Tuesday, May 15, 2012

"The New and Ancient Song"


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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