The songs of our hearts
In Exodus, when the prophet Miriam helped lead the people across the Red Sea she was inspired to sing the song in her heart of praise. What is that song of our heart? What flows out of us in those unguarded, joyful, anxious, or fearful moments? In our private moments? To God be the glory!
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Transcript
Give us eyes to see you,
give us ears to hear you,
and give us hearts that can stretch large enough to hold your vision for our lives.
Amen.
Whew, what a gospel!
We should have stuck with that creation series. We had a good thing going with that one. Whew!
So, I was thinking about this reading, knowing that we were going to shift back to the typical lectionary cycle, and seeing the gospel, I needed a little more time to spend some time with it.
So, I thought of a story about my grandmother. Now, full disclaimer, I called her last night and told her that I was going to tell this story. She said I should be ashamed of myself for telling you all this. But seeing as how she lives 10 hours from here, she can’t do anything to stop it. The fact that I can call my grandmother still and tell and laugh with her is extraordinary for someone who’s 47. They had children very young, so I’m reaping the benefit of their strange adolescence and childhoods.
So, for as long as I can remember, my grandmother has had a habit. It doesn’t matter whether we’re at her house, or what house that we’re in, a hotel, it doesn’t matter. She does this every single place that she is. When she goes to the bathroom, we wait, and as soon as she closes the door, we hear her start to sing the Gaither Vocal Band version of “To God Be the Glory.” We’ll hear her, hear it coming through the walls and down the hall.
“To God be the glory! To God be the glory!”
And all of us usually add in on the third, “To God be the glory!”
And then she’ll wash her hands, and she’ll come out and act like nothing ever happened. And she has done this for as long as any of us can remember.
Other people have come to visit and have had dinner at her house, and that’s always fun whenever it’s someone new, because all of us know, they don’t know what’s going to happen, and we wait for it. And then their eyes start to look around. “Does anyone else hear the Gaither Vocal Band coming from the bathroom?”
So, I thought about that because what I told her last night was this. I said, as strange as it is, and yes, it’s strange, as strange as that is, what that shows us in a very strange way is that that is the song on her heart. She steps into that space that’s the most private in some sense space that we can step into, and what comes out of her is this impulse to sing the Gaither Vocal Band version of “To God Be the Glory.”
Now, when I told her this last night, she said without missing a beat, she said, “Stuart, it could be a lot worse. It could be ‘Hound Dog’ by Elvis Presley.” She did. And I said, “Well, it could. And now from now on, I hope that it is. I hope that you do take them up on that.”
But I told her that. I said, “Grandy, how wonderful that we grew up through our childhoods and well, now headed toward 50, with this moment, this encounter of you at this—and we hear your voice going down the hall, it doesn’t matter where you are. How wonderful, and how challenging.”
Because that’s what swirled up for me, is that’s the song of her heart. It’s the song of my grandmother’s heart.
And I thought about that with the Old Testament text this morning, because it’s a fascinating story. Here they are in this Exodus moment, crossing the Red Sea, and what happens at the point when they have this encounter of God’s grace that is so powerful? They get to the other side, and notice it said the prophet Miriam, but so much of the attention goes to Moses and Aaron. But Miriam was right there with them the whole time through. Hold on to that.
The prophet Miriam, it said, in that moment of encounter, took up her tambourine and sang. She didn’t sit down and write out a treatise or a description, she sang. And what came out of her heart was that song that we have this morning: “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”
And here’s the fascinating thing about that text. Scholars think—and I think this is fascinating—that that song is the earliest part. The song came first. And they wrote down the song, and they sang the song, and kept singing the song. And the space that Miriam’s song held gave them room over time to continue telling the story which eventually was written down into the form that we have now. Think about that.
The song held the space where the story could be told.
That’s a powerful thing to hold on to.
So, there’s my grandmother belting out the Gaither Vocal Band. Here’s Miriam having this encounter with God’s grace, and in that moment, the only response that can come out of her heart is, “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.”
So, here’s the challenge. That’s the story of my grandmother, that’s the story of Miriam. Those are the songs of their hearts.
What are the songs of our hearts?
That’s the work we’re called to do with these texts. What’s the song of our hearts? What song do we hold in our hearts, if we’re honest?
