Probably most of you know at this point that I didn’t spend most of my life
growing up in church—actually, I didn’t really start going to church until I
was 13 or 14, so a lot of the experiences that you may have had growing
up in church, like church camp, or Vacation Bible School, most of those
experiences were not ones I really had. One of the things I did figure out
really quickly when I did finally arrive in the doors of the church was that
music was important, VERY IMPORTANT, to the church I began
attending. Everyone seemed to know the hymns in that Baptist church I
briefly attended—Victory In Jesus, Amazing Grace, Just As I Am—for
those of you grew up Baptist, do you remember singing 10 verses of Just
As I Am, just so Brother So-and So, the preacher, could squeak out yet
one more person to walk down the aisle to rededicate his or her life to
Jesus, or maybe get saved for the first time? Music was such an
important part of that experience, not only emotionally for the people
having this experience, but also because songs like that one triggers a
certain feelings, mostly nostalgic, about the way things used to be, when
we used to live a lot less complicated world, emotionally and spiritually.
Now, I know for OTHER people, this song sets off another set of
emotions, sometimes some pretty negative ones. I know a friend that
says that every time he hears that hymn he just wants to rush down the
aisle and get saved, so that they will just STOP singing the verses OVER
AND OVER again in some vain attempt to fill the preacher’s quota for
getting people saved!
For me, though, JUST AS I AM doesn’t set off that kind of reaction, and
though there a few are a few hymns that set off the positive goose
bumps on my arms—BE THOU MY VISION is one of my favorites, and
when I hear it being sung here by 600 or 700 hundred people in a
service, it still literally gives me goose bumps. But, of course, I probably
grew to love a different version than one that you grew up with—its funny
how that happens, but I came to love the modern version I found in
progressive churches I started attending in the late eighties and early
nineties. The newer lyrics found in the United Church of Christ hymnal
are the ones I love-especially the last line: Sovereign of heaven, my
victory won, may I reach heaven’s joy, O bright heaven’s Sun! Heart of
my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, O Ruler of all! Heart of
my own heart—there is something about certain words of certain hymns
that are almost as sacred as Scripture for many of us, they can speak to
us like nothing else can, especially in certain moments in our lives—who
hasn’t heard the words of AMAZING GRACE and not thought that it was
telling our story, especially in moments when were vividly aware of the
grace of God in our lives.
But those sacred hymns can get can preachers like me in a lot of
trouble, to be honest—actually, the first true church controversy I
experienced as a pastor in my first church was over music, and I suspect
that a lot of pastors will tell you that same story—you can mess with a lot
of things in a service, but don’t mess with the music! Well, the first
church I pastored was in Spokane, Washington, and when I arrived
there, they were using a set of Baptist-like hymnals, with lots of songs
like JUST AS I AM, and there didn’t seem to be any hymns that had been
written anytime in the last 50 years, or it seemed like it. So, in my naïve
way, I proposed that we acquire a new set of hymnals, one which
reflected our supposed commitment to using inclusive language—
language that really does reflect what we say we believe about God, that
God is both male and female, and neither, of course—and that also
contained maybe some new hymns. Now, the only hymnal available that
actually tries really hard to inclusive the hymns is the hymn book of the
United Church of Christ, the liberal progressive denomination that this
church has been considering joining. I proposed that we buy this New
Century Hymnal, and so we had a series of meetings, privately and
publicly, to strategize about raising the $1500 it would take to buy the
hymnals—we weren’t a big church, so we didn’t need a ton of hymnals.
