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"A New Song"
Psalm 98
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
June 17, 2001
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
I joined the church choir when I was five years old. It was appropriately called the "Joyful Noise Choir." It varied between the joyful and the noise aspects. But it was where I honed my love of music. Music is the place where I often turn to express my joy, my delight, my anger, my despair, my hopes, my fears and my dreams. We heard during my installation service how a simple song I sang a dozen years ago helped change the life of one friend. I sang that song again ("Everything Possible" by Fred Small) at the Soulforce gathering in New Orleans and people were again moved by the lyrics of the lullaby, "some women, love women, some men love men, some raise children, some never do. You can dream all your days never reaching the end of everything possible for you."
UBC has a great musical tradition. Today we give thanks for the great choir, the three bell choirs, the special music offered to us by Jean Lubke, Tyler Wottrich, Dave Beinhoff, Don Dresser, Wes Huzinga, Sheila Wolk, Larry Hill, Bryan Boyce, Rochelle Milbrath and of course, Michael Ferguson. We are blessed by a congregation that can sing in four-part harmony, acapella at a moment’s notice and if not, can appreciate the art.
We seek to embody the words of Psalm 98:
"Sing to God a new song, for God has done marvelous things…
Make a joyful noise unto God all the earth;
break forth in to joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to God with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the horn."
Hymn writer Brian Wren penned a hymn for days like today:
"Give thanks for music-making art, and praise the Spirit’s choice
of members called and set apart with instrument and voice.
With work and wisdom, skills hard won, life-giving and life-long,
they celebrate what God has done, and lead the people’s song.
Through years of training they accrue the skills of mind and hand,
which hours of practice must renew enliven and expand.
With Spirit-grace they tune our hopes; to Christ their hearts belong
for love of God must guide the arts that lead the people’s song.
With music, moving on through time in sequences of sound,
we show and tell God’s story-line of how the lost are found.
The old, unfolding covenant of justice righting wrong
Resounds through word and sacrament and leads the people’s song.
God, give us music to express and rightly interweave
our yearning with our thankfulness, and sing what we believe,
till glorious in the realms of grace, with new creation’s throng,
our Savior meets us face to face and leads the people’s song.
The scripture does not tell us just to sing, but to sing a new song. What can this mean?
If we believe that the psalm was written around the time of the Israelite people’s return from its Babylonian exile, the new Song could well be a reference to the new Israel. The same land, but viewed in a different way: a way that has been affected by the influence of an encounter with the Divine. Old words, new songs. When we sing a new song, therefore, could we not be referring, in our own situation, to:
Our own return from exile
A spiritual rebirth
A commitment to nonviolence
A renewal of covenant
A celebration of ever-new acts of God
Old words with new meanings
Old bones strengthened with new life, or new will to live
Old patterns with new paths
New ways of dealing with one another
New doors opened while old barriers fall away.
As J.S. Bach said, "The aim and final reason for all music should be nothing else but the glory of God and the refreshment of the Spirit."
We sing in church, we make music in church to witness to the new life we seek and celebrate. We sing and play as a way to connect us with a power beyond ourselves, a power where God transcends, enlivens and renews us. That is the power of music. That is the new song—it’s not referring to music written last week as much as it is referring to making us new people. Then we become the new song.
This past Tuesday evening, I joined 100 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgenered activists across the street from the Superdome in New Orleans. We were holding a candelight vigil, mourning the death and abuse perpetrated against the GLBT communities. As the 9100 messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting poured out of the Superdome, I led the vigilers in a number of Baptist hymns: Leaning on the everlasting arms, Amazing grace, Blessed Assurance, Jesus Loves Me, What a Friend we Have in Jesus and others. I walked up and down the line calling out words and trying to keep us all in the same key. Across the street, people waiting for the busses, started singing along and for an instant, the music made a brief bridge in the gulf that has separated these two communities. For a brief moment, we were singing a new song, where two communities come together to proclaim the hope of our faith—that we might all be one and be the beloved community to which the Spirit calls us.
Sisters and brothers, let us sing a new song in this community. Let’s make a joyful noise because God has done some wonderful things.
It doesn’t have to be aesthetically pleasing to another, rather it must be an honest response to the encounter with the holy in your life. Come, let us sing a new song.