So today was the day for my first sermon of my summer internship. Make of it what you will. I should also acknowledge that while what is below is mostly what got preached, I did do perhaps an unusual bit of off-the-cuff editing and rephrasing that may not be reflected below.
Charles S. Freeman
Ashland Presbyterian
Church
June 9, 2013 (Ordinary
10C)
Psalm 146; Luke 7:11-17
Where Praise
Ultimately Leads Us
Thank you for your
help in reading today’s scripture, both congregation and choir. I hope this will serve to remind us
that the psalms we read in scripture were far more than words on a page to the
Israelites; this was the stuff of worship in the Temple, particularly for those
who returned from the exile period, whether in the mouth of priest or people or
choir, the Psalms were a virtual compilation of the emotional experiences of
Israel – praise, rejoicing, lamentation, anger, despair, confusion; all of
these and more are found in the Psalms, and these were regularly and
insistently words of worship.
Hold on to that thought, particularly when we get toward the end of the
sermon.
It was almost nine
years ago when my career, or what I assumed would be my lifelong career, began
at a small evangelical college in south Florida. As a music history teacher I knew that at such a small
school I’d be required to teach something outside of that area of expertise,
and was relieved when that turned out to be an occasional class in church
music. I at least had a degree in
that, even if I hadn’t worked in it for years.
What I discovered,
though, was that my knowledge of the contemporary scene was severely lacking. I knew that “contemporary” worship was a
thing, but I certainly had not been plunged into it to the degree that it
seemed to pervade the area around West Palm Beach. My awareness of my ignorance was only deepened by the influx
of students who, being so immersed in modern traditions of “praise and
worship,” didn’t even know a basic Protestant hymn like “A mighty fortress is our
God.”
Ultimately I felt
I had to do some research, which took me to the largest contemporary-style
megachurch in the area. Even
before the event got started, my eyes registered shock at what I saw: a
bandstand set up for something like the pit orchestra at a Broadway musical,
and a platform (no pulpit) decked out to resemble a football field, complete
with yard markers and a fake set of goalposts at one end. It turned out that the pastor was a
friend and confidant of Bobby Bowden, still the football coach at Florida State
then and kind of a big deal. This
pastor had written a book on the “life lessons of football” gleaned from that
experience, and was in the midst of a series of sermons drawn from that
book.
Aside from the
visual shock and the alien (to me) experience of the service, though, one
nagging problem stayed with me from that experience. Both before and during the event the service was referred to
as one of “praise and worship.”
This sounded odd to me. Are
those two really separable? If you’re going to speak of them separately, what does
it mean to isolate “praise” as a separable event unto itself? Then, what is the result of “praise,”
or what should be the result?
The question
didn’t go away in the intervening years, even as I moved from that school and
wasn’t teaching church music anymore.
Naturally, this new vocation has revived that question with particular
urgency, as I am preparing to be, among many other things, a leader of
worship. “Praise” might be a scary
word for folks in a denomination that has, to be honest, sometimes earned the
unpleasant nickname “frozen chosen,” but we need to know what it means and
where the act of praise will lead us as a church.
The Psalms have a
lot to say on the subject. Indeed,
large chunks of that book consist of psalms dedicated to praise, including the
final five psalms in the collection, each beginning with the exclamation “hallelu
ya,” most simply translated as “praise Yahweh.” In today’s psalm, the first of that final five, the
exclamation of praise leads the psalmist to places that our modern ears might
not expect.
It turns out that
this praise of which the psalmist speaks is something far more than a bunch of
words. It comes from not the mind
or even the heart, but the soul.
In the period in which the psalmist is writing, the “soul” is that place
deep within, what we might call our “innermost being” or “the deepest part of
me,” if you’re writing a pop song.
The soul was the innermost essence of one’s person. Praise comes from deep within, in other
words, and simply cannot be frivolous.
It is also without
end, as the psalmist declares; “as long as I live,” “all my life long” –
repeated for emphasis, no less. Clearly,
to the psalmist, praise is a deep and profound thing, not at all to be taken
lightly.
At this point the
psalmist takes what seems a curious turn.
From this expression of the profundity of praise, we are suddenly
confronted with a warning about the fallibility of mortals and their mortal
plans. Indeed, for the next seven
verses, what opened as a psalm of praise suddenly becomes at least a couple of
different psalms. First is this
curious, but clearly important statement, a warning not to trust the doings of
“princes” – we can substitute “leaders” here – who are, after all, as mortal
and fallible as the rest of us.
Even the best of leaders is ultimately mortal; even their very best laid
plans perish with them.
From this bit of
wisdom, the kind of line that sounds more like Proverbs than Psalms, we move to
the heart of the psalm; an acclamation of the Lord, the One who is indeed
worthy of our praise and trust. The
previous thought, the one about not trusting leaders or mortals, is completed
by the declaration that happiness (or blessedness, or contentment, depending on
how you read the Hebrew) is the lot of the one whose trust is in the Lord
instead of those failing human mortals.
What follows
initially is something of a formula; the attributes of God in language borrowed
from the writings of lawgivers and prophets. Speaking of the Lord ‘who made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that is in them’ is using language that goes all the way back to
Exodus. The psalmist invokes some
of the most ancient language about God in the possession of the Israelites to
begin the process of naming the praiseworthy attributes of God.
Quickly, though,
the language about God the creator gives way to something else. The litany of God’s praiseworthy
attributes shifts from God’s act of creation to God’s action among creation –
action that is couched in the language of Israel’s prophets. From Isaiah to Amos to Micah to
Ezekiel, the prophets of Israel and Judah spoke unswervingly of God as a God
who demanded justice. The prophets
condemned kings who denied justice to their people; they condemned priests and
other religious rulers who did not live up to the commands of God’s
justice.
