Psalm 96:1-6, 10-13
O sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Honor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.....
Say among the nations, “The Lord is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.”
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord; for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with his truth.
First off, welcome again to our sister church from Geyserville. We are certainly happy to have you here today to share with us. It has been a wild week for all of us – whether we were evacuated and bounced all around northern California or whether we stayed in our own homes in the dark and cold. It feels pretty good just to sit in one place for a while.
For our guests here, I should explain that all this past summer we have been focusing on the Old Testament readings offered each week in the lectionary. We’ve been doing that based on the realization that Jesus never read the Gospels – he lived them. The letters of Paul, and others, were written long after Jesus’s life here. In fact, the only Bible that Jesus ever knew would have been the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures writings. We have been focusing on these stories to try to get a somewhat better idea of where Jesus got his ideas and why he thought as he did.
The Old Testament is a collection, a library. In our journey this summer we have visited creation myths, history, prophecy, and spiritual wisdom. We have read stories of kings and generals and itinerant prophets. Stories of bravery and stories of cowardice. We’ve bounced all over the place in our readings.
Most recently we have been reading stories of loss and exile. We’ve read psalms of grieving and the prophets’ promises of healing to come in the future. Every one of these most likely had some effect on Jesus, who was a man of the scriptures of his time – one who knew the writings – the history, the grieving, and most especially, the promises. What we hear when we read the gospels is shaped and molded by these past stories that Jesus knew.
What we have not read so far this year are hymns of joy. Full-hearted celebrations of joy and goodness, right now, already happening in the speakers’ lives. There are many of the in the Old Testament and I decided that after this past that week we have all limped through we needed some joy, and that’s why I chose the psalm I picked today. It’s in the second half that I especially find joy:
After watching the earth around us burn it is a joy to be reminded that for all the destruction we sometimes see around us, the earth will continue to rejoice. I pointed out here that scripture often gives us words for our hymns and that this music can give us words and expression for our joy. And then those of us who are familiar with this song spontaneously began singing and clapping our hands. I suspect we could easily find many songs with which we are all familiar that come from the Old Testament. This one just happens to match this reading:
(Both churches present looked at their music leaders and asked, and why are we not singing this song in church? Guess we’ll be teaching it others.)
The Hebrew Writings gave Jesus a vocabulary to use in his teaching and praying, just as our hymns give us a similar vocabulary. In the scriptures we can find a vocabulary to use when we are lost and frightened, when we are grateful, when we grieve, we rejoice -- just about any human estate. Just as Jesus often quoted scripture to reinforce a point, so we can find, in the words of some who lived thousands of years ago, a similar human feeling that links us all together.
They rejoiced, grieved, laughed, and wept as we all do. And when we feel tongue-tied to express our feelings, sometimes we can borrow theirs to get past our own inability to speak.
Jesus quoted their words. We quote both the ancients and Jesus. And at times we use each other’s words – something from a book we’ve read or from someone sitting in a discussion circle next to us. When we read we also learn to listen. And when we listen we grow our own vocabularies for speaking to God, for listening to God, for building our churches, for doing the work of Jesus, for changing the world.
So let us sing for joy, even when the world around us doesn’t seem particularly joyful.
And may the trees of the field clap their hands, while you go out with joy!
For our guests here, I should explain that all this past summer we have been focusing on the Old Testament readings offered each week in the lectionary. We’ve been doing that based on the realization that Jesus never read the Gospels – he lived them. The letters of Paul, and others, were written long after Jesus’s life here. In fact, the only Bible that Jesus ever knew would have been the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures writings. We have been focusing on these stories to try to get a somewhat better idea of where Jesus got his ideas and why he thought as he did.
The Old Testament is a collection, a library. In our journey this summer we have visited creation myths, history, prophecy, and spiritual wisdom. We have read stories of kings and generals and itinerant prophets. Stories of bravery and stories of cowardice. We’ve bounced all over the place in our readings.
Most recently we have been reading stories of loss and exile. We’ve read psalms of grieving and the prophets’ promises of healing to come in the future. Every one of these most likely had some effect on Jesus, who was a man of the scriptures of his time – one who knew the writings – the history, the grieving, and most especially, the promises. What we hear when we read the gospels is shaped and molded by these past stories that Jesus knew.
What we have not read so far this year are hymns of joy. Full-hearted celebrations of joy and goodness, right now, already happening in the speakers’ lives. There are many of the in the Old Testament and I decided that after this past that week we have all limped through we needed some joy, and that’s why I chose the psalm I picked today. It’s in the second half that I especially find joy:
- Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord; for he is coming...
After watching the earth around us burn it is a joy to be reminded that for all the destruction we sometimes see around us, the earth will continue to rejoice. I pointed out here that scripture often gives us words for our hymns and that this music can give us words and expression for our joy. And then those of us who are familiar with this song spontaneously began singing and clapping our hands. I suspect we could easily find many songs with which we are all familiar that come from the Old Testament. This one just happens to match this reading:
- You shall go out with joy
And be led forth with peace
The mountains and the hills
Will break forth before you
There'll be shouts of joy
And all the trees of the field
Will clap, will clap their hands...- Copyright: Stuart Dauermann
(Both churches present looked at their music leaders and asked, and why are we not singing this song in church? Guess we’ll be teaching it others.)
The Hebrew Writings gave Jesus a vocabulary to use in his teaching and praying, just as our hymns give us a similar vocabulary. In the scriptures we can find a vocabulary to use when we are lost and frightened, when we are grateful, when we grieve, we rejoice -- just about any human estate. Just as Jesus often quoted scripture to reinforce a point, so we can find, in the words of some who lived thousands of years ago, a similar human feeling that links us all together.
They rejoiced, grieved, laughed, and wept as we all do. And when we feel tongue-tied to express our feelings, sometimes we can borrow theirs to get past our own inability to speak.
Jesus quoted their words. We quote both the ancients and Jesus. And at times we use each other’s words – something from a book we’ve read or from someone sitting in a discussion circle next to us. When we read we also learn to listen. And when we listen we grow our own vocabularies for speaking to God, for listening to God, for building our churches, for doing the work of Jesus, for changing the world.
So let us sing for joy, even when the world around us doesn’t seem particularly joyful.
And may the trees of the field clap their hands, while you go out with joy!
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