Praise the Lord, O My Soul [Grateful, Part 2]

Psalm 146

Hebrews 9:11-14

  

During the month we’re working at getting better at practicing thanksgiving, being grateful people.  I’ll begin by pointing you to a few practical ways to grow.  In your bulletin each week there are “morning” and “evening” prayers.  We also listed some specific “morning” prayers that might help us as we begin each day.  If you want an app for your phone with prayers and Scripture readings, I recommend the “Daily Prayer App” from the PCUSA (it’s maroon with a gold cross).  But I’d like to hear from you too.  What has been helpful in your life to make you more aware of life’s blessings? 

 

Both of our readings today provide us with a measuring tool for how we’re growing in gratitude: a grateful heart will be a heart full of praise; a thankful life will be a life of worshiping God.  So why is there this connection between thankfulness and gratitude on the one hand, and the praise and worship of God on the other?  Everything turns on whether you can learn to see yourself, before anything else, as the recipient of many gifts.  When we imagine ourselves as receivers of gift upon gift, we begin to live with gratitude that expresses itself in praise to, and worship of, the living God.

“It cannot be overstated that gratitude is an emotion, a complex set of feelings involving appreciation, humility, wonder, and interdependence.  Gratitude is, however, more than just an emotion.  It is also a disposition that can be chosen and cultivated, an outlook toward life that manifests itself in actions – it is an ethic. . . . Gratitude involves not only what we feel, but also what we do. . . . Gratitude is both a feeling and a choice.  The first often arises unannounced and the second takes a lifetime of practice” (Butler Bass, 52-53).

Before we go much further I want to acknowledge that all of us come here with a variety of concerns, worries, and challenges.  Some of us are here today carrying feelings colored by very personal matters – sadness, worries about money, health concerns, boredom with work, fear of the future, affection for those close to us, thankfulness for blessings, and lots else.  Some of us bring with us today concerns about an election week, concerns for all those at Mercy Hospital and about the future of our community.  I know that as we head toward our Pledge Sunday next week and begin to work on budgets, that all of us in leadership take a deep breath and remind ourselves that God will provide for us as a congregation. 

All these concerns we bring with us – whether they’re very personal or more communal - they are the shared air we’re breathing right now.  And I wonder whether our readings today might be able to speak to these circumstances in ways that can bring transformation, healing, and renewal.

Psalm 146 begins and ends with praise offered to God.  This Psalm is a profound, life-changing prayer that gets its energy from praising God.  Nothing thrills us, nothing moves us, nothing excites us, like being in the presence of excellence.  Or goodness.  Or beauty.  For those of us who live in the presence of the living God, nothing can ever compare to the experience of being overwhelmed by the majesty of God.

There is a feeling of awe and wonder that cracks open in us when we encounter something astounding, sublime, or breath-takingly gorgeous.

Where have you experienced that kind of life-altering excellence?  I think of athletes I’ve watched performing live - Michael Jordan, Bjorn Borg, and Tiger Woods.  I think of stunningly gorgeous craftsmanship -  St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, Notre Dame in Paris, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at the Louvre, ancient Stonehenge.  I think of swelling, heart-rending, joyful music; beautiful vineyards, mountains, and beaches.

But the Psalmist finds himself in the presence of the source of all excellence, all goodness, and all beauty.  “Praise the Lord,” the Psalm begins.  And then in a bit of an odd turn, the Psalmist sort of turns to himself, as if cheerleading, urging a surge of praise to issue from the depths of life.  “Praise the Lord, O my soul” (v. 1).  The Psalmist sees praise not as ornamental to life.  It isn’t a pious addition to an otherwise self-absorbed life.  It is not an on again, off again, once in awhile habit.  No, this praise has its home in the soul, in the very center of the Psalmists life.  The praise of God is rooted deep in the heart, and colors everything this person says, does, and imagines.

That’s why the Psalmist says, “I will praise the Lord as long as I live.  I will sing praises to my God all my life long” (v. 2).  This song of praise becomes to melody that accompanies our lives.  It marks our posture, our mood, our outlook, our hopes and dreams for ourselves and for others.  This praise is the one thread that connects all the disparate and changing stages of our lives.  Through all that comes our way, from birth to death, the praise of God is the song on our lips and the music of our hearts.

Summoning the best of our language and of our bodies – we join with generations who have been praising God.  But of course the forms in which we praise God keep changing.  We keep and conserve and re-use much that was sung and prayed by previous generations.  But we also exercise our creativity as we playfully innovate and experiment with new forms, new prayers, new songs, new instruments, and new voices. 

