalm which holds a particularly venerable place in Christian imagination.   It begins very affirmatively, speaking of a God who has been faithful, who has rescued the Psalmist from calamity, from the jaws of death itself, from the deep pit, from mire and clay.  And so, it speaks of a God who has put a new song into the mouth of his servant, a song that tells of deliverance, salvation, praise.

But then, part two of the Psalm turns to anxious lament; innumerable troubles have now come upon the Psalmist, he is persecuted even to death, taunted, hounded. He looks to God to deliver him once again.  And so the Psalm ends with a plea: make no long tarrying, O my God, echoing verse 1, expectans expectavi, ‘I waited, waited for the Lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my calling'.

But there is a particular passage in the middle of the Psalm that speaks of self-consecration, and was clearly in Sorley's mind when he composed his poem.:

            Sacrifice and meat-offering thou wouldest not:
                        but my ears thou hast opened.

            Burnt-offerings, and sacrifice for sin, hast thou not required:

                        then said I, Lo, I come,

            In the volume of the book it is written of me,

                        that I should fulfil thy will, O my God:

            I am content to do it; yea, thy law I within my heart.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, these words are put into the mouth of Jesus. Jesus, who in his own self-consecration, lived the words expectans expectavi, in that his life was one of total attention to fulfilling the will of God, even if that obedience was so costly that as Hebrews states, it brought forth loud cries and tears.  And for the writer to the Hebrews, it was that offering of Jesus' perfect obedience, and so of his perfect righteousness, that stands at the heart of his costly atonement through the cross. As Newman so eloquently put it:

            O loving wisdom of our God!

            When all was sin and shame,

            A second Adam to the fight

And to the rescue came.

            O wisest love!  that flesh and blood,

            Which did in Adam fail,

            Should strive afresh against the foe,

            Should strive and should prevail.

Behind this is the biblical narrative, confirmed by our human experience, of disobedience, of failure to live in the light of God's commandments, of failure to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, of failure to love our neighbour as ourselves. And so our disobedience, our trespasses, bring us under judgment, ‘provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us', as we say in the Prayer Book Communion:

Lo, I come, that I should fulfil thy law, O my God.

Yes, he offers, not sacrifices of bulls or goats, but the offering of his perfect obedience. Because he is both Son of God and Son of Man, he stands for humanity before God, and for God before sinful humanity. God accepts his obedience for our disobedience, and so he recapitulates in his own body the human story, refusing, as it were, to eat the forbidden fruit, and so restoring humanity to that unbroken relationship with God.

And you know, the wonderful thing is that when we grasp this sense of Christ's obedience, it elicits in us the desire also to be obedient, so that through our obedience, that salvation which Christ wrought might spread and multiply by lives that seek, in the power of the Spirit, to conform to his.

And we see it, and perhaps most clearly, in the retrospective account of human lives that have been touched by grace, that learn to love Expectans expectavi, as for example, Phyllis Richardson did.

And so for us today, whether we are staying in Durham or leaving Durham, whether we are ordained or lay, on this day of resurrection, but in this holy season of Lent which points us to the cross, as we ponder Christ's costly offering of his perfect obedience, which atones for our disobedience, we make Psalm 40 our own.  We hear the voice of Jesus:

            Sacrifice and offering you do not desire

            But my ears you have opened;

            Burnt offerings and sacrifice for sin you have not required;

            Then said I, Lo, I come.

            In the scroll of the book it is written of me

            That I should do your will, O my God;

            I delight to do it: your law is within my heart.

And responding with our expectans expectavi, we say with Sorley:

            This sanctuary of my soul

Unwitting I keep white and whole,

Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care

To enter or to tarry there.

With parted lips and outstretched hands

And listening ears Thy servant stands,

Call Thou early, call Thou late,

To Thy great service dedicate. 

            To thy great service dedicate.