"Open Your Mouth Wide” Series

One of the joys that my wife and I share is not only that we live within a few minutes’ drive from three of our grandchildren, but that our house backs onto miles of forest. The result is that our back yard is almost constantly being visited by wildlife—even including a bear! But our most frequent visitors are the birds. This summer we’ve counted seventeen different varieties of them, but I’ve got to say that our favourites are the hummingbirds. We love to watch them zip madly back and forth across the yard, stopping every once in a while to suck up some nectar into their needle-like beaks.

The hummingbird is the smallest of all bird species. A mature hummingbird weighs less than a nickel and their nests are no bigger in size than a walnut. Their tiny hearts thump away at an amazing rate of over twelve hundred beats a minute. They lay their eggs (which are about the size of a jellybean) twice in the summer. And, sad to say, in a few weeks’ time we won’t be seeing them anymore, because they will be starting their four-thousand-kilometer journey back over the eastern United States and across the Gulf of Mexico to their winter quarters in Central America.

I often find myself asking, how do they do it? How do those tiny fledglings, only weeks old, know when they should be heading south? How do they know their destination? And how do they know how to get there? It seems that somehow it’s all been implanted in their tiny brains from birth.

What a contrast to us human beings! When we’re born there’s almost nothing we can do for ourselves, except occasionally fill our diapers! We have to be taught practically everything. And, unlike the hummingbirds, it seems that nowadays I can’t find my way anywhere without a GPS!

It shouldn’t surprise us then that, like almost everything else in life, the worship of God is something that has to be learned. And in many ways the psalm from which we have read this morning gives us some useful instruction on how to worship. So let’s take a look at it for the next few minutes and discover what it has to teach us.

Sing (1-5a)

The first lesson comes in the opening words: “Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.” Unlike professional football or tennis, worship is a participatory sport. True worship demands our involvement, both spiritually, mentally and even physically. And so it’s vitally important that we listen carefully to the Scripture readings, that we join in the prayers (not least with a hearty “Amen!”), that we sing the hymns…

Now at this point you might be saying to yourself, “You don’t really want to hear me sing. I can’t hold a tune in a bucket.” Well, neither can I, but it doesn’t stop me from trying. So sing anyway. It’s good for you—not only spiritually (and this may surprise you) but also psychologically and physically.

A report published in Australia in 2008 revealed that on average, choral singers rated their satisfaction with life higher than the general public—even when the actual problems they experienced were more substantial than those faced by those around them. Another study from ten years before that found that after nursing home residents took part in a singing program for a month, there were significant decreases in the levels of both anxiety and depression.

Two and a half centuries ago John Wesley was concerned about the state of singing that he heard in the churches where he preached. Here are a few of the pieces of advice that he offered at the time:

Sing all.

See that you join with the whole congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing.

Sing lustily and with a good courage.

Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep, but lift up your voice with strength. Do not be afraid of your voice now, nor ashamed of its being heard …

Above all sing spiritually.

Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is … offered to God continually. So shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.

So it is that our psalm this morning calls upon us to sing aloud, to shout for joy, to raise a song… And we find the same when we read the New Testament, where we are encouraged to “be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:18-20).