We have been making use of video testimony during worship for these weeks heading into our pledge season.  We did this because it helps us remember why we participate and contribute to this collaborative project called “church.”  And we did it as well to practice making use of video as we prepare to upgrade our media capabilities here in the building.  I’m told that our Christmas Cantata will be full-on bluegrass!  I love it – and I think this models our flexibility and openness to new forms of worship as we move forward.

Sometimes we wonder why there aren’t more people in worship.  But just as often I am astounded at all the people who are here.  Look around you.  We’re all here – and people just like us are participating in worship all over the world – because we feel within our lives a surge, a rush, a flowing forth of praise, a desire to connect with others who are connected to a beautiful mystery.  And we need somewhere to go; we need something to do with it.  We need forms in which we can express it.  And we want to do it together with others. 

I have told you before that I don’t really have any good arguments for believing in God.  I still don’t.  But the most compelling argument for me is that we are all here together; that we have felt deep in our lives a call to be here, a call to praise the living God.  The most convincing argument for me is that so many people have the experience of God’s goodness and beauty at the center of their lives and they want help expressing it in an ongoing, life-long, life-changing way.

And yet we don’t want to pretend that the life of faith we live together is always easy or calm or relaxing.  There are real challenges that call for our best efforts of prayer, conversation, wisdom, and discernment.  In a Psalm that begins and ends with praise to God, the middle of the Psalm is a fierce and ferocious wrestling with practices of trust and hope.

“Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save” (v. 3).  At the center of the Psalm is a contrast between hoping in powerful leaders and hoping in the God of Israel and the God of Jesus Christ.  Who among us does not need this reminder as we head into a week of national elections?  Powerful princes will always disappoint – whether they’re politicians, Presidents, economic leaders, legal authorities, celebrities, entertainers, intellectuals, or religious experts. 

In all areas of life, we need good leadership.  And yet the Psalmist reminds us that our leaders will let us down, especially those who pretend that they alone can keep us happy and safe.  And so the best leaders – from business to church life to education to politics at all levels – the best leaders will be those who see themselves as servants of the people; as modest stewards of the shared goods of the community; as keepers of kindness and models of mercy towards those who need the most help.  The best leaders will be those who do not draw undue attention to themselves and their own power.  The best leaders understand that their authority is temporary and secondary to that of the living God.  “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God” (v. 5).

If we want to cultivate lives that sing and pray, “Praise the Lord, O my soul,” we will need to allow ourselves to be drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery of God’s own life.  Notice how the Psalmist describes who and what God is.

God is the one “who upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.  God is in the business of “setting prisoners free, giving sight to the blind, and lifting up those who are bowed down.”  God’s loving concern doesn’t protect some special group, some special nation or race.  God “watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow” (vs. 7-9).

The crisis for people of faith and for communities of faith in America right now is whether we pledge our allegiance to this God or to some other kind of god.  Our reading from Hebrews reminds us that in Jesus Christ, God’s promises to save and deliver the Jewish people have now been extended to everyone everywhere.  This love is merciful, generous, and sacrificial.  In Jesus Christ, we see the depths of the pain and suffering born by God in loving us.  And yet in Jesus Christ, the salvation of the world has been completed.  We don’t need to achieve it or perform for it or take a test or prove ourselves worthy of love.  It comes to us – and to all others - as sheer gift.  And the only fitting response is gratitude and praise.

“We might think of “the difficulties and advantages in our lives as ‘headwinds’ and ‘tailwinds.’  Headwinds are the resistance one encounters in a race, when the wind is literally in one’s face.  Tailwinds are the opposite, the wind at one’s back. . . . People tend to pay more attention to life’s headwinds, because they are harder to overcome.  We ignore tailwinds because we adjust to the advantages they give us.  Tailwind benefits tend to be invisible.  But headwinds?  We boast of fighting them. . . . When we overvalue the struggle and challenge of headwinds, we miss the opportunity to be grateful for the gifts, the tailwinds, that assist us” (Butler-Bass, 82-83).

The life and death of Jesus Christ leads us to the worship of the living God.  All other powers and authorities will lead you into the way of death.  They will tell you that you’re not good enough, that you need to do more, that you must secure your identity, that you need to be afraid, that you must join the right tribe, defend morality, pledge the right kind of allegiance, play the part.  This is the way of death.  These so-called gods will always disappoint.

“Gratitude is not only an emotion; it is something we do. . . . It is like tending a garden.  It takes planting and watering and weeding.  It takes time and attention.  It takes learning.  It takes routine.  But, eventually, the ground yields, shoots come forth, and thanksgiving blooms” (90).

Praise the Lord, O my soul.  This is the prayerful song of the grateful life.  This is the music in the heart of all of us who testify that we are the receivers of many gifts.  This is the daily song of people like us who are practicing thankfulness by sharing our gifts with others in love.