Oh for trumpet voice! - Non lectionary sermon to commemorate 300th anniversary of birth of Charles Wesley

1 John 4: 7-12

Matthew 6: 28-34

Just three miles from where I was born there is a hole in the ground which has been shaped into a great amphitheatre. It is Gwennap Pit. Now with neatly layered rows of seats, it is a venue held in great regard in Cornish Methodism. There in the 1740s both John and Charles Wesley were to preach, the former returning many times.

My ancestors , it seems from family history research, were followers of the Methodist movement at quite an early stage of that movement. And so like many other Cornish miners, they would have travelled to the Pit to hear John Wesley. But more importantly they would have sung the hymns of Charles Wesley that would have enabled them to learn so much of their understanding of their faith.

Of course, Charles Wesley was not just a hymn writer. He was a very capable preacher although his greater leaning for family life than shown by brother John ( not difficult), meant that subsequent to his marriage he did not travel as widely as his brother or as he had done previously. He was at the centre of many of the debates within early Methodism and certainly was less than happy at the course of action taken by John when it seemed to make a break with the Church of England inevitable. He was at the heart of the social vision of Methodism having been disgusted by the practices of slavery that he had witnessed in America, as well as being a consummate visitor of prisoners right up to the moment of their executions, seeking to bring comfort in the darkest of situations. But, for all of that, it is as a hymn writer that Charles Wesley is best remembered. And as a hymn writer, Charles left quite a legacy. Indeed such was his legacy that the congregationalist scholar, Bernard Manning no not the Bernard Manning you’re thinking of), had these words to offer to Methodists;

“Your greatest - incomparably your greatest - contribution to the common heritage of Christendom is in Wesley’s hymns. All the other things which you do, others have done and can do as well, better or less well. But in Wesley’s hymns you have something unique, no one else could have done it, and unless you preserve it for the use of the faithful, till that day when we are all one, we shall all lose some of the best gifts of God.”

Amen to that! For at a time when Methodists are sometimes apologetic about their emphasis on these hymns, it is worth noting that growing evangelical and charismatic movements are discovering these treasures for themselves and putting them to good use.

Now, this morning I don’t want to be particularly nostalgic - I’m no good at that! The message that I want to share with you is that the hymns of Charles Wesley are a powerful spiritual force for today just as they were a powerful spiritual force in ages past. Why? Because rooted in Scripture, they bear witness to the incomparable love of God in Christ for all humanity. And with that emphasis comes the challenge to be a people who live for God.

From his experience of God at Pentecost 1738, Charles’s hymn writing displays a great excitement at the wonder of God’s love. We see this in the hymn that he wrote to celebrate the first anniversary of that Pentecost experience “O for a thousand tongues” when he writes of the change that God brings into our lives in the verse that proclaims;

“In Christ our Head, you then shall know,
Shall feel your sins forgiven,
Anticipate your heaven below
And own that love is heaven.”

What a transformation! But Charles is not one to wallow in a “Me, Me, Me” religion. Far from it! His conviction from the very beginning is that what he has experienced of God is something that is available to the great ocean of humanity. Think back for a moment to that great Conversion hymn, written but 3 days after his Pentecost experience. Already, he is fired with the vision that the grace of God which has touched his life is something that can be for all. No religious priority for the respectable can be found in his thinking for Charles is already grasping the principle that God can save those who might be seen as the furthest away from him. Hear it in these words;

“Outcasts of men, to you I call,
Harlots and publicans and thieves!
He spreads his arms to embrace you all;
Sinners alone his grace receives;
No need for him the righteous have;
He came the lost, to seek and save.”

Wow! Here is a message of good news and it is good news for all. Thoroughly based in the love of God, it is the love that makes somebodies out of nobodies. It is the love that brings hope to the very darkest places of despair. And it is a love that calls in turn for a response. It is a love that we need to respond to in loyalty. The hymn, “Love Divine” both takes us into the immensity of God’s love for us and cries out for that love to be at work within us. Yet it is based on a patriotic poem by John Dryden found in Henry Purcell’s seventeenth century opera, “King Arthur.” But Charles transforms Dryden’s “Fairest Isle, all isles excelling” into “Love divine, all loves excelling.” This doesn’t mean that the Wesley’s were anti patriotism - far from it in fact! But it does mean that the highest loyalty for the Christian is God rather than nation - something that I wish those telling Muslims to put Britain before their faith would take notice of for the Christian is called not to my country right or wrong but to the God who is the God of all nations.

Back to Gwennap Pit. Historical records suggest that people were greatly moved there as they sang the hymns of Charles Wesley. Some wept . Some even fainted. For Charles Wesley (unlike brother John) was never afraid to touch the emotions. One of Charles’ greatest hymns was “Jesus, lover of my soul.” Its level of intimate language was such that it earned the disapproval of John Wesley to such a level that he excluded it from his 1780 Collection of hymns. It has within it the language of the great mystics with that beautiful last verse about “plenteous grace.”

Let me tell you a story about the effects of this hymn. It come against the backdrop of the American Civil War. A group of former soldiers from the once opposing Union and Confederate armies were reminiscing. A former Confederate told the story of how one night he had been ordered to shoot an exposed sentry. He had crept near the target and had taken aim when he heard the sentry singing “Jesus lover of my soul.” As he heard the words;

“Cover my defenceless head
With the shadow of Thy wing.”

The confederate said to himself ;

“I can’t kill that man.”

And so he slinked away.

Listening to this was an old Union soldier who asked;

“Was that in the Atlanta campaign of 64?”

“Yes.”

“Then I was that Union sentry."

And the Union sentry went on to say how knowing of the danger of his post that night, he had been greatly depressed and had sung that hymn to keep his spirits up.

Would that in more battles “Jesus, lover of my soul” was sung with similar results!

The wonder of Charles Wesley is that his hymns speak through different times of year and to differing situations. Yet always the message is of God’s love. In one of his hymns he cries out ;

“O for a trumpet voice
On all the world to call.”

Well Charles Wesley was that trumpet voice and for what a message! Hear him as he continues regarding the message of that trumpet voice;

“To bid their hearts rejoice
In him who died for all.
For all my Lord was crucified
For all, for all my saviour died!”

And that is the essential message of Charles Wesley. An emphatic - “For all!” For all are loved by Christ to the point of self giving sacrificial death. And in a world of outcasts and directionless people, a world of people who have all too often lost the capacity to hope, the “For all” of Christ proclaimed by Charles Wesley needs to be heard loudly as if from a trumpet voice.

So, as we look back on All Saints Day, giving thanks for that great cloud of witnesses, we remember with thanksgiving Charles Wesley’s life, his example and his hymns.


This sermon was preached at Bideford Methodist Church on Sunday November 4th 2007