Here is Psalm 96 - a most happy invitation to praise the God of the Universe.
Verse 1: The psalmist begins by calling out to the temple choir and congregation: "Sing a new song!" Did you catch that? A NEW song. The energy seems to encourage a happy, new song. Did he imagine the folks would quickly compose a song with new ideas or insights about God? I'm thinking of the resistance I've met over the years trying to get a Sunday congregation to learn a new hymn. And then hearing folks complain: "Church is boring." Go figure.
Question: Do I resist what is new about God? Same-old, same-old, AA says. God is the Master of New: each day is new. The seasons go round and round in newness. A new baby arrives. There is a new school year. Turn a corner and there is a new vista. We make a new friend. How thoughtful of God, always offering what is new, and we are invited to respond to God in kind.
Verse 2: "Proclaim the good news of salvation." Religion is felt good news. Let's not reduce this word salvation to a slogan: "Oh Jesus died on the cross to forgive sins, to save me by opening the gates of heaven." Salvation is NOW! Today! Salvation packs my personal human story. God saves me from chaos. God saved me from dying that day. God has saved me from despair and depression. God has healed me and saved me from confusion and self-degradation. God has saved me from the utter loss of addiction. God has saved me from the fears that were consuming me. In an African American church, this is when folks would start shouting out, "Tell it brother!" "Tell it sister!"
Verse 3: "Declare his glory among the nations...among all peoples." A lot of Christians really hold back. Maybe they're afraid of being perceived as holy rollers. The psalmist is inviting us to tell everyone. The 12 step folks seem to get it: they sit in a circle and share out loud how: "I once was lost but now am found; was blind, but now I see."
Verses 4,5a: "God is to more to be feared than all gods...they are idols." Idols. I shouldn't think of little bronze statues standing on shelves. Idols: all the stuff that really gets our attention; that we defend come hell or high water: money, perceived "rights" - even constitutional ones, treasured opinions, power, political dogmas, my possessions, prejudices, personalities that can do no wrong. Before God, these are worthless. Silly.
Verse 5b: " The Lord made the heavens." We might remember the lesson we hear at the Easter Vigil from the Prophet Baruch 3:35 -
'The one before whom
the stars at their posts shine and rejoice.
When he calls them, they answer,
"Here we are!"
Shining with joy for their Maker.'
This is too wonderful! God naming the stars, placing them in the sky above us, calling to them and their happy response. And if God interacts with stars so personally and warmly, all the more must that be so for each of us!
Verse 6: Kings and queens, presidents, congressmen, premiers, prime ministers, CEO's and movie stars travel with an entourage - people who secure their safety and facilitate their movements and interactions. But God's attendants are his own divine attributes: majesty, beauty, magnificence and strength. And the beauty of the Jerusalem Temple reflected these attributes, with the brilliant sun bouncing off the roof as if to dazzle and blind us.
Verses 7-9: "Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples." The American family today comes in great variety, unlike the tidy affair of the 1950's - a married mom and dad with children like steps. Rather than assessing it all, can't we just share the song and the gladness as the psalmist calls every family to the praise of God.
Then we're given a picture of Temple worship: people bringing their gifts, the wearing of clothes befitting the presence of God, even trembling before God. As I walked into a church for a Confirmation ceremony, I overheard a woman say, "The roof of this church may fall down with my coming here today." How did we ever come to reduce our religion with such trivial, silly, cute talk? Have we lost trembling before God - not for fear of being sent to hell - but trembling before the enormity of God, the vastness of God, the imagination of God, the compassion of God and the requirements of justice God lays out before us. If we ever really thought about God's ideas of justice - we'd tremble.
Verse 10: "The Lord is King." Oh God, set up your rule in my life! What might that look like? And then the psalmist tells us, "God made the earth not to be moved." God has set our planet in an elliptical orbit perfectly distanced from the sun, perfectly angled, and at the perfect speed that life is sustained here in tremendous beauty and variety. The slightest change could doom it all. Pray we don't throw it all out of whack with the big bombs we pound into the earth. Blasphemy is a God insult.
Verse 11-13: At the psalm's end all of creation is invited to share in the congregation's great chorus of glad praise. Let the plants - the very ground rejoice and be glad. Let the life-teaming oceans and seas thunder their praise. Oh God, we dump eighteen million tons of plastic into the waters every year - have mercy! By 2050 the plastic in the oceans will outweigh all the fish - have mercy! Then the fields get in on the praise: flower power, color riot, sensory overload! And the forests - let them shout for joy before God. Oh God, forgive us for burning the forests, chopping them down, defoliating them with chemicals, shattering them with missile practice. The forests are God's extraordinary gift to oxygenate, purify and cool our planet - and to delight us with their beauty.
"God comes to judge the earth." God judges the earth with his righteousness (God's right-ness). God's rule isn't for some far off never-never land. God's judgment isn't a spectacular, heavenly pyrotechnics show. Some people can only think of God's judgment as God's punishment (which usually means punishing the people who are not like us). But God's judgment is God's final display of God's truth - God's final attempt to teach our hearts!
