[This sermon was written, but due to time constraints, not actually delivered on Sunday, October 19, 2025 as part of a Sunday service introducing the new virtual hymnal, Sing Out Love, at First UU Society Burlington (VT). I promised to post the text of the sermon for those interested.]
Early – and by early, I mean the 1700s – history of our religious ancestors in this country shows a mix of reactions to communal singing in church. While Puritans (yes, those are our religious ancestors) have a reputation for disliking all music, it turns out that they, in fact, loved congregational singing… if it was done correctly – a very narrow target to hit. There are stories of individuals being ex-communicated for disliking singing as well as for “disorderly” singing. Go figure.
For the Puritans, who were Calvinists (not followers of Martin Luther), only singing the psalms was correct and appropriate. What would they think of us now? I mean, next month, we are having a service based on the musical (and movie), Wicked. Oh, how the mighty have fallen?
What is familiar to us modern folk is having a hymnal – a book of songs – available so that we can all sing. And if we are lucky, have a choir of singers bring us glorious and beautiful music some of us cannot produce on our own. The concept of a book of songs is due to an Englishman named Isaac Watts who published his first hymn book in England in 1707.
That book quickly made its way to the Colonies and became part of a cultural shift that ultimately pushed out psalms as what we sing. At the height of its tension, this is one of the ways that liberals and conservatives within the same church could be identified: those who believed only psalms (aka scripture) should be sung and those who believed there were other sung ways to praise god. I wonder if that is what contributed to the early divide (1810) between what is our congregation and what is now First Congregational Church over there on North Winooski.
Of course, we don’t sing from that 1707 hymnal anymore. Since then, in our tradition, there has been a plethora of hymnals. The first Universalist hymnbook published in the U.S. was a 1776 reprint of James Relly’s Christian Hymns (1770). Among those who would become known as Unitarian, the first hymnbook published in 1783 called Collection of Hymns.
Those of you who were Unitarian Universalist before 1993, when Singing the Living Tradition came out, might remember at least one previous hymnal. I was hoping to be able to easily and quickly name the titles of all our hymnals, but that wish was folly. It turns out that just in the 19th century alone, Unitarians and Universalists produced more than fifty hymnbooks (more than any other single denomination)[1]. It was only toward the end of the 19th century that each denomination decided on what would become an “official” hymnbook.
It was actually in 1937, long before the official merger, that the Universalists and the Unitarians worked together on a shared hymnbook, this one called Hymns of the Spirit. After the merger, in 1964 we worked with a new hymnal called Hymns for the Celebration of Life. Between that hymnal and the gray one we have in our pews, there were softcover supplements, with alternatives to the gender exclusive language in the hymnal. Our teal hymnal, Singing the Journey, is considered just such a supplement. As is Las Voces del Camino, the Spanish-language hymnal we have.
And now, as of June, we have a whole new hymnal. It’s called Singing Out Love. I can’t call it by color because it’s not an actual book, hard or softcover. It is a VIRTUAL hymnal. It contains about 85% of the songs from the gray and teal hymnals (not all of them because, it turns out, the UUA doesn’t have copyright over all of them). And a boatload of new songs. In fact, five to ten new songs are added each month. It’s virtual, which means it is not confined by the limitations that come with printing on paper.
There are limitations – access to the hymnal is based on congregational subscription. Our Society has a subscription. And as a Member of the congregation, or as someone who sings in the choir, you can have access to it as well. Look in the eNews for more details if you would like to create your own account access to Sing Out Love. You can also go to the website: singoutlove.org to learn more about it.
Or enjoy and learn and explore with us as we sing hymns from Sing Out Love today, as we roll out a new hymn one per month so we can sing it often enough to become familiar.
Before we get back to the singing, I want to share an insight from Matt Meyer, whom I thank for his research into singing in our religious tradition and which I relied on strongly for the information in this little homily. He wrote
… We assume that the lyrics of our songs arise from our core beliefs. This is certainly true. But …[it turns out] that change moves in the other direction as well. When the culture of singing shifted, it changed the sources of our songs. Interest in new song form led to interest in new content. Culture follows theology, yes. But theology also follows culture.
By the way, Matt, who led our Sunday service the day before the eclipse, will be leading a multi-generational Sunday service for us on November 16.
[1] Shelton, Jason. Changing the Words: An Historical Introduction to Unitarian Universalist Hymnody, 2002