Dame Janet Baker, the internationally renowned singer, was once asked how loud anyone should sing and she replied: Never sing louder than lovely! It is an important piece of advice for any of us to take to heart as the strains of familiar Carols draw from us over the next number of weeks notes higher in pitch than our customary range and repertoire.

Apart from its clear and obvious reference to singing, these few words seem to me to speak words of wisdom to us in the church today as an institution which is all too ready to overstate its importance. They also catch a spirit of delight which should never depart from the season of Advent: Never sing louder than lovely! Because the other and more homespun rule of thumb for singing is: Never sing louder than your neighbour! Our neighbour – whoever and wherever - travels with us on The Way. Advent is the season in which preparation and repentance go together rather than punishment and repentance. We look forward to the coming of Jesus Christ at Christmas. The call of our Lord and Saviour in the Advent Collect is to find and follow the light now and in the time of this mortal life. We are not to put this off, we are not to sacrifice this opportunity to sing in a way that is lovely here and now. It is not good to push judgement further than mercy will allow; it in not good either to push tolerance without the expectation of repentance. If any season impresses on us the need to wait and to watch it is Advent. It is the expectant who receive the Lord when he comes, not the impatient. And they are quite different types of people and we need to make this distinction especially within our own selves.

This is a hard lesson and one which today’s society and today’s church almost wants not to have to hear. But it will not go away and Advent encourages us to listen to it and to listen for it again and again. The predictable is what contains the surprise – this is the rather irksome message of this short and special Season of Advent. But let us hold with it and with its strong characters – Isaiah and John the Baptizer – as tonight in the ministry of Donagh Group and Ematris Group of Parishes we celebrate with both thanksgiving and anticipation the advent of the Reverend Marianne Witting together with the coming to light of the Porvoo Agreement in an entirely new way in the Church of Ireland and in the life of both of these Parishes. This is a time to rejoice and to anticipate good news and good things in harmony with one another, in concert with our international neighbours.

The Porvoo Agreement is an exciting work of the Churches of Ireland, England, Wales and the Episcopal Church of Scotland with the Churches of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and the Evangelical-Lutheran Churches of Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania and Finland. It is truly historic in that it breaks fresh ground in the relationship of all the Churches mentioned to one another. We share and work out together our common understanding of the nature and purpose of the Church, our fundamental agreement in faith and our agreement on episcopacy in the service of the apostolicity of the Church. Out of this flow the following commitments:

• to share a life together in mission and service, to pray for one another and to share resources;
• to welcome one another’s members and to offer hospitality in worship and church life to members of our Churches when in one another’s countries;
• to welcome those who are ordained to minister as one of us with us by invitation and in accordance with regulations obtaining in respective churches from time to time;
• to explore together important matters of faith and order, life and work.

Tonight this Agreement which has been operative for the last ten years makes fresh history in St Salvator’s Parish, in the Diocese of Clogher and in the Donagh and Ematris Groups of Parishes because an individual under the provisions of The Porvoo Agreement takes responsibility for the first time for the oversight of a parish in the Church of Ireland. And this is a genuine first. It is a credit to the pioneering spirit of both Parishes and to the adventurous commitment of the Reverend Marianne Witting that this is now happening. It is of a piece with the reputation for openness and positive thinking of the people of County Monaghan that this is happening here in their midst. I know that Marianne has already enjoyed and appreciated here in Glaslough the open welcome which Porvoo had indeed hoped would come to pass. Let us hope that this friendship is but the beginning of good things and strong links to come between the Diocese of Clogher and the Church of Sweden in the years ahead at all levels of church life.

And what of Marianne? The members of both Parishes will find in her someone of considerable compassion, of great pastoral sensitivity, of generous personality and of strong faith. Her life’s work has been in the pastoral ministry of the church and she brings with her the experience of more than thirty years of service. Her early training was in the University of Lund and it was in the Diocese of Lund that Marianne was ordained. Her studies have continued throughout her ministry, she has always sought to further her education to develop her service. As well as working in the Church of Sweden, Marianne has served in Germany, in England and in the Philippines. Her personality keeps pace with her commitment to meet others in their situation in life. Her interest in and love for people strikes anyone who meets her immediately. In herself and in her ministry she exemplifies the saying of Dame Janet Baker: Never sing louder than lovely! I have great confidence that Marianne will give in this Diocese and in these two Parishes in the same spirit as she will receive – generously, faithfully, openly and Godly. It is with great pleasure that I welcome her to Clogher Diocese and I wish her every blessing in a sojourn which I suspect will be all too short both for her and for us.

The prophecy of Isaiah which we have heard this evening heralds a fresh ministry. It points us to a joyous future and it does so on the basis of trust. Indeed it is the Lord who says: For I, the Lord your God, take you by the right hand and say to you, Have no fear. It is I who help you.(Is.41.13) Into this world the same Lord brings a strength which is powerful and gentle all at once. As we receive him in his infancy so we receive him in his glory. That big, strong word redemption brings not only the ability to thresh mountains and crush them to dust but also the discovery of water in unlikely desert places, the growth of trees where previously there was no vegetation and most important of all the provision of water for the poor and the needy. Redemption, Isaiah tells us, is not something abstract, not something up there or out there but something total and lively: the creation of the Holy One of Israel.

John the Baptizer comes to life for us in the Gospel of St Matthew. The writer pulls no punches. John’s credentials in the Scripture are unassailable. He fulfils the work of herald and of the one who will prepare the way ahead of the Messiah. He comes at a time when there is great violence on earth, a violence which bombards the Kingdom of God. But this is hardly surprizing because in John the time-scale has been brought sharply into new focus. It is not a question now of looking to the future, of luxuriating in speculation, of having recourse to delaying tactics. No, there is an urgency to sing lovely when others are singing loudly or not singing at all.

In our day we need to avoid the joyless, graceless description of a religion gone sour and sullen as Jesus describes his own contemporary generation:

We piped for you and you would not dance,
We lamented, and you would not mourn.

Here is described a generation which no longer has the capacity to read the signs and to respond one way or the other – a definition we might say of spiritual stagnation in the name of religion. And is it any wonder that the world looks at us in amazement as it passes us by? We need today to be very careful to sing no louder than lovely. We as neighbours in Christ and as citizens of the world need to listen to one another respectfully as we sing. Being out of harmony is, we are discovering, more painful than ever we had imagined. Hectoring hatred is not the way of the Lord of Life. The megaphone is a poor diplomat.

My final suggestion is one of encouragement to parishioners and to Marianne alike. All of you together have now the glorious opportunity to get to know one another, to get to know the Lord Jesus in his all-redeeming love as neighbours, as friends, a children of God and as those who implement here and now the Porvoo Agreement. As Advent moves forward to Christmas and to Epiphany, as a New Year begins to raise its head, it is the time for us, in the spirit of the Gospel of today, to take up in anticipation the words of a Christmas Hymn and to sing:

All out of darkness we have light,
Which made the angels sing this night;
Glory to God, on earth be peace,
Goodwill to all shall never cease.

This is where the hope of Advent finds its expression. The voice of angels becomes our voice as we hail the Christ-child in a spirit where, as Dame Janet Baker suggested, we never sing louder than lovely. Let our singing and our living walk in harmony, in peace and in love.