Church Bells - Rev. Jerry Eve
On Thursday evenings at 8 o’clock, standing outside the Busby Manse on Carmunnock Road applauding the NHS, we can hear the sound of two bells; one from Busby Church and the other from Carmunnock Church. And, some weeks one is louder than the other, and other weeks it’s the other way round. It depends, I think, on which way the wind is blowing. It’s great that we’re able to do this, and my thanks to those from each congregation who are so faithful in this regard.
In Busby Church there are actually two bells. One is the one you hear from the belfry, and then we’ve another that used to hang in a belfry on the roof of Busby East Parish Church. When Busby East and Busby West then united thirty years ago in 1990 to become just Busby, the East building was sold, the belfry was taken down, and ever since the bell has been on display in Busby Church. It always looks to me quite forlorn, and it’s my hope somehow that one day it will ring out across our community once again.
Bells are mentioned in the Bible in a number of places, but not church bells as such. In Exodus, for example, we have bells sewn onto the hem of garments worn by priests (so that God can hear them coming, which I think is quite funny). And then in 1 Corinthians 13 we have that famous passage which begins, ‘If I have no love, my speech is no more than a clanging bell.’
Which seems quite a negative reference, and yet once bells began to be placed in the towers of church buildings from 400 AD onwards, beginning in southern Italy, the sound they made started to take on a significance that might have surprised St Paul. Introduced initially by Paulinus, who was Bishop of Nola, their role has become so important at times that, blessed by clergy before they are used, some have referred to this ceremony as a baptism.
But bells do have a shoulder, waist, lip and mouth, and the clapper has often been likened to a person’s tongue. What’s more, they often have names. It’s their function, though, that has led to this change of status, for their principal role is an evangelical one: calling people to Church on Sunday morning, marking those most important moments in people’s lives (when they are baptised and married and remembered) sounding out danger if necessary, and now applauding those who keep us well, and if we are ill help us to get better.
Although it has a secular function, even the famous Liberty Bell in Philadelphia bearing an inscription from the Bible, and from Leviticus 25:10: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land (it says) unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
Let us pray:
God, if I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning, I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land.
If I had a bell, I'd ring it in the morning, I'd ring it in the evening, all over this land.
If I had a song, I'd sing it in the morning, I'd sing it in the evening, all over this land.
I'd hammer out danger, I'd ring out a warning, I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land.
Well I got a hammer, and I got a bell, and I got a song to sing, all over this land.
It's the hammer of Justice, it's the bell of Freedom, it's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land, Amen