But, I tell you, as soon as some of the folks in my church got a hold of
those hymnals, and saw some of the changes in the lyrics of their
favorite hymns, done to modernize them—like changing Thou to You—
and to inclusive them—you would have thought that I had asked them to
adopt a whole new Bible! I can’t tell you how many meetings,
discussions, heated words, passed through the church because of these
hymnals. There was one guy—wonderful, wonderful guy—that I must
have had 3 different sets of meetings about these new hymnals—he didn’
t like the inclusive language at all. In the end, he gave something like
$300 to the fund to help buy the hymn books, but that was the hardest
$300 we ever got from him—and he was willing to give the newbie pastor
a break. When you’re a new pastor, you don’t realize that it probably be
easier to add another book to the Bible than it would be to mess with the
old hymnal! To be honest, I used a lot of my newbie capital on that one,
but it turned out for the best, I think. Or I should say they didn’t get rid of
me, so that was hopeful for me. I learned something from that
experience—and it makes me glad that we don’t really use our hymnals
around here—its easier to make changes on a video screen than it is in
a hymn book.
That kind of experience in Spokane, just showed me how powerful the
songs of our faith really are, how sacred our songs really are to us—in
some ways, I was oblivious to it, because I didn’t grow up in church, and,
music, as much as a Iove it, was never my strength—as I have said
before, there is a reason I am the only clergy on staff that has been
forbidden to sing the communion liturgies here at the Cathedral! But the
emotions and connections we have towards the songs of our faith, they
are huge, and they’ve always been there, since the beginning we
humans began to sing our praises to God. What we cannot say in
words, we say in songs, and somehow the words and the music combine
together in a way that stirs a heart better than any preacher any of us
have ever heard. And though we only have the lyrics of Israel’s ancient
hymn book, you can still sense the incredible power of the music that
must have under girded them when they were sung thousands of years
ago, in the Temples, in the courts of the Kings, maybe even in the
homes of the people of Israel. The Psalms, found almost in the center of
our Bibles, the psalms, with their cries of despair and loneliness, joy and
thanksgiving—these are the words that for many of us have become the
deepest expression of our spiritual longing for God. The Psalms give us
the words to sing out to God or to scream out to God, when we cannot
find the words within us. Maybe that is why we love songs so much,
religious songs, or even love songs—someone else is speaking the
words that our hearts and spirits are struggling to say, the music and
words are reflecting the deep movement of our hearts that we cannot
give voice to. We love music for a lot of reasons, but I suspect many of
us love it because it says what we cannot really say with mere words.
The Psalms do that as well, though we are left without the music, but I
think, to be honest, if these words had just simply been poetry, I don’t
think they wouldn’t be as powerful and as meaningful to us as they are
even now, some 2500-3000 years after they were written. It’s the same
way with the lyrics from Be Thou My Vision I read to earlier—the words
and the music make that hymn for me much more meaningful than if I
had simply seen those words on a page, or if they had simply been the
words of a poet. There is something so powerful about these 150
psalms that both the Hebrew people and the Christian church has
continually used them throughout its worship, during those times when it
has gathered together to give praise to God. In the Lectionary, which is
a series of readings used by the vast majority of Christians throughout
the world throughout a 3-year cycle, there are four sets of readings—
one from the Old Testament, one from the Gospels, one from the Letters
of the New Testament, and always, always, a Psalm. That is how
integrated they are into the life of the church. For many people, the
Psalms are what they pray in the morning, before they begin their
workday, or they are the words they utter to God before they go to sleep
in the late evening. One of the reasons we’re spending not one, but two
weeks in our Old Testament for Dummies series is because the Psalms
really are important to the church, and to our lives, and so we need to
pay special attention to them—and if you are looking for a way to get
reconnected with God in your life, and you don’t know quite how to do it,
this is one of the best places to start, right here in the Psalms, and I’ll
give you some idea of how to do that next week, when we look at some
Psalms in a little bit more details.
