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Good Morning A People’s Football Choir has been assembled to sing the FA Cup Final Hymn Abide with Me at Wembley this afternoon. The ��ѿ��ý programme Songs of Praise organised a competition to assemble the choir. 64 people, each representing a club which reached the third round of the Cup this year, will sing in front of 90,000 people. Amongst those who bagged a place are two Elvis impersonators, a vicar, a survivor of the Hillsborough Tragedy and Jim Errington representing Newcastle United who is 100 years old. Quite a sound we can expect then! Abide With Me speaks of life being but a fleeting moment, with its twists and turns, ups and downs and yet, in the midst of “change” and “decay”, when other helpers flee, there is an enduring and ever faithful God. It’s still very popular at many funerals. Hymns are strange things really. For even when people are expressing their faith in many new and exciting [rather than traditional] ways or in no way at all - hymns still seem to have an attraction. They are part of our culture and psyche and remind people perhaps of their school days, life’s key moments, their loved ones. They still connect. But surely the most essential thing about hymn singing is the sharing in it with other people. Way back in the 8th Century BC in the Jewish Temple it was the Old Testament psalms which provided worshippers with perhaps the first ever hymn book. And, almost a thousand years later, as Christian pilgrims approached Jerusalem they too fervently joined in the communal act of singing the great psalms of assent praying for the peace of Jerusalem. Community Choirs have never been more popular. Joseph Gelineau, the French Jesuit Scholar, suggests that if worship really is a symbolic activity in which a crowd expresses its faith then, and I quote, “it follows that any singing or music must belong to the believing people as a whole and not remain the special preserve of a chosen few, be they clerics and musicians.” Hymns belong to everyone. They are the people’s song. So – for the FA Cup today – the hymn is Abide with Me. At the international level of football, for FIFA – perhaps after yesterday’s election which is all over the papers this morning – I’ve chosen “Through the Night of Doubt and Sorrow”. For the Today programme team chasing all those important interviews “Lord of All Hopefulness” is highly appropriate. But as we shall hear shortly before kick off at 3pm this afternoon with the people’s football choir, a great hymn can bring a diverse crowd of people together. I will be watching. And listening.