Our members will know that I seldom use the King James Version of the Scriptures, except on certain occasions when the majesty and beauty of its language are desirable. We are a church which is generally committed to contemporary readings of the Bible because they are more accurate and are easier to understand. Thus we keep the New Revised Standard Version in our pews and Today’ s English Version in many of our classrooms.
But every now and again nothing will quite do the job the way the 17th century language does it. Today is one such day. I am sharing with you today the 147th Psalm, and there is one word in particular which attracted me. The word is "comely" … "comely". You’ll hear it in the very first verse of the psalm; let its flavor sink in as you hear these words: Psalm 147:1-7
Praise is comely. Other translations say that praise is fitting, or seemly, or suitable, but none of those quite gets to the heart of what I want to say this morning. Praise is comely. That means that praise is fitting and it means that praise is attractive. Praise is fitting and praise is attractive. Praise is comely.
I knew he had reached a new level of maturity when he thanked me spontaneously for what I had just agreed to do for him. This young man had over an extended period called for my help in a variety of ways. He had asked for financial bailouts; he had called in the middle of the night wanting me to get him out of trouble; he had even betrayed my trust but had always managed to get the second and maybe even the third mile out of me.
That’s all right. I knew what I was doing when I decided to do those things. But, frankly, what troubled me most was that there was little or no gratitude. He either did not thank me at all after one of these rescue jobs, or he would, if and when prompted, mutter a half-hearted "Thanks" under his breath and go his way. His thanks seemed forced, it didn’t seem genuine, and I knew it didn’t do much for me. I doubted whether it did much for him.
Frankly, his way of saying "thanks" reminded me of the get well card that was sent to the hospital bed of one of the members of a men’s fraternity. The card said, "We voted to wish you good health. The vote was six for and five against." That doesn’t do much for the patient, and I doubt whether it did much for the fraternity spirit either.
But now … this time … as the hymn writer might put it, after “many dangers, toils, and snares" … I was in a position to do this young man one more favor and rescue him one more time. And I did. But this time, a whole new attitude; this time, an entirely different response; this time, "Thank you" spontaneously …"Thanks a lot", with a smile and handshake … this time, a new level of maturity, and an appreciation that was authentic.
I went away with my heart singing and with a feeling that I might not have to step in and rescue this young man again. And his heart sang too, I believe, because he had learned the value of gratitude. He had learned, in the language of Scripture, that praise is comely. Praise is fitting and appropriate and praise is attractive. Praise is comely.
I
You see, praise is fitting in that, when we praise God, we are, in fact, recognizing the real world. Praises fits the situation. When we praise God, we are opening our eyes to all the reality around us; we’re not shutting off any part of it. Praise is fitting and appropriate because when we sing praise to God, we are seeing the world exactly as it is …the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the whole and the broken … and we are driven away from our illusions. When we praise God, praise is fitting because we see the world as it is.
You say, well, pastor, I can see that it’s fitting to praise God for the beauty of the earth and for the glory of the skies. I can understand that I can praise God for the wonder of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale and tree flower, sun and moon and stars of light. I can certainly praise and thank God for all of this.
But you seem to be saying I should praise God in the midst of the whole reality I have to face. You say that praise is comely, praise is fitting and appropriate for all of reality. And you know, that includes drug dealers and shootings, that involves cancer and chronic illness, that means pain and poverty and suffering. How can you say that the praise of God is fitting in the middle of all of that?
I say that the praise of God is comely, the praise of God is fitting in the midst of all the realities, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, because in our praise we are brought face to face with what God is doing about it. When we praise God in the middle of the reality of this world of ours, we are thanking God for bailing us out, yet one more time. And we are brought to a new level of maturity about who we are.
Listen to the psalmist: [The Lord] "healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds ••• [He] lifteth up the meek; he casteth the wicked down to the ground.
