Psalms 81, 98, 100, 150 (May 20, 2012)

Psalm 81

Text: 1Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob. 2Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp. 3Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon, on our festal day. 4For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. 5He made it a decree in Joseph, when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known: 6“I relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket. 7In distress you called and I rescued you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah 8Hear, O my people, while I admonish you; O Israel, if you would but listen to me! 9There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. 10I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. 11“But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. 12So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. 13O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! 14Then I would quickly subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes. 15Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their doom would last forever. 16I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Perspective: Psalm 81 presents a message of sustenance, of feeding. Of course it is exaggerated in its language. While the ‘finest of wheat’ can be comprehended, one does not get honey from a rock! ‘Honey’ is clear. Its sweetness is a delight and desirable. It was a delicacy in ancient times. But the reference to the rock is an allusion back to the Exodus, and the place of testing. There the Lord had given the people water from the rock in the wilderness. It is a reminder of the harsh places through which the Lord has led the people, of the Lord’s provision in the most unlikely spots. Maybe, there is even in the psalm a hidden reminder of the Exodus tradition which speaks of the people’s complaining against Moses and God. Nevertheless, there is even hope in the face of both a recalcitrant people and the direst of circumstances. It is the Lord’s desire to feed them with the finest wheat and honey. As the church comes regularly to the communion table we remember the fulfillment of that promise, the cost of it to God, the dire circumstances of the cross, and indeed the ongoing call to repentance and discipleship.

Psalm 98

Text: O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory. 2The Lord has made known his victory; he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations. 3He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God. 4Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises. 5Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. 6With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. 7Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. 8Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy 9at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

Perspective: Psalm 98 makes a compelling case for all creation to join in praising God, for all nations to join in the new song, recognizing that God alone is God, the creator of the universe whose power and majesty call for our response of praise . . . So why don’t we feel like joining in?

This psalm presupposes something that we are far from experiencing, today. When we leave our worship services, we soon experience the deep contrast between our worship and the rest of our lives. Our world is not the world of praise the psalm envisions. Most of the world seems to get along quite well without benefit of divinity. In fact, the situation we face is just the opposite of that faced by our psalmist, who lived in a world full to the brim with “gods,” each competing for allegiance. How can this psalm, addressed to a world awash in too many gods speak to us in a world with room for none?

For starters, we need to admit our post-modern difficulty with this psalm’s insistence on God’s rule, a difficulty that often comes under the guise of pluralism. But not the kind of pluralism that rightly recognizes that people are different, that they have differing religious beliefs, and that they should be allowed to live their life of faith and worship as they please. I mean the kind of pluralism that moves beyond tolerance and begins to believe that reality, itself is pluralistic; that truth, itself is relative; that there can be no one true God; that the Lord does not reign; or that Jesus Christ is only Lord for people like me. This is what drains faith of any content, and urges us to declare that, therefore, it doesn’t matter what we believe as long as we’re sincere.

Psalm 98 is utterly opposed to this idea of a fragmented world where the claims of God have no bearing on the rest of our lives. The frame at the heart of our psalm “make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth . . . make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord” (verses 4a, 6b) declares that God is creator of heaven and earth and thus God of all life and all people, whether they acknowledge it or not, whether they are religiously inclined or not, whether they worship other gods or not. The inclusiveness of the psalm proclaims the exclusiveness of the truth that there is only one God to whom alone belongs our worship and praise.

Psalm 100

Text: 1Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. 2Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. 3Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. 5For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Perspective: The verses which make up this little psalm, pack a punch. This great psalm calls upon us all—all lands—to approach God. We’re to come near. And, we’re to come near with joy. With a song. We’re to come before the Presence of God—who has made us, and we are his—and we’re to sing him a song. Maybe it’s a song we know. Maybe it’s another psalm. Maybe it’s one of the great hymns of the church.

But…maybe…it’s one we just make up on the spot. That barely rhymes. A song that doesn’t even fully resolve. And is out of key. But, nonetheless, a song that is sung with pure joy by a sheep of the pasture of God—in His Presence, square in the middle of one of his courts.

THAT’S what a relationship with God looks like; a relationship full of self-abandon and joy. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his faithfulness endures from age to age.

Psalm 150

Text: 1Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament! 2Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his surpassing greatness! 3Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! 4Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! 5Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! 6Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Perspective: This last of the psalms is a doxology of doxologies. The editors of the Psalter organized the collection into five “books,” each of which ends with a summons to praise The last of these summons is Psalm 150 itself, but this doxology serves double duty; it ends not only the fifth “book” of the Psalter, but also the Psalter as a whole.

It is fitting that this psalm, which is filled to overflowing with the sound of praise, should end the book of Psalms. The Hebrew title for the book, after all, is Tehillim, “Praises.” It may seem at first an odd choice of names for a book that contains so much sorrow and lament. Indeed, the first “book” of the Psalter (Psalm 1-41) is composed mostly of laments. Lament is not the whole story, however. Praise erupts in the middle of the laments (see the end of Psalm 22) and, gradually, through the course of the whole book of Psalms, the laments give way to praise until finally, at the end, “hallelujah” is all that remains.

Prayer (including lament) leads to praise. It is the movement of the Christian life. It is also the movement of the high holy days we have just observed, from the laments of Good Friday (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!”) to the joyful hallelujahs of Easter morning. But note: the praise does not negate or ignore the lament. If anything, the praise is made more real, more robust, by passing through the lament. Easter hallelujahs are sung most profoundly by those who have known Good Friday.

Psalm 150, with its expansive summons to praise, ends a biblical book that plumbs the depths of human sorrow. The Psalter is matched in the Bible only by Job and Lamentations in its exploration of loss and grief. But this book of honest and gut-wrenching prayers ends with praise, and calls us (and indeed, “everything that has breath”) to join in. And what praise it is! Trumpets and harps! Tambourines and cymbals! Dancing feet and lifted voice! All are employed in praise of the God who created heaven and earth, the God who saved Israel through his “mighty deeds” (verse 2), the God who, as we proclaim in this Easter season, defeated sin and death once and for all in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.