Here’s where the gospel text meets. The gospel text this morning is a cautionary tale, very difficult. It’s one of those you wish you could just stop at an earlier spot before you get to the end of it and make yourselves feel better, but that’s not what we’re allowed to do.
So, the gospel is a cautionary tale of a man who had a particular song on his heart. He owed 10,000 talents, which is an enormous sum of money. 10,000 talents he owed, and he went to the Lord, pleaded his case, and the Lord forgave him.
And then what did he do? He turned right back around, and when someone met him who owed him a relative pittance for what he owed, the song of his heart came out. And the song that came out of his heart was a song of self-centeredness and entitlement. Self-centeredness and entitlement.
And in that moment, it says, he grasped his fellow slave by the neck and insisted that he pay his debt, “Pay what you owe!” Forgetting the encounter with grace that he had just had himself.
That’s the challenge.
Three songs: “To God Be the Glory,” “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea,” and the third song, “Pay me what you owe.” A song of self-centeredness, a song of entitlement, a song that denies the possibility of mercy, a song that neglects gratitude in favor of power and control, placing himself at the center instead of recognizing that all is held in God’s embrace.
It’s a challenging, it’s a challenging text, it’s a challenging series of texts, these—this tale of two songs.
That’s the work, my friends, that we’re called to do right now, in what so many are calling this season of—which I think it’s very true—late empire system breakdown. Late empire system breakdown is where we find ourselves. A very uncertain time, a very anxious time, in many ways a very fearful time. People don’t know what to do, don’t know what to say. Give us something that makes us feel more certain, more in control.
And in those moments that are so vulnerable, the song of our heart will come out.
And what is that song of our heart? What flows out of us in those unguarded, anxious, and fearful moments?
That’s the work that we’re called to do, and it is not easy work, because we’re constantly called to check ourselves and ask ourselves, is the refrain that comes out of our mouth, “I don’t like that,” or “I want this”?
What comes out of us in unguarded moments?
That’s the challenge.
And in times like this, as anxious as they are, as fearful as they are, as uncertain and confusing as they are, that is the time for deep spiritual practice and engagement. We’re called, especially in seasons like this, to pay attention and to nurture those parts of our heart so that the song of our heart can hold the space in which the story of our lives can be told together, just like Miriam on the other side of the sea being led into freedom and taken out of bondage in our own way as well.
So, here’s your invitation, your challenge, to take up a practice. I invite you to take a prayer book out and turn to page 82.
Page 82.
We talk a lot about having a rule of life. We talk a lot about how our life is our practice, how we’re called to nurture and strengthen those spiritual muscles so that we can respond out of wholeness and faithfulness and prayer and depth, rather than yielding to the temptation to go back up, as it were, to that superficial, surface level of self-centeredness and entitlement, as our gospel shows us.
One way to do this is if you don’t have a copy of the prayer book at home, I encourage you to get one. Get a copy of the prayer book, and keep it next to your bedside, and put a bookmark in it for that page, page 82. It’s the opening part of Morning Prayer, and it is a perfect doorway to step into the prayer book and how you can actually use it in your everyday life.
I try to do this in the morning whenever I wake up, if I have time, while I’m still lying there, and God forbid, don’t turn on the news. Don’t turn on the news, and don’t pick up your phone and start scrolling and comparing your life to whatever image that someone else has chosen to put out there, pretending that their life somehow has it all together. You are not the only one struggling.
So, in those moments when you wake up in the morning, reach for the prayer book, and open that page, and memorize the Venite.
Memorize it, and hold it in your heart. And let that be the first thing that comes out of your mouth in that moment of waking up in the morning when things aren’t quite clear, and see if that doesn’t strengthen the muscles of your own heart, your own soul, so that, as we know how prayers work, when you inevitably encounter a pinch point, a tension point throughout the day, perhaps you’ll surprise yourself, and what comes out of your heart will be lines from this prayer, instead of flipping someone off, or whatever might come out.
So, I want to close by saying this together. And listen to the words, and not only listen to the words, but listen to where they land within your heart, within your soul, and take that home with you as an invitation to ground yourself in a practice that can nurture the song of your heart.
Let us say together:
Come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have molded the dry land.
Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!
Rev. Dr. Stuart Higginbotham
September 13, 2026