But ‘justice’ here
is not merely a legal concept. The
psalmist expands the ongoing action of God into an extensive litany of God’s
actions in favor of those who are somehow burdened or oppressed by
society. The hungry are fed;
prisoners are freed; the blind receive sight; the bowed down are lifted up; the
righteous are loved; the strangers and orphans and widows are lifted up. The prophets use this language over and
over again – Isaiah, Malachi, Micah and more – but the history of the Hebrew
people also evokes this defense and support of the downtrodden. We could have read the story of Elijah
and the widow, the one with the oil and meal about to run out; God directs
Elijah to go to that widow’s home, where he not only guarantees that the oil
and meal do not run out, but brings the widow’s son back to life when he passes
away. The story we did hear, from
Luke’s account of Jesus’s raising of a widow’s dead son, gives us one small
example of how this concern for the widow – a frequent representative of the
oppressed or downtrodden in the scriptures – continues to resonate in the
ongoing history of Israel. Here,
the psalmist has taken this language drawn from history and prophets and made
it an ongoing declaration in the worshiping life of the people of Israel and
Judah.
The psalm wraps
with a warning that the ways of the wicked are put to rout, and returns for a
final exclamation of praise to the Lord.
What may look like
a digression on the surface turns out to be a spectacular and very challenging
claim about what it means to say “praise the Lord.” Let’s take stock for just a moment: praise comes from the
deepest part of us, for the whole duration of our lives. To say “praise the Lord” is to declare
that we humans, no matter how worthy or well-intentioned, are just not worthy
of that praise – we’re too fallible or too mortal for it. Only the Lord is worthy of that praise,
and only trust in that Lord can content the human soul. We praise the Lord because of what the
Lord has done, whether in creation of all that is or in God’s ongoing and
insistent defense of those whom the world consistently puts down or kicks
around.
Now, remember how
this sermon began, with the Psalm presented with music and with everybody
participating in its recitation.
This psalm, like others, was part of the worship of Israel. For a nation that was constantly
threatened and besieged by its neighbors, to say “praise the Lord” as part of
worship was no small thing—it was to refuse to say “praise to the emperor” or
“praise to the king” of those bullying neighbors or even to your own king. It was to refuse to say “praise to” any
human, ruler or otherwise, who dared claim power or authority as their
own. It was to refuse to say
“praise to” anyone who would oppress the orphan, exploit the widow, refuse
welcome to the stranger in the land, deny food to the hungry. It was to reserve praise, finally, to
the only One whose reign was unlimited by human mortality, and to refuse praise
to any would-be princes who, no matter their grand claims to deserve praise,
would in the end be every bit as mortal as the prince that came before. As the biblical scholar Walter
Brueggemann puts it, “Israel cannot praise Yawheh very long without embracing
the core agenda of well-being for God’s beloved creatures.”[i]
OK, that’s all
fine and good for ancient Israel, but what about us? Is this psalm any less challenging and maybe even dangerous
for us here in twenty-first century Ashland, Virginia, than for them?
Can we, with a
gubernatorial campaign bearing down on us, claim to be free of would-be leaders
making grand demands for our praise and affection?
Cane we, living in
some of the most beautiful country around, claim to be independent of the One
who created all of that beauty we so admire and cherish?
Can we, living in
twenty-first century America, claim to have solved all of the problems of
homelessness and hunger, children without parents and overflowing prisons,
people—children of God—living in horrifying abuse, neglect, poverty,
degradation?
Clearly this
church does not shy away from facing the needs of the world. Only this week a number of our members
took a turn providing meals for women served by CARITAS, women without homes or
jobs, many having suffered abuse in the past. Many bring food, as we can see just to my right, for those
who otherwise would be without. We
as a church or as individuals may yet find more needs in the community around
us that we, small church that we are, might be able to step up and help
fill. Our cry of “praise the Lord”
in this sanctuary thus takes on feet and hands, moving out and reaching out to
comfort and uplift those for whom the Lord consistently declares divine favor. This is not merely a good thing; it is
a necessary thing, if our praise is to be anything other than empty, pointless
prattle.
Walter Brueggemann
concludes his study of Psalm 146 with this comment:
Behind human management
lies liberated imagination. Behind
memo lies poetry. Behind money
stands mouth. In its praise, the
church is big-mouthed. This
company of singers must find its mouth and its voice, and then put its money (I
would add “and its hands and feet”) where its mouth is.[ii]
We say “praise the
Lord.” We sing “Praise to the
Lord, the Almighty.” Let it never
be said of us that our praise remains trapped in this sanctuary, never getting
outside these doors to do any good in the world. Let it never be said that our praise is just noise, divorced
from action. Let it always be said that when it comes to
knowing what praising the Lord really means, when it comes to loving and
serving the unloved and abused and neglected, those whom God insists on loving
as his own and demanding that we share that love as well – let it always be
said that we put our money, our hands, and our feet where our God-praising
mouth is.
In the name of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Hymns (PH): Praise ye
the Lord, the Almighty (482); As those of old their firstfruits brought (414);
We all are one in mission (435); also, the psalm was read with refrain
according to the setting at 254.
[i] Walter
Brueggemann, “Praise & the Psalms: A Politics of Glad Abandonment,” Part
II, The Hymn 43:4 (October 1992), 16.
[ii] Ibid.
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