Psalm 100 June 16, 2002
Most of us know the Neil Diamond song, "Song Sung Blue." Here is part of the lyrics:
Song sung blue, everybody knows one.
Song sung blue, every garden grows one.
Me and you are subject to, the blues now and then,
But when you take the blues and make a song,
You sing them out again, sing them out again.The tune is catchy and it addresses a fundamental issue: how do we cope with the experiences, both individually and culturally, that would bring us down? The song's solution of course is to sing: familiar but still wise advice. Our Psalm for the day is the only one with the subtitle, “A Psalm of Thanksgiving.” Words such as "gladness," "singing," "thanksgiving," "joyful," and "thanks" leap off the page as we read or sing. Psalm 100 calls us to be a singing people of thanksgiving--but why should we do that in today's environment?
The Cure of Souls
Our topic today for our "Adult Conversations" this morning is: "How can we deal with our fears, our anger, and our sense of impending upheaveal throughout the world as a result of the hatred and bitterness toward us and all democratic and/or Christian nations by so many people in the world?" Is this, in fact, a world which warrants a psalm of thanksgiving? Would we still say that if we sustain another terrorist attack? Are we a people who will keep a psalm on our lips--no matter what?
Astonishing as it might seem, that is our callling. Sometimes we need to say, "Wake up, soul." Like a computer in sleep mode, it needs somebody to press the space bar, to bring it out of its slumber or even slump. Our calling is to be a thanksgiving people--come what may. As I have said to you before, I like the old way of talking about what a church should be doing: we are in the business of the cure of souls.
I read some time ago of a man who was confined to a wheelchair because of an accident. Every day, he would wheel his way out of his small room to the town center, and sit back, watch and record all the life he saw. He would write down, for example, how much the lillies had come out since the same time the day before. He would record people as they left grocery stories with all kinds of provisions, and imagine the parties and dinners they would have later. He watched people strolling from the Dairy Queen and would sometimes join in conversations with them, chocolate ice cream dripping delightfully over hands and giggling children. In the evening he would still be alone and still in a wheelchair, but he would retrieve his notebook, and a broad smile woud grace his face as he savored each moment of life as he witnessed it that day.
If we watch and take in all the beauty, the generosity, the subtle but pervasive evidences of a Creator who continues to lavish forgiveness and encouragement on his creation, we will be thankful people. Even better, we should make a point to be a part of communities filled with thankful people. I hope St. Mary’s is a community of thankful people, when, in fact, we could choose to be otherwise. How we choose in such matters often determines the kind of life we will lead.
Being for the Benefit of Mr. K.
A number of years ago I took care of the yard of a professor at the college I attended. He would leave Washington state, where I lived, and live at his cabin near Ely Minnesota. I did the usual kind of average job that a person of say 21 would. I kept it watered and I mowed it often enough that the neighbors wouldn’t complain.
Across the street lived an elderly man and his wife. Mr. Kendrick was his name and I would usually call him simply "Mr. K." Mr. K would be out in his yard daily that summer, trimming, mowing, pruning, taking in the sun and the wind. People would often stop by and he would talk and laugh. It was clear that Mr. K. loved life--under his broad-rimmed hat, his eyes radiated wisdom and humor. When I asked him why he worked so hard on his yard, he said, “Why, Larry, I would have thought that obvious! It’s the right thing to do, I get to participate in life, people often stop by and talk about all manner of things, and--to be candid--I know I will last longer.” My professor told me later that Mr. K. lived until his mid nineties.
I read much more recently of a man who is profoundly depressed yet has found some effective ways to keep his depression at bay: (a) he walks a good deal (you have heard me extol the virtues of walking before—we are made to walk); (b) he has 3x5 cards with scripture promises, which he reads when he senses depression approaching; (c) he makes lists of things he's thankful for--unusual things that he has to look for and is delighted when he finds them. These three steps don't cure his depression, but he says they help a lot.
I suppose this man could make a list of a lot of things he's depressed about. Read the newspaper looking for them, watch the evening news and talk shows for the many dreadful things he could choose to live in. But instead he lists the many good things about his life. We have, in fact, such a choice. A large part of life is about choices and if we choose to have a psalm on our lips, we will simply do better. We will be happier and--as "Mr. K." realized--we will live longer.
A Pay-It-Forward People
Cheryl and I are film buffs, as some of you know. One of our favorite films is Pay It Forward. The idea is to give unexpectedly and, best of all, if it can be done, anonymously--then sit back and watch the fun. Of course, we are always ready for a Kevin Spacey film. Pay It Forward has the capacity to change lives, as it did in the film. It can take us from self-absorbed, self-centered people to people who live life dynamically right in the middle of grace in action.
Isn’t the way to understand Christan faith is that God paid it forward? We are pay-it -forward people, so we can watch the fun when grace unexpectedly transforms the lives of people. When we pay it forward, we can watch the wonder it creates, we can bring that psalm to our lips, and live life charged with joy and expectation that God is on the move to make the world a better place.
Paying it forward makes even more sense in the context of being part of a larger cause. There is nothing that gives a life more meaning than commitment to a cause. And there is nothing more tragic than a person whose life simply ends, barren and devoid of a cause. Helen Keller once wrote, "Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes real happiness. It is not obtained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."
Consider the new biography of the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, by Nancy Millford. It's titled, Savage Beauty, and it appeared last year. She was a talented woman who attracted both men and women, and who went through many affairs, discarding them one by one along the way, leaving many broken hearts behind. Her husband, we read, always forgave her. In fact, her life reminds me a lot of Iris Murdoch and even Johnny Nash, of A Beautiful Mind fame.
But despite her gift for poetry--she won a Pulitzer for it early--indeed she was a savage beauty. She had no cause that that called her beyond her own self-absorption. People were means to her own ends. In 1920, in A Few Figs From Thistles, she wrote these memorable lines:
I shall forget you presently, my dear/ So make the most of this, your little day.
I think it clear that, despite her talent, she had chosen to make her song quite blue. At the end of her life, she remained in her bedroom or study, ponderous, slow, and usually drunk. She left it to her husband to entertain those who called. Her husband, who was older, died in 1949, and that really foretold the end. One evening the following year, she went to bed, leaving her wine bottle near the stairs. She took some sleeping pills--to which she was addicted--approached the top of the stairs, probably to fetch the wine bottle, and then fell, breaking her neck. A woman of great talent, alone, embittered, then dead--at age 58.
How fortunate we are as Christians to have a cause that calls us outside ourselves. And at the end of our lives, we will be able to look back on our many celebrations of God’s love in our midst, the people we have helped in a variety of ways, the Great Commission from Christ that we have followed.
Be joyful in the Lord, indeed, serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song—and our “Song Sung Blue” will become a psalm of thanksgiving.
