Psalm 98
“Make Some Noise”
August 16, 2020 Outdoor Service
My love for musicals developed early. I remember seeing Julie Andrews magically transformed in the movie Mary Poppins with my grandparents and my sister in Radio City Music Hall when I was 7 years old on a trip that also included my first subway ride. The record of The Sound of Music was played whenever we visited those same grandparents’ home. It was a big deal when West Side Story was shown on television for the first time when I was a freshman in high school, especially since it was my dad’s favorite.
Having folks break into song whether in a children’s nursery in London, on a mountainside in the Austrian Alps or on a rooftop in the upper west side of New York City is transporting and magical. More recently, finally seeing the images of some of America’s founding fathers after 4 years of only listening to the soundtrack of Hamilton, they added flesh and bones to the voices that explain so much of that part of our collective history, both the excitement of something new and the growing pains that were also experienced in our young democracy.
Most of all, there is joy to be found in a musical that has the power to make our hearts sing. The Psalmist here is proclaiming joy. The Psalms are poetry and song and prayer all rolled into one. This 98th Psalm is a musical celebration of all the magnificence that is God. Few of us walk down the street singing but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to, once in a great while, without folks hurrying to the other side of the road intentionally looking the other way or getting on their cell phones to report to the police that we’ve finally gone round the bend?
If these Psalms are music, the Psalmist here is striking up the band. This exuberant Psalm 98 is one we often miss in the Lectionary because it is used for Christmas Day when most of us in the Protestant tradition are at home listening to Christmas carols rather than sitting in Church except for those rare years when Christmas rolls around on a Sunday (we get another chance in 2022, y’all)
And how appropriate that it’s intended to be part of the Service of Worship on the day when we lift up our praise for our great God among us who came to the earth in the usual way as a hungry, crying baby and we do it with this call to sing out our joy. And this is only one of many places in the Bible that call for joyful music-making.
Patti started us off with This Is the Day, based on Psalm 118. Women and men sang of their love for each other in the Song of Solomon. God’s people would sing when lost lambs, possessions or even people were found. There was singing by the Israelites after they escaped the Egyptians and when they came back from being held captive in Babylonia. There was singing before going into battle and afterwards when they returned home victorious. Mary herself used a song to make her announcement that she would be giving birth to the Messiah.
While we are expressing our joy through music with rhythm instruments, clapping of hands and humming, we lean into Mary and Patti’s celebration with playing and singing. Mary’s love of music comes from the perspective that music often expresses what words sometimes can’t. She reminded me that most of us heard songs, even simple ones, from the time we were born or even before birth. So much music connects us – be it singing our ABCs or like Patti is able to do to sing the Books of the Bible or the song about the 50 States in alphabetical order.
Patti also shared how her love of music was passed down to her by her piano-, clarinet- and saxophone-playing Dad who would come home from a stressful day of work and find relief and a bit of joy at simply sitting down at the piano and playing. For so many – those who are sick, battling depression or grief, or entering one’s final earthly days, music is a release, an opportunity for a shared experience that stirs something deep within us.
Even for the non-musician among us, there can be a deep love of music. It is no wonder then that music making has been cited throughout Biblical history as a means of expressing the mystery and wonder found in the knowledge that we are loved and held and created for joy and that God is at the root of all of this and singing – be it in the shower, to the car radio or in church – allows us to use our bodies, our hearts and our souls for praise. Few other forms of communication have the power to unite us. This happens even when we hear a song in another language where we can still take pleasure in how those notes are strung together.
Here in this Psalm, where all of creation, the oceans and rivers and mountains included, are captured in the act of expressing their great joy in simply being a part of God’s world. We can carry that love of music as a form of praise back into the world with us – a world that can be hard to face with a pandemic, and angry shouting, and pitting one against the other. Music can be our balm, our protection, our compass – pointing us to the Almighty.
Let us go into this new week with the words of Dan Schutte, based on this Psalm of joy:
Sing a new song unto the Lord;
let your song be sung from mountains high.
Sing a new song unto the Lord, singing alleluia.