Scripture: Philippians 4:1, 3-9
Message: I CAN’T HEAR YOU
I want to ask our children’s choir to help me with the message today. I want to ask all of you a question. Whenever you would come up here to sing, and you would start out, what did Mr. Garrett always say to you? What did he shout out from the piano over here?
I can’t hear you. But that’s not quite the way he said it. How did he say it? Make it sound like Mr. Garrett:
I can’t HEAR YOU.
Do you think that’s right? I mean, do you really think he couldn’t hear you at all? Not well enough. You hadn’t put enough energy into your singing. It wasn’t as good as it ought to be and it wasn’t getting out here to all the people. So he would say to you, “I can’t hear you.”
Well, that’s interesting. That’s very interesting. Because Mr. Garrett had just about the best ability to hear of anybody I know. Mr. Garrett could hear all kinds of things!
There would be more than 200 of us in here on Sunday morning, singing some hymn, and Mr. Garrett would be able to hear one person, sitting way back over there somewhere. He would pick out some good voice and would see who that was and would say, “That’s somebody I want in my choir.” I expect some of you got recruited just that way! Oh, he could hear, all right. He had a very, very good set of ears.
So why did he sometimes have to say, “I can’t hear you.” We all know he could hear a pin drop during a thunderstorm! Why would he ever say, “I can’t hear you.”
What he meant was, “I don’t hear anything that isn’t good enough yet. I don’t listen if it isn’t excellent. I don’t accept it if it isn’t right.” “I can’t hear you” really means, “I won’t let you do less than what you are capable of doing. I won’t let you be lazy and shoddy. I can’t, I won’t hear you.”
William Garrett heard excellence. He did not hear, would not hear, anything less than our best efforts.
Now, believe me, I am no singer. But I do try. The choir members know, bless them, that I do try. But my father was a very fine singer, and I learned at least one thing from him. I learned that when you are singing a hymn, you should breathe according to the sense of the words, and not just at the end of a musical phrase. My father’s rule, and I do try to keep it, is that if the punctuation in the hymn does not fall where the musical phrase ends, then you carry over and breathe where the text tells you to breathe. And so, one Sunday morning, we were singing Luther’s sturdy old hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”. One part of the hymn says, “Our helper he, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.” All the rest of you sang, “our helper he, amid the flood” AAHH “of mortal ills prevailing.” But I, I am quite sure, the only one, I sang, “Our helper he” AAHH “Amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.” Right then and there, in the middle of the hymn, before God and everybody, Bill Garrett treated me to the biggest grin and a “thumbs up” sign! I finally sang something right, and he heard it!
He could hear, all right. He could hear when we did well, even if it was only once. He couldn’t hear, he wouldn’t hear laziness, sloppiness, anything less than excellence.
And so the great apostle Paul, summing up his own life and leaving a word of counsel for those whom he would leave behind, says, “If there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing that things that you have learned and received and heard .. and heard .. and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.” If there is any excellence ... keep on doing the things that you have heard. And the God of peace will be with you.
I
For us, here in this church, we have heard the excellence of William Garrett’s music, and we will want to keep on hearing it. He brought us a long way. We learned to open our mouths and sing out. We learned not to mouth our way through four verses and slam shut the book; we learned that sometimes we’d have to sing that last chorus and make sure heaven heard it. We learned that sometimes we’d need to get out noses out of the hymnals and trust the Spirit. We learned that we could have excellent music.
For several years, we didn’t have a youth choir. We had had one, but as things naturally happen, those youth were no longer youth, and the rumor has it that some ... nobody here today, I’m sure .. but that some of our current youth grumbled, “I don’t wanna sing, I don’t wanna be in a choir.” But, aren’t you glad today that Mr. Garrett said, “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear that. And we have a thriving youth choir. If there is any excellence .. keep on doing the things that you have heard. And the God of peace will be with you.
II
For the citizens of Montgomery County and for its workers, you have heard the excellence in William Garrett’s professional life. You have heard and seen his dedication to a government that serves. The County has a reputation for government workers who deliver and who do so with courtesy and with a smile. One day I had some county business to do, and so stopped in to see Bill in his office; I told him about the office I had just visited, and how well I was treated. He just leaned back and smiled and said, “Just takes a little training, that’s all. Just takes some practice.” I have an idea, you see, that he could hear excellence; but I know that he could never hear, could never abide shoddiness. In fact, on another occasion, I visited with him, and he was in the middle of preparing dismissal actions against a group of county workers who had been caught in blatant dishonesty. He agonized over that; but, as he said, we cannot tolerate less than the best. County workers, other workers, if there is any excellence .. keep on doing the things that you have heard. And the God of peace will be with you.
III
For the family, you have heard and seen the excellence in his family life. You have been privileged to know him as husband and father and grandfather, as brother and as son, and you have experienced there his commitment to excellence. As busy as he was, with his work and his music, we might have excused it if he had not been attentive to you. But here again, I believe Bill Garrett heard and asked for what he gave: excellence in family life. One of my lingering images is of a time a couple of years ago when Mrs. Garrett, you had a brief hospital stay; and after my visit, as I was waiting for the elevator out in the lobby, I saw Bill and Lane, father and daughter, with their arms around each other, in pure, unashamed affection. What an excellent memory! And what stories you have to tell! Of a man so committed to excellence in family life that he would subscribe to a dog fancier’s magazine just so he could fit into his father-in-law’s interests!? Garrett family, if there is any excellence, keep on doing the things that you have heard. Lane, you do well down there at Vanderbilt; if you don’t, I just know that in your dreams you are going to be treated with, “I can’t hear you”. Excellence only! And the God of peace will be with this family.
IV
But for all of us, for all of the people of God, our friend and our brother represented excellence in the spiritual life. He cherished the knowledge of his Savior, he nourished his relationship with His Lord, and he prayed. Oh, how he prayed. As one our members said, “You can just see his spirituality.” And as a choir member said, “He prayed us right through a lot of our presentations, and would just ask the Father to touch us with one, just one, of his fingers and help us.” Bill Garrett prayed with intensity, faith, and joy. He could not hear shallowness; he would not hear insincerity. His was the faith of an authentic believer.
And so today we commend him to the eternal father, the author and giver of life, in whom there is only excellence. Today we rejoice in his salvation, received through the excellencies of Christ. Today we are able to ponder the excellencies of the mansion prepared for him, eternal in the heavens, where he will be a part of that great church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Today we number him among the throngs around the throne, whose anthems go up day and night. And, lest there be any doubt about it, if some stray angel has gotten a little relaxed; if some weary cherubim are tired after their first ten thousand years bright shining as the sun, there is now at least somebody to say what needs to be said, “I can’t HEAR YOU”!