Speaking of details, let me give you some beginning facts you should
probably know about this, the church’s ancient hymn book. First, the
word “Psalm” actually comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew
words found in the Septuagint, which is ancient Greek translation of the
Hebrew Bible—psalmoi is the Greek word that gets translated in our
English word and it means “songs of praise.” Well, the translators of the
Septuagint, some 2000 years ago or more found these psalms all
gathered under the Hebrew tehillim, which means “praises,” and this
words seems to be related to the word Hallelujah—Hallelujah, by the way,
means “Praise the Lord.” (psalmoi (Greek) = praises = Psalms) (tehillim
(Hebrew) = Hallelujah = Praise The Lord) And the traditional writer of
these Psalms is someone we’ve already stumbled upon a few times since
we’ve been going through the Bible for Dummies—King David, of 1 & 2
Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings fame. There a couple of reasons people over the
centuries have attributed the Psalms to David
1) David is as famous for his musical ability as he is for being a
fierce warrior, so much so that he is often seen playing a lyre in ancient
art, which is harp like instrument about the size of a ukulele.
2) David is remembered for establishing musical worship in at the
Temple (2 Chronicles 7:6)
3) Almost half of the psalms contain the heading “A Psalm of David”
Yet, I think we need to be careful about that, because the reality is that
probably not all of the psalms that David is given credit for are actually
written by him—often times, in the ancient world, something written can
be attributed someone else, especially when it comes to kings, since it
came out of their court, or their household—sort of like when you create
software or materials for a company you work for—it becomes the
property of the company, and “X Company” gets credited with it, though
you were the one who wrote it. And some of these psalms may just been
written to honor David or honor his royal household—remember, David’s
reign was probably the highlight of Israel’s whole history, so it would not
be a surprise if priest and poets and songwriters didn’t want to honor
that part of their history.
The other thing is that we also find that the Bible gives credit to other
people for the psalms, including Solomon and Moses. In fact, a lot of
people are given credit for writing different Psalms—you can find the
credit right before the beginning of each Psalm—listen to the names of
folks give credit.
King Solomon
Moses
The sons of Korah
A priest from Moses’ day
Three worship leaders appointed by King David
Asaph
Jeduthun
Herman
Only 34 of the Psalms don’t have some sort of credit attached to them—
these Psalms are often called orphan psalms because we don’t know
who gave them birth, or who should take credit or responsibility for
them. Now, we also know that scholars have difficult dating the Psalms—
when were they written? Some Psalms are thought to be older than King
David’s rule, which was around 1000 BCE, over 3000 years ago—the
29th and 82nd Psalms are thought by many to be that old. Obviously
some were written around Kind David’s time, but others were probably
written 400 or 500 years later, around the time when Temple was
destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE—Psalm 74 is thought to be
written in the shadow of such a horrifying event. Some are even earlier,
and hint at Babylonian Captivity, which we just finished studying. A few
of the Psalms even have little notes about when and why they were
written—Psalm 51, one of the great songs about repentance is tagged
with a little note that says that it was written by David after his affair with
Bathsheba—we often use that Psalm on Ash Wednesday, we used it last
year, I believe, in the worship service.
Now, there are some interesting things that scholars have noticed about
some of the older Psalms, the oldest Psalms, and one of the things they’
ve pointed to recently is how closely they mirror some of the near ancient
writings of their neighbors. Psalm 29, one of the oldest storms, talks
about God “thundering” over the waters, and striking with flashes of
lightning, which is commonly associated with the storm-god Baal—some
think the Psalm was written to glorify this ancient deity, and Israel simply
took it over, tweaked it, and there you go—happens it all the time,
though our modern copyright lawyers might have a problem with it. Also,
Psalm 104 is incredibly similar to an even more ancient hymn praising
the Egyptian Sun god Aten, though they are not sure what came first—
did the Israel and the Egyptians take it from a common source, or did the
Hebrews borrow it directly from the Egyptians? We don’t know for sure,
but most, if not all, scholars agree that there is a clear linkage from
Psalm 104 to this very old Egyptian hymn, older than even David’s reign
over Israel—that makes sense, since, after all, Israel was freed from
captivity from Egypt. So, all of the Psalms were probably written and
cleaned up, edited, so to speak from a period between 1100 BCE—500
BCE, and eventually they all got divided into 5 sections, perhaps, some
say, to mirror the five books of the Torah, the first five books of the
Bible. Quickly, the Psalms are divided into sections that go like this:
1-41—almost all attributed to David
42-72—mostly David, and his court songwriters
73-89—mostly the court songwriters
90-106—not usually attributed, mostly temple liturgies
107-150—mostly David, very liturgical, clearly used in worship
The only pattern that I can see in all of this division is that the lower the
Psalm number, the more individual the psalm is, the more the lyrics are
about personal struggles and laments, the psalmists personal struggle
with God or with others, and for a plea for God’s personal intervention in
their life. Again, this is not 100% of the case, because there are also
psalms that call on God to do something for the people rather than just
the individual, but by the last part of Psalms, its clear that the Psalms are
less individualistic and much more communal: they are to be used in
public worship in the Temple, and are less concerned with the psalmists
personal struggles and problems—more “we,” less “me” as we go up
from Psalm 1 to Psalm 150.
