One Song
Psalm 98
The Power of One. That has been our theme during this season of Easter. One heart, one touch, one source, one vine, one song, one name and one Spirit. Our hope in providing this series is that we begin to sense the connections that make us one – between us and God’s presence, as well as the commonalities that draw us together as one – that are so compelling. I chose the Psalm reading for today because it talks about the power of one song.
Make a joyful noise… it doesn’t have to be pretty.
What unites the song is joy. In the psalm everything joins together in joy: the sea resounds, the rivers clap their hands, the mountains sing. We may use anything handy to make melody – a harp, a trumpet, a ram’s horn. In the older testament praise is often seen as the natural anticipated response of creation for the Creator. It is one expression of the song of the soul.
From the songs of Moses in the book of Exodus before the Ark of the Covenant to the book of Revelation which describes “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne [God] and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’” The Bible describes the effects of the one song on God’s people. The one song has found many voices, many words, many expressions and many different kinds of singers.
But here’s the surprising thing: The psalm describes joyful praise yet it is part of a section of the book of Psalms (Book IV, Psalm 90-106) that was “shaped in part to respond to the crisis of exile and its aftermath.” In other words, it wasn’t written to celebrate a happy event; it was written for people who were in the midst of hard times. Even in hard times, there is one song.
When the ten couples made the decision to go to Iowa on our Marriage Equality Ride two weeks ago, it was a happy event. There were lots of smiles, singing, laughter, excitement. But what you may not know, as Paul Harvey used to say, is the rest of the story. There were also consequences for some of the couples. Two of the individuals getting married were not out to their employer. Now they are. At least one couple has gotten significant push-back from their family of origin, who were horrified to see their child on the news. Three individuals who got married are facing significant health issues. Not everyone shared our joy at making history. Not everyone in the GLBTQ community is convinced that the institution of any marriage is a good thing, yet we were part of the song. And you can be sure that when the conservative religious propaganda machine starts churning, some of our pictures will be front and center as some of the chief villains. Still, the riders on that bus had a song in their heart.
Sometimes we sing out of joy. (praise) Sometimes we sing out of pain. (lament) Sometimes we sing out of defiance... sometimes to remind ourselves that our voices still work. This song is subversive. It has a way of luring others into the melody, hiding in the recesses of the brain and surprising us when least expected that even when we feel separated, the song connects us to our core and to our community. This song is also an act of faith. When your voice has been silenced… when your heart is broken… when you don’t know how to express what is happening inside… the melody sometimes touches us in those deep places that reconnect the dots of our experience.
In Reflections on Psalms (pg. 93-95), C.S. Lewis describes why this song erupts from us as praise to God: “I thought of [praise] in terms of compliment, approval or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise – lovers praising their [beloved], readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars... My whole, more general difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.
“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.”
The power of one is this mystical, amazing song that is within us that is bursting to come forth. Some may hear it as a not-so-joyful noise. Some may criticize our melody. Some may demand we sing the song the way they remember it being written. God has uniquely placed the song within each of us so that our delight might be completely expressed… and God’s joy might be completely experienced.
Sources:
www.homileticsonline.com Smile Unto the Lord a New Smile, May 2009.