MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE John M. Buchanan
Psalm 106 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
Nevember 23, 1980 Columbus, Ohio

Frustration ~- is feeling deeply about something and being unable to express it;
‘varing an elegant Each fugue on the car radio and having no one beside you to share it,
or sCeing a magnificent sunset, or bright moon, or starry night and having to be cantent
with the solitary experience until we can tell someone about it, as in "You should have
seen..." Half the joy of reading is to share an insight, a particularly well-written
passage with someone else. Particular Frustration, I have discovered, is to be a solitary
spectator at an athletic centest in which one's child is not only participating but also
excelling and having no one about te whom to declare ~- "that's my daughter or son.'' Love
is incomplete until it is expressed, What Dante felt classically for Beatrice wasn't love
gh at all because it was utterly at a distance, and altogether unfulfilled. How sterile to be
VN" at Ohio Stadium yesterday as a neutral observer and not to experience and participate in

vane the feeling dimension of what transpired there. (In fact, it has been sugecested that

-* . future archeologists, who uncover our civilization millenia hence, will deduce, quite

— logically, that we were a most religious people. Huw else to explain the mysterious rites
“4 that transpired in the great coliseum, the overwhelming crowds each time a ceremony was

scheduled, the processional, the high priests in ceremonial garb, prophets, liturgical
dance, disciples, hymns, zesponsive chants, offerings, sacramental communings, the total
devotion of the faithful, the joyful ecstasy and deadly grief? Will they not conclude
that in this place the most joyful noise made by anyone for any reason transpired six or
seven Saturdays per year in the concrete temple by the Olentangy?)

A contemporary symbol of both the intense frustration when we cannot share feelings
and the deeply liiman propensity to do so, is the young man, swacegering through a city
rr.wd, his pertable stereo slung over his shoulder, blaring...net anly assaulting your
peivacy but perhaps dusperately trying to induce anybedy to share his feelings, which are
often expressed only in the :susic he insists that you hear,

The Bible is a great advocate of expressing your feelings, especially about God,
In fact, the Bible gets downright pushy about it. We are ordered to praise the Lord, to
fall down before Him, to approach Him with gratitude, to wave palm branches and bang
cymbals together for Him, to thank Him ceaselessly, in sum, to "make a joyful noise",
There is no restraint in the Bible when it comes to telling God how one feels, To praise
God, in the idiom of the Bible, is to get together with your neighbors and clap one another
on the back. Praise is corporate. John Wesley once observed that, "There is no solitary
religion in the Bible’. The imperative to praise God is not an invitation for quiet intro-
spection on the subject of providence. The Psalter, rather, pulls owt all the stops -
“Make a joyful noise..., al) the lands!"

Much of the Bible seems to have been written by people who were overwhelmed by
God, intoxicated by their sense of His goodness, hopelessly in love with Him, and committed
to the necessity of expressing all of that - corporately and enthusiastically. There is
no better example than the 100th Psalm. It was written for a liturgical procession moving
toward the great Temple in Jerusalem to make a thank offering, From outside a choir of
voices chanted:
"Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands -
Serve the Lord with gladness."
From inside came a response -
"Know that the Lard is God,
Tt is he that hath made us."
The choir cutside sang...
"Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.”

- 2 -

And before the gates were opened, the choir inside asserted...
"The Lord is good:
His steadfast love endures forever

and his faithfulness to all generations.

The first hymn in our hymnal is "Old Hundredth" set to a tune composed by Calvin's
organist and favorite hymn-writer, Louis Bourgeois, We use his tune every time we sing
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow" - the Doxology. The words co "Old Hundredth"..
“all people that on earth do dweli"” are a paxaphrase of Psalm 100, phrase by phrase,
written by William Kethe, a Scottish clergyman who was a friend of John Knox. The hymn
is the oldest English hymn in use. Tt is one of our most precious treasures, Those
hearty pilgrims on the coast of New England in 1621 certainly sang it.

eyond the liturgical, ceremonial use of the Psalm, however, thoughtful people

have sonetives wondered about its insistence on praising, thanking and worshiping God. In
fact, thoughtful people have wondered why the Ged portrayed in the Bible is always ordering
pecple to love Him and praise Him, If He's all He claims to be, they reason, why does He
have to order people to worship Him? Isn't it a little like an immature, egocentric lover
who needs constant reassurance that he or she is lovely, attractive and exciting? Isn't
it, after all, a little Like ordering one's own children to be grateful - or else? I
discovered a delightful chapter in C.S.Lewis' little book on the Psaims in which he deserih
his early irritation with the Bible at just this point. "Worst of all," he wrote, "wags the

B

succestion of the very silliest Pagan bargaining, More than ance the Psalmist seems to be
saying, ‘You like praise. Do this for me and you shall have some.''' (Reflections on the
Psalms, p. 77f£).

There is an adolescent egotism in all of us that does not like to be ordered to do
anything: some of us dig cur heels in , almost in anticipation of a cimmand. The turning
point for me was when IT could ackmaledge in maturity, that God doesn't need my act of
worship - I do. Ecclesiastically the turning peint is in seeing that the impulse to go to
church, worship God, is not an external imperative imposed by an authority outside our-
selves, We may go through the motions but we do not worship well, if at all, under those
conditions, God doesn't need our worship any more than we need our children's gratitude.
The need is all ours...to be fully human by placing our lives in the context of a creator's
love and will and then giving expression to the feelings generated. C.S.Lewis said it much
better than that, "God," he wrote, “is that object to admire which is simply to be awake..
not to appreciate which is to have lost the greatest experience, and in the end to have
lost all. The incomplete and crippled lives of those who are tone-deaf, have never been
in love, wever known true firendship, never cared for a good book, never enjoyed the feel
of the imarning air on their cheeks, are faint images of it." (Ibid,, p.79).