OK, so we have these hymns, this early hymn book, so where is the
music to this hymn book—every hymnbook has music, right? Well,
sadly, we don’t have the music, we don’t know what they sounded like
when sung in the temple, or in the court of David, or perhaps even in a
smaller synagogue setting in the ancient world. The only thing we really
have are the names of what would be the equivalent to our hymn tunes,
though we don’t know what the melodies or tunes sounded like. We
have names like: “Do Not Destroy” “The Doe of the Morning” and “The
lily of the covenant” but we just don’t know what these ancient melodies
sounded like. Of course, nowadays, the church has actually set the
Psalms to music again, and if you go into the back of certain hymnals or
worship book, you can find a selection or all of the Psalms set to music,
usually to a very cantor-like beat, mimicking the style, in many ways, of
the way that Jewish cantors pray in the ancient and modern
synagogues. The good news is that we have some idea about some of
the instruments that they used when they were praising God—look at
Psalm 150, the very last Psalm. Listen to different instruments that the
psalmists lists:
Praise God in God’s sanctuary;
praise God in God’s mighty firmament!
2 Praise God for God’s mighty deeds;
praise God according to God’s surpassing greatness!
3 Praise God with trumpet sound;
praise God with lute and harp!
4 Praise God with tambourine and dance;
praise God with strings and pipe!
5 Praise God with clanging cymbals;
praise God with loud clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that breathes praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD!
Trumpets, lute, harp, tambourine, stringed instruments, pipe, cymbals—it’
s a full orchestra, kind of like our own orchestra on Sunday morning or
our 6:16 Band. Talk about rockin’ the temple—clearly, when the Psalms
were sung, when many instruments of the people of Israel were gathered
together, the Temple probably shook from the power of it all, sort of like
on Sunday morning when we sing our favorite processional hymns—the
energy in this place can sometimes be something you could reach out
and touch, it so fills this place. Whatever way and with whatever
instruments ancient Israel used, we do know that everything that was
usable in terms of music seem to be used in worship—it sounds as if
could make noise, it was used to worship God. I mean, how could one
not use all the good gifts of music to praise the Creator of all that is!
