Sermon for 6th Easter Sunday
Just Sing
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
My Mom, Doris Shafer, was a singer. At age 16 she had her own 30-minute program live on the radio in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Just my Mom and a pianist, singing the hit tunes of 1932. When the big bands came to town, Tommy Dorsey or Benny Goodman, my Mom was the local singer, the local “canary” as she told me it was called, who got to sing with the visiting big bands.
Mom gave up semi-professional singing by the time she went to college. She was never famous. But, she never lost her love of pop music and singing and instilled that love into my older brother, Byron, and me.
As I read the psalm assigned for this Sunday, Psalm 98, I could not help but think of Mom and the importance of singing:
Refrain: Sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done wonderful deeds. Sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done wonderful deeds.
Verse 1: Sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done marvelous deeds; whose right hand has won the victory for us, God’s holy arm. (Refrain)
The psalm instructs people to sing songs to the Lord, because of the marvelous things that God has done. Recalling historic victories in battles and celebrating a longstanding special relationship with God, the psalm wants the people to sing because of the Lord's past record of showing steadfast love to them.
This psalm wants us take notice of the things that have already happened. Remember all of those past sunshiny days? Remember when you felt victorious? Those days when we were on top? Remember those? Let's sing with gratitude like we're still living in those days. Let's sing to the Lord and let God know that we have not forgotten all of the battles that we have won.
The message in the beginning verses of Psalm 98 is simple: God has done great things for God’s people. Because of this and this alone, God’s people ought to sing.
This all made sense to many of those this psalm addressed when it was written many years ago. They believed that God was responsible for their victories in battle and they believed that the might of God was expressed in the form of smiting their enemies. So, with images of past sunshiny days running through their minds like a slideshow presentation, I'm sure that many of them began to sing to God.
Verse 2: The Lord has made salvation known, and justice revealed to all, remembering kindness and faithfulness to Israel.
(Refrain)
Verse 3: All the ends of the earth have seen salvation by our God. Joyfully sing out all you lands, break forth in song. (Refrain)
But then the lyricist makes this beautiful turn and changes the rationale for the invitation to sing. It is as if able to foretell a future when critics would rightfully balk against singing praises to God for selecting one group of people over another. It is as if suddenly realizing that people have reasons to sing even when they are no longer on top, even when the sun is not shining, even when they are captured and living in exile. With all of this in mind, the psalm still realizes that there is still good reason even in tough times to sing and shifts the narrative.
No longer is the singing to be in celebration of past bloody battles won. Instead, the lyricist invites all of creation to sing praises to God, because of who God truly is: A God who will come and judge the world with righteousness and equity for everyone.
Sing no matter your position or station in the world. Sing to the Lord because the God that we are singing to, our God does not play favorites! Sing to God, because the One who created all things will come again and restore equity to all. Sing to God, even on the rainy days, even when you know that you're not on top. Sing to God because you have hope of a future when God makes the hills low and lifts up the valleys so that we all are on the same level - able to see each other, just as we are: all made in the image of the One who created us.
Sing to the Lord with harp and song, with trumpet and with horn. Sing in your joy before the king, the king, our Lord.
Sing, says the psalm, and just in case singing is not your thing, this psalm gives us permission to simply make a joyful noise! You need not sing in four-part harmony - any joyful noise will do. The invitation is to make joy with whatever instrument one has. If you're human, you can pick up the brass and stringed instruments. If you are the sea and the creatures therein, roar your praise; floods, clap the earth with song. Whatever and wherever you are, give praise to the God whose might is made known through displays of a radical love for everyone.
This does not mean that all of us do not have some, even many, difficult days. Not all days are filled with sunshine. Our lives can be very hard. They can be filled with disappointment and grief, illness and loss. Those things are real.
My dear friend, the Rev. Dr. H. George Anderson, former Presiding Bishop of our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, writes that, after his first wife, Sunny, died of cancer, Bishop Anderson found he could not pray and sing. He just was too tied up in his grief. However, Bishop Anderson writes, he still came to worship and allowed the congregation to sing and pray for and around him. He allowed himself to be surrounded by his congregation’s prayers and their songs, until he himself could pray and sing again. Their prayers and songs, the Bishop writes, brought him back from his grief.
In our tough times, the temptation is always to clam up and take a vow of silence to say anything at all about or to God, even to stay away from the Christian community we call the church. However, that is not what Bishop Anderson did and it is not what this psalm is inviting us to do. Instead, this psalm invites us, even in the most difficult times of our lives, to sing a new song to God. This psalm is asking us to resist the impulse to become silent on those rainy days, and instead sing, not because of any easy story of the good ole days gone by, but to sing because of the hope that comes from the promise of a day when God will restore all things and all people.
Sing a new song to the Lord, our God. Sing because, even in the worst of times, we have the hope that comes from the promise of a new day when God will restore all things and all people.
God's grace is renewed every morning. God's faithfulness endures forever. And we respond with song.
Sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done wonderful deeds. Sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done wonderful deeds.
Amen.
(With thanks to the Rev. Kimberly S. Jackson and the “Day 1” radio ministry).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, May 5&6, 2018
