In Praise of Praise; or, What did They Sing as They Went Out? Feb.2020

The choir has led us in praise, proclaimed praise—and helped us offer our own. The writer Andre Dubus has a character in a short story who has discovered in his daily routine what he calls “the necessity and wonder of ritual”, or worship. It, he says,
…allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love.1
Our choir has helped us tongue-tied folk in our ceremony of love today, love and praise.
Praise dilates the vessels of our minds and hearts, that we may live in radical amazement and deep gratitude. It’s like fresh oxygen filling and expanding our minds and hearts. God comes close to us in our praise. (Or we to God?) In praise God abides in us, with us, among us. And gratitude is our home in the presence of God.
Have you ever stood next to a good singer and been able to sing better? That happens spiritually too! Praise lifts our eyes to the horizon of the wonder and goodness of God. Praise lifts up our hearts to rejoice and give thanks.
I
The book of Psalms is the longest book in the Bible and is located there in the middle. If you open the Bible to its half-way mark, you will be at the Psalms. They are all addressed to God who is everywhere in them. It is a God-drenched, God-intoxicated book.
The Hebrew title of the Psalms is “The Book of Praises.” It is so. But it offers all the parts of ourselves to God, not just praise: sadness, joy, desolation, doubt, trust, anger, fear, anxiety, pain. John Calvin called the Psalms, “The anatomy of all parts of the soul.” The Psalms have been the hymn-book, the song book, the prayer-book of the Hebrew and Christian people for millennia. I try to use verses from the psalms often in our call to gathering and in our prayers, so that we not lose this crucial spiritual resource.
II
Sue played for me a clip from an old movie.How Green is My Valley of Welsh coal miners singing in their strong male voices as they walked to work in the coal mines:
“Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah:
Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah
pilgrim through this barren land….
Bread of Heaven, Bread of Heaven
feed me till I want no more,
feed me till I want no more.
Their singing and their songs helped keep them alive in the terrible conditions of their lives. So also the Civil Rights Movement was accompanied with song: “We shall Overcome, “This Little Light of Mine.”
Have you ever wondered what Jesus and the disciples sang at the end of their “Last Supper” together? (It probably hasn’t kept you up at night!) The gospels record: “And when they had sung a hymn, they went our to the Mount of Olives.” (Matthew 26:30). I think I know.
There are a group of Psalms, Psalm 113-118, called the “Hallel Psalms”. Hallel means praise. As in Hallelujah which means Praise Yah, or Praise Yahweh! These psalms, almost all of them, begin with Hallelujah! They sang them on their way to the major Jewish festivals, like Passover, sang them as they made their way up the holy hill to Jerusalem.
At the Passover Meal they sang Psalms 113-115 before the meal and 116-118 after the meal. So imagine these words being sung as they approached Jerusalem for the Passover festival. And imagine these words sung at the beginning of the Passover meal:
Hallelujah!
O, servants of the Lord, give praise
Let the name of the Lord be blessed now and forever.
From east to west
The name of the Lord be blessed….
The Lord raises up the poor from the dust,
lifts up the needy from the refuse heap.
Then in Psalm 114 they sang of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt:
Hallelujah!
When Israel went forth from Egypt,
The house of Jacob from a people of strange tongues.
Judah became the Lord’s temple
Israel became God’s dominion
The sea saw them and fled….
The mountains skipped like rams
The hills like young sheep!
Hallelujah indeed!
Then after the meal this is what they sang, sang after Jesus’ words “This is my body given, this is my blood poured out:”
Hallelujah:
I love the Lord, for the Lord has heard my cares, my pleas.
The Lord protects the simple hearts,
I was helpless and God saved me.
And then these last words as they sang the most loved and repeated words about God in the Hebrew scriptures:
Hallelujah!
Give thanks to the Lord for God is good,
God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Let the family of Israel say,
God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Let the family of Aaron say,
God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Let those who kneel before God say
God’s steadfast love endures forever!
This is what they sang as they went out, went out into the night air to the garden where Jesus would pray and pray, and where he would be arrested. Praise, gratitude, trust in the final goodness of God. Shall we do the same?
1. Andre Dubus, “A Father’s Story”, The Times Are Never So Bad (Boston: David R. Godine, 1983),p.165.