"Sing Songs of Impossibility"

Psalm 98

Take a look at this morning's printed Order of Worship.  Directly under today's date is an italicized phrase that describes what we are doing in this sacred hour.  Let's read it in unison: Gathering with Praise.  That description of our worship does not change from Sunday to Sunday.  Sure, worship varies significantly, depending on the season and other circumstances, but worship is always a gathering with praise.  Yes, worship has other elements:  confession, intercession, sometimes even lament—but all these other elements of worship are wrapped in a mantle of praise, thanksgiving and joy.

That explains the place of music in worship. The sound of praise is music.  Praise and thanksgiving simply cannot gain their full expression apart from music. The stories and psalms of the Old Testament reverberate with the sounds of instruments and singing.  Today's Psalm declares, "Sing praise to the Lord with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpet and the sound of the horn, make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord."  That's why worship began this morning with the melody of the flute, followed by voices lifted in song.  We can't imagine worship that is not punctuated from beginning to end with music.

Those of you who are seasoned Presbyterians and cut your theological eye teeth on the Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith may not remember much of that Catechism, but I’ll bet you'll never forget the answer to the catechism's first question:  What is the chief end of man?  Answer:  “To glorify God and enjoy him forever."  Praise, then, is the heartbeat of the Christian life.  Every Sunday is celebration Sunday.  Worship is, first and foremost, a gathering with praise. 

But does this sound a little Pollyanna?  Are people who gather with praise out of touch with reality?  How can we sing a new song and expect all the earth to make a joyful noise, when the earth and its people are crying out in anguish?  Leading ecologists point out that within the next 50 to 100 years, it is estimated that more than 50% of all species will be lost or endangered.  The fisheries of the oceans will be completely depleted within the next 50 to 100 years under current conditions of exploitation and water pollution. And the human species will face unprecedented obstacles as rising populations compete for diminishing resources of water, energy and land.

The birds, the fish, and all living creatures of the earth--and indeed the earth itself--are talking to us.  But for the most part, they are not making a joyful noise. They are telling us that the earth is sick and its members are endangered.  In one of the Psalms, the psalmist asks, "How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"  Today we might ask, "How can we and all the living creatures make a joyful noise when our planet is running a fee r and its future endangered.  Given the sickness of our world, it's tempting to give in to mindset of pessimism and a spirit of despair.

Yet, as the Bible so often does, Psalm 98 offers a counter-intuitive piece of advice: Don’t go there.  Do not give in to the spirit of despair.  Resist the temptation of discouragement.  Notice that, in Psalm 98, the songs of joy arise when they remember God's steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. While the occasion of Psalm 98 is not specified, the Psalmist may be celebrating the return of the exiles from Babylon. Throughout the scriptures, songs of praise celebrate God's ongoing reversal of the way things are. In the beginning, God turned darkness and chaos into light and order and the morning stars sang for joy. God reversed the fortunes of the Hebrew slaves bringing them out of slavery into the freedom of the promised land.  Once freed, Moses and the Israelites sang to the Lord:  "The Lord is my strength and my might and God has become my salvation…"  Barren women—Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth—become joyous mothers, singing, "My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God."  A virgin conceives and sings to the Lord: "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior…He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty…"   And we Christians gather every Sunday to celebrate God's definitive reversal:  the crucified one has risen.  Such an impossible wonder is too great for spoken words alone; it has to be sung:  "Christ the Lord is risen today, Allelulia!"  In Psalm 98, and throughout the scriptures, joy breaks forth when people remember that God has done and will do marvelous things.

In an essay on the praise and thanksgiving in the psalms, Patrick Miller wrote:  "In a world that assumes the status is quo, that things have to be the way they are and that we must not assume too much about improving them, the doxologies of God's people are fundamental indicators that wonders have not ceased, that possibilities not yet dreamt of will happen, and that hope is an authentic stance." Walter Brueggemann called psalms such as Psalm 98, "songs of impossibility."  That is, they witness to transformations too wonderful for any human capability to bring off.  So whenever the church sings these "songs of impossibility," we are announcing to the world that we don't accept the pervasive assessment that the world is doomed, that destruction and violence will have the last word. We sing, not because all is well, but because we believe in God, who gives life in the face of death, fertility where there was barrenness, newness where, humanly speaking, the options had run out.  

And remember:  praise leads us into service and service gives rise to praise.  We who believe God will bring the creation to a glorious crescendo are called to play our part in God's symphony.  It is theologically inconsistent and morally irresponsibility to sing a hymn of praise for the earth and all its creatures--for the sea, the hills and the rivers--if we are not working to protect them. The Psalmist gives us a beautiful vision of a restored, joyful creation in order that we might live toward the fulfillment of that vision. Chris Goodall, who has written a book called How to Live a Low-Carbon Life believes the churches have a crucial role in protecting the environment.  He issued a challenge to the churches in a recent Christian Century article:  "God placed us here among the abundance and beauty of the earth. God gave us the responsibility for stewardship of the planet  This means looking after its atmosphere as well as its soils, its forests and its water supplies…We would get our life's satisfaction from knowing that we were part of a movement to nurture God's creation, not progressively to exhaust it."  A community that praises God for the creation is a community working with God to restore the creation.

So let us sing, sing to the Lord a new song.  Sing songs of impossibility.  Sing songs because God is good and God's steadfast love endures forever.  Sing with joy to God who loves the creation and will not abandon it. Sing to the Lord, and serve the Lord with gladness.  Let us join with all creation and make a joyful sound as we stand and sing together…

All people that on earth do dwell.  Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

Serve God with mirth, God's praise forth tell, come ye before God and rejoice.