May
13, 2012
PSALM
98:1-9
1 O sing to the LORD a new song,
for
he has done marvelous things.
His
right hand and his holy arm
have
gained him victory.
2 The
LORD has made known his victory;
he
has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations.
3 He
has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All
the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God.
4 Make
a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
break
forth into joyous song and sing praises.
5 Sing
praises to the LORD with the lyre,
with
the lyre and the sound of melody.
6 With trumpets and the
sound of the horn
make
a joyful noise before the King, the LORD.
7 Let
the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the
world and those who live in it.
8 Let
the floods clap their hands;
let
the hills sing together for joy
9 at
the presence of the LORD, for he is coming to judge the earth.
He
will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
SERMON:
His
name is Henry. He lives in Cobble Hill
Center, a nursing home in Brooklyn.
Henry’s been there for ten years, since his seizures required more care
than his wife could give him at home.
His days, weeks and years are spent hunched over in his wheelchair, arms
crossed, unable to recognize his own daughter
and
unable to even speak beyond a few grunts.
A therapist describes him as inert, unresponsive and “almost
unalive.”
But
one day, Henry wakes up. It is not a
picture, his family or coffee that wakes Henry up. It is music: all his favorite spirituals and
old songs coursing through the headphones of the ipod a therapist gave
him. The effect is immediate.
The
man who was “almost unalive” sat upright, opened his eyes wide and began to
sing along with the music, swaying to its rhythms. Henry was caught up in the rapture of those
familiar sounds, and his body involuntarily responded, shaking off the cobwebs
of dementia and depression. And even
after the headphones were removed, Henry remained more lucid than before, able
to answer questions and carry on a conversation, continuing to sing his
favorite songs. He remembered who he was
and became Henry once more. Music
reaches us at the depths of our souls, waking us up, freeing our emotions,
stirring memories within us.
Perhaps
this is why Psalm 98 makes fifteen references to music in only nine
verses. With quickening poetry, it urges
us to sing a song to the God who has done marvelous things. Like those spirituals seeping through Henry’s
headphones, it resonates through our entire being: Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth!
It
calls us to not only remember who we are, but promises us that, in this joyful
song of praise, God remembers who God is, too.
That memory is of One who brings steadfast love and faithfulness to the
ends of the earth. We are called to
praise what God has done in the past, while at the same time singing a new song
of God’s saving work among us today.
All of creation joins in this song: the sea roars with undulating waves,
the floods clap their watery hands, the grassy hills sing together in joy in
the presence of God, the only one who judges this world fairly. Praise is offered to our Creator by all of
creation.
“Praise”
is one of those parts of the Christian vocabulary that has in many ways lost
its impact and meaning. Thomas Merton
captured this well, when he wrote:
Praise is cheap,
today. Everything is praised. Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash,
movie stars, all the latest gadgets which are supposed to make life more
comfortable -- everything is constantly being "praised". Praise is
now so overdone that everybody is sick of it, and since everything is "praised"
. . . nothing is praised. Praise has become empty . . . Are there any
superlatives left for God?
If
there are any superlatives left for God, any words of true praise, we are going
to have to re-learn them from those who began this song of praise from the
first moment that God made them and called them good: from nature. We will learn this ancient song from the
sound of wind through trees, showing us that loudness and importance are not
one and the same. This ancient song of
praise is sung in moonlight that stubbornly illumines the darkness, refusing to
let it have the last word. Its cadences
echo in the taste of sun-warmed, sweet strawberries this time of year. It is sung in the wonder of children chasing
butterflies, in the strength of mothers whether they care for children of their
own or treat the entire world as their family.
It
is sung in the persistent grass that pushes up through concrete, reaching
toward the sky.
Can
you hear it? It is the song of
community, where our survival is dependent on one another. It is the song of healing, where the cold
dark of winter promises the gift of spring’s sunshine. It is the song of hope that night will not
last forever, but that day will always come.
It is the song of stewardship, reminding us that abusing the gifts of
God’s creation will only leave this earth in ruin and our souls in the
wilderness of never being satisfied.
Creation
praises God with spontaneity, not with well-rehearsed words but with the glory
of being fully alive. And it is only
when we open our ears and hearts to hear this ancient song bursting forth all
around us that we can begin to sing a new song to our Creator.
But
how can we possibly sing a new song of praise?
How can we sing when all around us anger and fear seep into any crack in
our identities? What joyful noise can
there be in the face of illness, the loss of loved ones and a world consumed
with war and greed? How are we supposed
to sing when we find it hard to pray, when our own voice seems as foreign as God’s? Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the
earth. Perhaps, like Henry before his
music, we can squeak out an unintelligible noise in the midst of AIDS, car
accidents and cancer. But a joyful
noise? At best it feels forced and at
worst a lie.
And
yet Psalm 98 invites us – compels us – to join this song of joy. We join this song by sitting in the shade of
a tree, by growing food and sharing it with others, by taking a moment to look
above all of our worries and fears to the brilliant blue sky. We join this song by silencing the television
and being quiet and still long enough to hear birds singing. By turning off the icy air-conditioner (that
makes us put on a sweater) and instead flinging open the windows to let the
breeze in. By building friendships not
just on facebook but in actual conversation in grocery store lines and post
office parking lots. By using only what
we need instead of contributing to a culture where everything is disposable.
When
we allow ourselves to hear this song of creation, we will also begin to hear
the voice of our Creator. Like Henry,
our souls will awake from the paralysis of doubt or distraction and we will
sway to those naturally divine rhythms, finding our voices once again, joining
in the joyful new and ancient song of praise.
When
you hear that song of praise sung, in the simplest of things, it echoes in your
head forever. I heard it from a Romanian
child while serving as a mission worker in Northern Ireland. A few of us from the church I served decided
to take a family of Roma children we’d been working with on a little day trip
to the beach. They were from a very poor
village in Romania, and now lived in a dingy, crowded flat and told us that
they had never seen the ocean. So to the
beach we went!
Once
we got out of the car, we got all bundled up (it was an Irish beach, after all)
and walked along the boardwalk to the water.
As soon as one of the boys saw it, he began running and, shoes and all,
plunged his feet into that icy water. He
stared and pointed as the waves rushed over his shoes, smiling and giggling
(until the frigid water seeped into his socks).
I will never forget the look of joyful wonder on his face. His song of praise and delight was
contagious.
Our
Creator constantly invites us to lives of wonder and delight, if only we will
run with wild abandon – abandoning our limitations and fears – to explore all
God has made. Earth is full of the stuff
of heaven: we have only to open our eyes to see God’s handiwork all around us,
open our mouths in gratitude to the One who creates still, and open our hearts
to nurture and care for this good earth.
O sing to the LORD a
new song,
for God has done –
and is doing -- marvelous things.
Alleluia! Amen.
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