Sermon for Opening Eucharist at AAM 2026
St. Luke’s Atlanta, GA
First Chronicles 16:7-13, 23-34
Psalm 98
Revelation 5:11-14
Everything that God has created can sing.
Which might be surprising news for those persons who often go out of their way to tell you, the church musician, “I can’t sing.”
“I can’t sing.” Is that a confession? A defiant declaration? How did they come to believe that? Did someone tell them? You can’t sing became I can’t sing.
Yet, from the scriptures this morning, we hear that everything God has created can sing. Not just humans. Everything.
Consider the trees.
In First Chronicles, the Ark of the Covenant has been returned to Jerusalem. To celebrate, David asks the ministers to give praise to the Lord. In asking, David also instructs them.
“Let the trees of the forest sing, let them sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.”
God made a tree to be a tree, and the tree delights in being what it was made to be. No angst, no self-doubt. The tree, made by God, understands its vocation. God delights in creation, so God delights in the tree for its own sake.
David invites the trees to sing. And we might hear this, the call for singing trees, as a nice turn of phrase, lovely biblical poetry.
But what if there is more? What if the trees are singing?
In Songs of the Trees, the Sewanee biologist, David George Haskell, makes the case that the trees are making sounds. He chooses to listen to them, to the sounds and songs they make. Haskell writes, “to listen is therefore to touch a stethoscope to the skin of a landscape, to hear what stirs below.”
To hear what stirs below.
In creation, God made all things with layers. For every living thing, there are things seen and unseen. We often assume much of creation is silent, not about to break into song. We must, therefore, begin with listening, placing our ears close to “skin of a landscape,” close to the bark of the tree. We must be patient, trusting there are sounds ready to emerge. Before we hear the sound, we learn to listen to the sound before the sound, to the stirring below.
David invites the trees to sing for joy before the Lord. The trees are not asked to perform for us, to bless us with their song. They are invited to praise God. If we are quiet and patient enough, perhaps we, too, get to hear the song they sing to God. But we hear it by overhearing it. They are responding to God, not to us.
Consider the sea and the rivers and the hills.
The psalmist calls out for a new song. The new song is in response to God’s marvelous works.
And while the people of God are invited to sing, to pick up instruments and make joyful noise, the psalmist’s invitation goes beyond us. The song of the sea and all that is in the sea is called for. The rivers are to clap their hands. And the hills express their joy.
Yet not every song we sing to God is a song of praise and joy. God also hears our songs of lament. So, just as we can sing a song of lament, trusting that God desires to know our pain and sorrow, so God listens to the sea and the rivers and hills when they cry.
With each year, storms and hurricanes and tornadoes grow in intensity, with 100-year-old floods happening every few years. In those moments, if our voices grow hoarse, then the cries of lament will be offered by the creation that groans.
Several years ago, an AAM conference included an evening liturgy at All Souls Cathedral in Biltmore Village, North Carolina. Today, All Souls is still shuttered in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Where several of us once stood in joyous song, flood waters clapped, reaching almost to the altar.
Consider every creature in heaven and on earth.
The Revelation of St. John is a vision he received while in exile, on the isle of Patmos. Exile suggests a forced setting apart, sent to a lonely place, away from home.
In exile, however, everything shows up before John. John receives a vision of the Lamb which had been slain, of the Christ who showed true power on the cross.
Before the Lamb, an angelic chorus that defies counting offers praise. Worthy is the Lamb, they cry. Their song confesses their belief in where true authority and power reside.
And John then hears everything, every creature in heaven and earth joins the angel song. We believe God made everything. And God gave every created thing the gift to give thanks and praise and joy back to God. In a vision, in exile, John had ears to hear.
For the 60th time, the Association of Anglican Musicians is gathering for conference. In gathering, there is friendship and education, encouragement and worship, commerce and conviviality.
And there is singing. From the sound of your singing, it is as if all creation is joining you in song.
Because all creation is joining us in song. If we have ears to hear, the trees are singing. The rivers and floods are clapping their hands. The hills are expressing joy. And every other creature, in heaven and earth, is singing and confessing that the Lamb is worthy to be praised, to be followed again in a time of tyrants.
This week, we will hear transcendent music. We will be blessed by musical creations, both ancient and new. We will sing with prayerful fervor. We will be renewed in prayer and liturgy and fellowship.
But before all that, remember the sound that is already here, if we have ears to hear.
Trees, rivers, floods, hills, heavenly and earthly creatures, angels, and everything God has made.
They are already singing. They are already giving praise and crying in lament. They know for what they have been made.
We join in their song. All of us are invited to join in their song.