150 Ways to Pray: Song

Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren

Pastor Katie Shaw Thompson – February 20, 2022

150 Ways to Pray: Song – Psalm 98

Some days my life feels ready to be scripted as a musical. That’s not to say that every day is easy by any means. But it is often music-filled. In our family, in fact, we are apt to improvise songs to accompany our day and make each other laugh.

 My favorite is the off-season example: “Do you know what I know? The cheese, the cheese is just rotten milk, but it tastes really good. But it tastes really good.” Never mind that making cheese requires the appropriate strains of bacteria and a carefully monitored scientific process. That’s not what the song’s about. In any case, when the Psalmist implores us to “sing a new song to the Lord,” I like to think, yeah, we’re on top of that.

The ridiculous songs make me laugh and if innocent laughter isn’t a song of joy-filled praise, I’m not sure what is. But it’s not just ridiculous songs in my personal prayer soundtrack either. Like some of you, my knowledge of the hymnal is at least on par with my knowledge of the Bible. And the songs I grew up singing in church and Vacation Bible School are a huge part of what I call the hymnody in my bones.

Song is sometimes the easiest expression and first crutch of my faith. For example, I’ll always remember that when my first child was born my joy bubbled over into the doxology. Before I knew it I was singing “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…” right there in my hospital room and not caring very much about my tone or pitch either.

Although I have only learned the song in the past ten years, I have noticed that lately grief-filled or confused prayers often bubble out in the form of the Shawn Kirchner piece we sang last week titled Called or not Called.

One of the things I pray folks might take home from this series on prayer is that prayer is not relegated only to Sunday mornings. Prayer can happen anywhere and it can happen in the ways that make sense to you and no one else.

Maybe in this series you have been introduced to a form of prayer you would like to do more of. Maybe you have been reminded of ways you are already praying and given yourself more permission to do so. Maybe it’s been a long time since you did much praying at all and you’ll be inspired to start a regular practice or even just do it for the one time.

You may well find a powerful experience of God’s love, healing, and grace will meet you in those prayerful moments. And even if you don’t, it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It’s called a practice not a perfect after all. 

As I’ve shared, the Psalms are filled with more than 150 ways to pray and so are our lives. But if you’re a lover of music and feel that indeed singing is praying twice, then you’ll find good company among the psalms, including today’s Psalm 98, and Psalm 101, Psalm 40, Psalms 95, 96, 97 and so on.

Psalm 98 tells us that even the sea joins in songs of praise with its roar, that the floods clap their hands, and that the hills may sing together for joy. If you love music as a powerful form of prayer then you are in good company even in the natural world beyond human beings.

Yes, if you love music as a powerful form of prayer then you are also in good company in this Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren. If you’ve been around long enough you know about our annual music Sunday, and you can remember a time when yes, we had at least three different age groups of choirs who sang together here in the sanctuary. I trust someday we will do that again, too.

I can’t say it’s true to a person but I can say that there are a lot of us here at Highland Avenue who love music and who meet God in song. When the Psalm says “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises,” we might have reason to think, yeah, we’re on top of that. And in some ways we very much are.

But I’ll tell you something, church. That “make a joyful noise” line stopped me this week. It captured my attention. Because there have been times here in church when I’ll admit I have been much less focused on making a joyful noise and much more focused on making a pitch perfect noise. There have been times when I have been less focused on praising God and much more focused on sounding good.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I spend all week preparing for worship, and I’m not about to stop. I do think practicing music enough to feel confident and comfortable can help us be more focused on making a joyful noise. I do think bringing our best offering to God is respectful and faithful. And, also, I think it’s really helpful, valuable, rewarding, and faithful to all of us gathered for worship to keep our focus on what we’re about when we share a song of praise. For me, I believe that’s “making a joyful noise to the Lord,” first and foremost.

I lived in California for a brief time and regularly frequented chapel services at the school I was attending. One of my classmates, I’ll call him Rori, taught me a lot about making a joyful noise and praying to God with our whole selves.

Rori got my attention right away when I moved there. I came from what we sometimes call a “frozen chosen” worship culture in which a small sigh or fervent head nod would be a lot of worship feedback during a sermon and where songs rarely required much movement.

Well, at these chapel services, songs often invited movement, which I was open to. But I won’t lie, Rori’s worship feedback made me uncomfortable at first. Although he was white like me, Rori’s worship background and current practice was very different. He would answer the preacher with Amens and Hallelujahs. He would clap and shout. He would stand up, wave his arms, and dance. Now, to be sure there were other folks there who worshiped like Rori but no one did it with as much gusto.

Like I said, at first it bothered me. That wasn’t what I had been taught was respectful behavior in worship. But my time at that school exposed me to new ways of understanding God, worship, prayer, and faith that opened me to all that I didn’t know, didn’t understand, and hadn’t experienced.

It changed me. And being with Rori in worship changed me, too. I figured that if Rori was going to worship with that much embodied energy then no one would much mind if I relaxed a little bit and let my emotions show a little more, too. I found that I liked worship better and experienced it more powerfully when I felt comfortable responding verbally to the sermon or at least feeling free to laugh, clap, cry, and sing to my heart’s content.

Psalm 98 ends curiously. After all that praise and worship talk, the Psalmist tells us God will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity. If you remember Josh Brockway’s sermon from a few weeks ago, you might remember to wonder whether righteousness is that same word that also means justice, and yes it does. If you’ve been learning about the difference between equality and equity, you might recall that equality is everyone getting the same thing and equity is everyone getting what we each need. It reminds me of the definition of shalom as a true wholeness and peace, where justice and righteousness meet, where everyone is cared for, and everything is set right.

That’s pretty much how Eugene Peterson helpfully paraphrases it in The Message version: “God’ll straighten out the whole world, God’ll put the world right, and everyone in it.”

Maybe these verses show up at the end of this Psalm just to give us a good reason to praise God. God’s the one who’s setting everything right. We could certainly use that. Praise be to God. Hallelujah! Amen.

When I consider that this Psalm about making a joyful noise concludes with an assurance of God’s yearning for equity though, I wonder if it also speaks to our different needs to express ourselves in prayer. Maybe we can take comfort from these 150 Psalms that prayer comes in all different forms and it is less important that we do it right than it is that we figure out how to make our own meaningful connections with God, the Holy Source of All Life and Love, that is just right for us for today. If there’s no one right way, then maybe that frees us up to make it our own. Maybe it frees us up to respect each other’s means of prayer, too. Maybe it frees us up to try new things and not worry so much about perfection.

When it comes to congregational singing, so many of us have been missing it for so long, and some of us, at home attending virtually still very much are. Whenever we do find chances to sing together–now or later, maybe this Psalm can help us worry a little bit less about how we sound and instead appreciate a little bit more just how grateful we are to raise our voices in song at all. Personally, I hope I will never take that for granted again.

I pray whatever prayer practice you find that works for you that you will pursue it with gusto, patience, confidence, and grace. For I trust God hears us, however it is we find to pray.                                          

May it be so. Amen.