June 16, 2002 -- FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST -- Proper 6
Psalm 100
Color: Green
Title: “Recalling the Presence also teaches us how to approach anything new and especially how to approach people.”
All Lands Summoned to Praise God
A Psalm of thanksgiving.
1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.
3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him, bless his name.
5 For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
The Heading or Title of this psalm calls it a “psalm of thanksgiving.” It is really an entrance hymn of praise. Since praise and thanksgiving are virtually the same, the distinction is immaterial. This psalm would be sung in procession to the Temple in order to perform a liturgy of thanksgiving for some unspecified benefit from Yahweh. It seems to be an old psalm, using stock formulas of expression regarding Yahweh, but it is not possible to date its composition, given the absence of any historical references. It consists of two sections verses one to three and verses four and five, each of which is a hymn in itself. Perhaps, the first section was sung while approaching from outside and the second while entering through the gates or shortly thereafter. It is placed in the Psalter as the conclusion to Psalms 96-99 honoring Yahweh as King, being part of an even larger collection of liturgical psalms running from Psalm 91 to 99. The dominant note is joy.
“The Old Hundredth” is the popular name of the tune of the hymn based on this psalm, “All People That On Earth Do Dwell,” composed by William Kethe of Scotland, a friend of John Knox the Reformer, in 1560. Actually, it was from an original French composition by Louis Bourgeois, appearing in the French Genevan Psalter in 1551. Both the words and the tune have survived four and a half centuries with little change.
In verse one, “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.” Israelite liturgies were not somber affairs. Just as they would shout acclamations at the king, so, too, they would treat Yahweh.
In verse two, “ Worship the LORD with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.” Worship the Lord: The word translated as “worship” means “serve.” It has a wider range of meaning that liturgical worship. It also means to serve as a slave, to do work for someone else. It was part of long-standing prophetic tradition that authentic liturgical service must be a consistent reflection of and expression of daily moral living and service to the Lord in all matters, liturgical and otherwise.
Come into his presence: It is not exactly correct that we “enter into his presence.” God is already present everywhere. There is no physical place to enter. “Entrance” into God’s presence means we make ourselves aware of what already is. God is already physically present to us. More correctly, we are always physically in his presence. It is when we become aware of that fact and acknowledge it by praise that the difference is evident. The Temple and its gate were physical reminders of his invisible presence, not physical limitations upon it.
With singing: The Israelites did not consider singing in God’s presence to be an option, something they might or might not choose to do, depending upon whether they thought they could sing or not. It expressed the right mood befitting the blessings God bestowed on them. It would be ungrateful of them not to sing.
In verse three, “know”: This does not refer merely to intellectual knowledge. It is acknowledgement, involving a response.
The Lord is God: This was a well-known cultic expression of monotheism, involving a renunciation of all other gods, exhorting “all you lands” to give up idolatry, and a declaration of allegiance to Yahweh alone, the God of the Covenant.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture: There are two senses to this, preserved in variant readings. One is “ he made us and his we are” The Hebrew kere variant followed by RSV, NEB,NAB, for example. The other is “he made us and not ourselves” having the sense that we are not self-made. The Hebrew ketib variant followed by the LXX.
God’s well-tended flock: Both kings and gods were designated as shepherds in nomadic communities. This ancient image stuck and was an especially fond way of referring to Yahweh and his love for his people.
v. 4 enter the Temple gates with praise: See comments on v. 2. This verse begins the second hymn and may well have been sung either while entering or shortly thereafter.
With thanksgiving: In the Old Testament generally, praise and thanksgiving are parts of the same whole. Praise emphasizes acknowledgment of God’s presence and great deeds, while thanksgiving reverses it to emphasize his deeds, in behalf of the individual and community, simply presupposing his presence. The distinction is not significant.
In verse five, For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
That Yahweh is good would be another well-worn cultic expression of praise and the reason for thanks. The goodness of Yahweh is everywhere manifest- in creation itself, in the beauty of creation and in the joy it evokes in humans, in salvation, in Yahweh’s absolute fidelity, dependability, reliability, and especially in his covenant love in Hebrew hesed. The goodness of Yahweh is the rock bottom, unshakable foundation upon which all else rests. His goodness, acts, cannot be separated from his being, his character or name.
Sermon
“Come, enter” is the constant alluring invitation of God. It is spoken by Lady Wisdom in all of Wisdom Literature for all who wish to be wise. It is spoken first to the prophets when they are called and then by the prophets to all they call upon. It is spoken by the priests at the entrance to the Temple, the earthly residence of God. It is the calm call of this psalm.
When we go to sleep at night and have said our prayers asking God’s protection while we are unconscious we know that he is always there even when we sleep. But when we awaken in the morning we must pray immediately lest we continue to be “asleep,” to God’s presence. Having awakened physically and even psychically we must awaken spiritually. Otherwise we can go through the day unaware, asleep, unconscious of the most fundamental fact of our existence: we are always in God’s presence. We may not always be aware of it, “know” it, as the psalm urges, but it is true nonetheless. We rob ourselves everyday; when we neglect to be attentive to the Presence hidden in and beneath the “present,” moment.