So, beyond the facts around the Psalms, what is it that the Psalms speak
of? What do the lyrics of Israel’s ancient hymn book say? Well, actually,
next week, we’re going to look a little more deeply at 3 or 4 Psalms in
detail, to get some sense of that, but this week I just wanted us to get a
good general handle on Psalms, meaning that I want us to get some
general framework on the whole of the Psalms. There a lot of different
ways of classifying the Psalms—some of the Psalms are clearly
Liturgical: they are clearly meant to be used at certain moments in the
religious life of Israel, or to be used in holiday seasons, or in the
coronation of the new king. Other psalms are Laments, which is simply a
moment when the psalmists informs God of his or her suffering and
troubles, and then begs God to rescue, forgive, or deliver them. And
there are also Psalms of Thanksgiving, which just praise the goodness
and mercy of God for all the good things in the psalmist’s life. And then
are there the psalms that cry out for God’s justice, or even for
vengeance, often called Imprecatory Psalms. The problem is that if you
get 10 Old Testament or Hebrew Bible scholars together and ask them to
categorize the Psalms, you’ll probably get 15 different categorizing
schemes, like the one I just do a few seconds ago. So, maybe our best
bet is not to try to put them in nice, neat categories, and, instead, go with
a general framework that gives us a way of understanding what is going
on and how we can relate them to our lives. The UCC, United Church of
Christ, scholar, Walter Brueggemann has said that there are three main
types of Psalms or three general themes found in the Psalms, and what
is useful about these categories is that they feel useful, I think, to most of
us, because they reflect sort of the different states of being that all of us
have experienced at different moments in our lives. The first category,
the Psalms of Orientation—nothing to do with sexual orientation, of
course—the Psalms of Orientation are songs that we sing when life is
going well, when we and the universe fit, when life is good and we can
clearly see the shimmer of God’s incredible presence all around us. Our
hearts sing for joy, and the lyrics of these types of Psalms reflect that
powerful joy in being in relationship with our Creator and seeing the
goodness of the creation all around us. But then there are times in our
lives when we become disoriented, we become angry and confused or
hurt and these songs Brueggemann calls the Psalms of Disorientation.
These kinds of psalms can be angry, extravagance, full of bitterness,
and even abrasive—they can reflect the painful, ragged disarray that
sometimes meets us in life. We’re lashing out in our pain and feelings of
hurt, confusion, and the bitterness seem to press up against us and we
feel trapped. Sometimes the words the psalmist uses in these psalms of
disorientation can be as disturbing as anything we’ve read in the
Scriptures—in fact, these types of Psalms are rarely used in the church,
because, sadly enough, we’re not comfortable with holy words that are
so full of bitterness and anger—how would we incorporate them into
worship? What if we heard the bitter words of the Psalmist in worship—
could we handle it? That’s a question to be answered at a different time,
but the third category of Psalms that Brueggemann says exist are the
Psalms of New Orientation, songs to God that reflect a surprise, when we
are suddenly overwhelmed with the new gifts of God, when joy breaks
through the despair, when there is resurrection out of what seem to be
only crucifixion. A new thing has happened, light has come out of the
darkness, and the psalmist sings out of complete joy that the world has
suddenly become new. The model is goes something like this: life is; life
gets wrecked; life starts over again—life is lived, crucifixion destroys life,
resurrection gives birth to a new life, and that is why I think Brueggemann’
s model works—it reflects real life and we can see ourselves in the
Psalms. Next week, we’re going to dig a little deeper into these three
stages, or themes, and we’re going to see how this model can help us to
see the Psalms in a new way, a new personal way, but I just want to end
tonight with a word about the power of the Psalms. The reason why any
text or song or anything effects us or touches is because it rings true to
our lives, because it captures the joy of life, or the despair that comes
from loss, or it even tells the story of our lives starting over again, in a
new way. I think the only reason why the Bible has remained so powerful
an instrument of God’s grace and caring is because we see ourselves in
its pages, we see our lives in the stories it tells and the songs it sings—
the Bible isn’t true for us because someone else said it is true for us—
the Bible only becomes true for us when we see the truths reflected in its
pages in our own lives. That is why the Psalms are so powerful—they
ring true for us, and so when the Psalmist sings of joy, we’ve known
those moments, we know what she or he is talking about. Or when the
Psalms screams out in pain for the world to be righted again, for the
world to be just and good, and for God to take care of those folks who
spread evil into our world, it rings true—we’ve been there before, and we
know the depth of that righteous anger. And when the psalmist comes of
out of his or her grave, when they sing of their personal resurrection,
when God sends them joy in the midst of the deepest night, we know that
story as well—it has happened to us, it is real for us. That is the power
of the Scriptures and especially of the Psalms—next week we will dig
deeper to hear those true voices, and I suspect that if you are like the
millions and millions that have read and sung these psalms, you will
yourself in these ancient words. So, I’ll see you next week…