When you praise God, there are no illusions about the needs of the world. It’s not all rosy. It is a place where there are broken hearts, it is an arena in which people get wounded. But it is far more than that. It is also a place where God is healing and where a merciful Lord binds up wounds. Praise is comely, praise is fitting and appropriate in such a place, because there we see all that our God is doing.
This world is a place where too often ordinary decent people get crushed, and exploitive, manipulative people fill their bank accounts. Yes; but when I praise the God who is in the business of changing all of that, I can see beyond the immediate injustices of the moment. I can see where He is going. And I want to go there too. I want to be a part of God’s great thrust forward. So praise is comely. Praise is fitting and appropriate, even in rough times.
There is no reason to despair. God is at work, and praise is comely, praise is fitting.
II
But there is another sense in which praise is comely. Praise is comely in that it is attractive. Praise is attractive, praise is involving. When you are around people whose hearts are filled with praise, you too are captured by that. Praise is comely …this is why I wanted this word … the very word comely suggests something attractive. Come … come … there’s something here you’ll want to see, something you’ll want to be a part of. Praise is comely. Praise says come on, come with me.
Again the psalmist says it well. “The Lord doth build up Jerusalem; he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel." Praise is comely, praise is attractive … for what God is always doing in the midst of our praise is building us up and gathering us together.
Good friends, this is something we need. We need to be able to gather and sing the praises of our God. We need to be able to come together and celebrate what God is doing with His church, building us up and gathering us together. When we gather as a fellowship of God’s people, we have the marvelous opportunity of creating a climate in which men and women who feel outcast and desperate and lonely can be built up. When we sing the praises of God and celebrate His goodness, we share in an atmosphere of affirmation, and people who come in here feeling lower than a lizard can walk out ten feet tall!
Now don’t get scared. I am not talking about psychological manipulation. I am not suggesting mindless drivel. And I am certainly not advocating that we just make a joyful noise, with the accent on the noise, and call that praise. No, I am saying that whenever we gather for worship, we need to come thanking a God who has brought us, nobodies that we were, into somebodiness. We need to come expecting that even though out there in the world, they may have called us names and slandered us, in here we are children of the Most High. And that, my friends, is attractive. That will sell. That will speak. Praise is comely … praise is attractive … praise says come, come and see. You can be somebody.
And if we expect to succeed as a church, we will learn to open up and praise Him. If we want to attract others, it will not be enough to show them our historic building. If we want to reach others, it will not suffice to tell them of our traditions. If we expect to involve others, it will not do to leave everything up to the pastor and the deacons.
This one thing more we must do: and that is, like the young man of whom I told you at the beginning of my message, we must reach the level of maturity that leads us to praise our God spontaneously, authentically, without fear. And when we do, it will attract others. They will know that, indeed, "The Lord doth build up Jerusalem; he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel."
One cynic made a comment after observing a disheartened little band of churchgoers going through the motions of worship. Said he, "They do this every Sunday; they’ll be all right on Monday; it’s just a little habit they’ve acquired.”
Ch, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Our worship doesn’t have to be routine. It doesn’t have to be bland and colorless. It can be warm, it can be attractive. It simply needs the element of praise. For praise is comely. Praise is attractive. Praise says, "come"
A century and a half ago, Karl Marx declared that religion is the opium of the people. He thought that when we focus on the heavens above, we cannot see the earth below. He thought that religious people praise the Lord in order to ignore and escape the misery of everyday life. And there is enough truth in what he said to give us pause.
But our praise carries us beyond ignoring the pain of the world; and our praise does more than provide an escape. Today Marx and his minions are on the ash heap of history, and they are now trying to decide what to do with the mummified body in Lenin’s tomb. You and I are in comely praise because we know one whose tomb is already empty and has been for two thousand years. And He will overcome the world.
And so "praise ye the Lord; for it is good to sing praises unto our God. The Lord healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds... He lifteth up the meek; he casteth the wicked down to the ground. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem; he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel."
Praise is fitting, praise is attractive, praise is comely.