This psalm or the sentiments in it provide an excellent prayer at the “entrance” of each day. We note that it is deprived of any consciousness of anything negative- sin, sadness, or somberness. We can get up and say, “O God, its mourning!” or “Oh God, its morning!” This psalm helps us to focus, to “come to.” Yet, it is appropriate throughout the day when we lose consciousness of the Presence. We can recall, re-focus, by reciting the psalm or recalling its sentiments. It concentrates on God’s goodness, love and fidelity. In other words, it concentrates on God, just God. He envelops us in his qualities of love, good and just being there always.
Praying this psalm every morning helps us to develop the habit of recalling “entering,” into the presence of God wherever and whenever we start something new or different during the day and or whenever we go through a door. We cross physical and temporal lintels many times during a typical day. They provide ample opportunity to re-focus on God. Recalling the Presence also teaches us how to approach anything new and especially how to approach people. Indeed, these physical and temporal boundaries can serve to heighten our awareness of psychic and spiritual boundaries we encounter in people. Some folks stand at the entrance of their psychic doors and block them. Others have no door at all, no boundaries. As we become attuned to ad limina experiences in the physical and temporal realms we get better at sizing up the situation in the interpersonal arena as well. We get better at approaching different people in ways more appropriate to them rather than more appropriate to ourselves. Awareness of the presence of God, good in and of itself, also teaches us that, namely, how to “enter” into the presence of people in a respectful, yet grateful and graceful way.
Physical Temples, churches, homes and their doors are potential sacramentals for us to see into and past them, to look beyond the physical and experience them as signs, pointers to worlds of meaning of which they are the mere surface. They teach us of psychic and spiritual dimensions to our everyday world. The same is true of temporal phenomena- clocks, calendars, historical markers, etc. These time zones have their “doors” as well and we can learn from them about the “eternal” which they so unsuccessfully try to capture, contain and on “bad” days, mask. When poetry such as we find in this psalm, not great poetry, but poetry turned “theological,” is encountered it opens us up like a door to other worlds, worlds beyond our grasp, yes, but within our scope, worlds beyond our comprehension but not our apprehension, world inhabited by the same God who also inhabits ours, little as it is by comparison.
God does not become present to us or come into our presence; we become aware of his presence.
Awareness of God’s presence provokes joy; we become aware that we are happy to be in his presence.
Joy needs to be expressed, often by singing, even silent singing, and always by behavior consistent with the Presence.
Awareness of God’s presence makes us aware than we are not God, not the creator, not the Messiah, and that we are neither alone in the world or in charge of it.
Awareness of God’s presence makes us aware that we are loved.
Thresholds: All cultures have their rites of passage, formalized behaviors for entering into something new. The more important the passage the more elaborate the behaviors to prepare for it, accompany it and celebrate its accomplishment. Thus, rites of passage have three stages. There is the pre-liminal, the stage of preparation. This stage almost always involves education. The person or persons involved is educated verbally and/or trained manually in order to understand the upcoming passage and to successfully go through it. If it is a marriage, a passage from the single state to the married, the education is quite elaborate. For instance, in (technologically) primitive cultures men might learn how to hunt in order to feed the family and have to have been successful at it before being allowed to marry. Women might have to learn how to farm as well as cook. Even funeral rites are rites of passage from one land to another, one level of life to another, depending on the beliefs of the culture. However, minor rites, such as the passage from being a student in school to being graduated into adult society, in one culture can be major ones in another. Yet, all involve some form of instruction and practice for the next stage, the liminal stage, when a person actually passes over from one dimension to another. The best way to symbolize this is by imagining going through a door. No wonder the door and other boundaries hold such symbolic potential for us. The third stage is the celebratory or post-liminal one. Everybody on the other side of the (symbolic) door welcomes the new person and they all sit down and eat and then get up and sing and dance. It becomes clear that the briefest part of rites of passage is the actual passage, the actual leaving one dimension and entering into another. Yet, it is the crucial, the central, the essential one. It can be easily missed. Learning to be attuned to the many times and the many places in an ordinary day when we pass from one dimension of living into another can help us to:
1) learn what is to be learned and prepare for the new situation;
2) 2) consciously move into the new and not stay stuck in the old moment; and
3) 3) celebrate the new.
The “passage” need not be as momentous as a marriage or a birth in order to be transformed into a sacramental moment when we become aware of God’s presence and God’s helping us enter into a new situation, even if it be a coffee break or a return from it. Awareness of God’s presence turns the maze of daily life into an adventure whereby we follow the golden thread wherever it leads, knowing that it leads us out of the confusion of the many doors and lures of life into the path that leads to vision, clarity, peace and joy. Losing awareness of the constant accompaniment of our loving God involves losing all the benefits of being alive.
Responsorial Psalms: Originally the Psalms were put to music and now, thanks to the reformed liturgy, they are put to music again. That means we can now sing them, sing them within the liturgy and sing them during our daily living. We can sing God’s words back to him when in the car, the shower, walking from here to there, entering a room or leaving it. Singing to ourselves not really to ourselves but to God, though no one else might be there, silently or softly, helps us to remain aware of his presence, his love, his mighty works, and our relationship with him. All day long we can respond to his presence, just as we do at the liturgy. Liturgy and life are “rites of passage.” Amen.