And so, upon reflection, the Bible seems to know what is best for us. In insisting
that we praise, adore, and thank God, it is requiring us to do the very thing that makes
us most human. Lewis wrote, "praise almost seems to be inner health made audible." (p,80).
George Buttrick wrote somewhere, '.,.praise is native and men give thanks for the same

reason that the birds sing.'"' And Eric Routley, a salty British church musician, ''Take
away a man's capacity for praise and you have him well on the way to hell." (Hymns and

the Faith, p.26).

The sorriest, saddest peaple I know are those who feel no gratitude, who have lost
the capacity to be overwhelmed by the goodness or grace of anything that comes from outside
oneself, people rendered incapable of making a joyful noise about anything.

And yet, even for those of us who are inclined in that direction, there is much
about our situation which mitigates against making much joyful noise, particularly, for

~-3-

the Lord. In fact, the noises coming from the portion of God's people in mainline Pro-
testant churches scem rather more like a comminal lament than a joyful psaiter. Perhaps
whatever crisis in which we find ourselves - and our national statistics do Suggest that
we are in one ~ is very simply that we have forgotten how to make the joyful noises the
Bible enjoins. Perhaps our malady is quite simply an cpidcmic of institutional hand-
wringing. In any case, the pall that hangs over the church indicates a crisis of faith

which must be addressed. --- ance etae, cheated CMA MA aia Loe are ~ Ps £¢u

Theologically, we are at the business end of a process which systematically seams
to have squeezed God out of the picture. In the current issue of Theology Today, James
Mosely bluntly observes, "Thinking about God is especially hard in our times." (10/80,p.315
Rativnalism banished the supevnatural God who works miracles from the classroom. Rational-
ism taught people to build reservoirs rather than praying for rain, Secularism banished
the church from the established orders of society. But the issue ig not whether an in-
necueus prayer is read aver the PA system in school, or seripture is force fed to children
of families who do not choose te hear it. These are, I believe, diversionary issues, The
critical problem is a culture and way of thinking that has made humanity divine, acted as
if God is dead and decided that self-realization and self~eratification is the only paradis
there is or ever will be. Marxism taught that religion is an opiate, We heve reversed tha
inage in the mirror of our culture so that materialism is our narcotic. Neither way of
thinking allows much space for God.

But a very interesting transition seems already to have begun. JI was privileped
this sumer to sit in a seminar led by Herman Kahn, Director of the Hudson Institute. Kahn
is a futurist of considerable reputation in government and business circles. Someone asked
him what he belteved - theolngically, His response was classic, “At sixteen I was an
atheist," he said, "At twenty-five I was an arnestic, at thirty-five a deist. The way ['m
soing I'll soon be a rabbi,"

Herman Kahn's pilerimage is a familiar and healthy one. Rationalism fooled us. We
actually believed we knew all there was to know: that human intellect could comprehend all
there was to comprehend, All it would take is time. But scientists aren't saying that
anvmoere, In facet, scientists are the new advocate for humility, reverence, awe. The
recent fly-by Saturn reminded any who needed reminding of the vastness and mystery and
unknown in the universe.

Writing an essay for the Futurist publication, University of Michigan philosopher
Henry Skolinoski, writing essentially for people who long ago rejected traditional religious
language, proposes a renewal of what he terms ''Reverential thinking". He writes, "Ta
think reverentially is to recognize human life as an intrinsic value, it is to recognize
love as an essential and indispensible modality of human existence...is to recognize joy
as part of daily living." (Through the 80's, p.273). Or, a8 Someone put it a while ago ~
"Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands -
For the Lord is good..."

A transition is in process, But the crisis of faith itself also includes a rather
major problem we have with joy. The fact is, we descendents of Puritan religion still
suspect frivolity whenever anyone laughs in church. As is usually the case the "ism"
becomes an exaggeration of its original form. Calvin was no Calvinist, and Puritans might
not recognize Puritanism, Nevertheless we are known more for out severity than our glee,
Sternness and sobriety do characterize our worship. What goes for "joyful noise" in most
of our churches are atrocious nineteenth century hymns about death and dying with full
vibrato on the organ. A puritan divine once allowed as how "laughter was of the devil"
and we often seem to believe he was right - when, for instance, we teach our children
that reverence is expressed like sadness - and going to worship will always be the occasion

=. - SQN

fec cuerced silence.‘ Why not applaud or laugh or at least sing with a partion of the cuon-
viction we invest in foc*ball? Where is it written that the way we worship God must be,
first of all, boring? Presbyterian Carl Dudley proposes that after the scripture we wight,
on occasion, replace the sedate "Thanks be to God" with a more muaningful "Fantastic!", And,
as Jerry Beavers taught our children a few weeks ago, a more authentice response to prayer
than "Amen" might be something Like "Right on!" (A.D, Magazine, November 1980). cel pL Gb

Our crisis of faith might begin to be resolved and, by the way, people might begin
Co pay attention to us - and our faith - again, if we recovered one of the eldest dynamics
ef our tradition - the profound joy which results from acknowledging that the Lord is God-
that we are His people - and that His love endures furcver. No crisis of faith will be
ceselved and no joyful noise will be made, however, which does not in some way respond to
the dilewna of evil. Relentlessly we ask Job's question: "Why?" Across the centuries
pevple has ssked: "Why hunger, why injustice, why cancer, why war, why death ,' Father, why
neve you Foreaken me'?"' The Biblical response is - very simply - "the Lord is good," It
is not, picase understand, that God wills and orchestrates human suffering or sickness or
deach or tragic accidents. It is that the freedom in which God creates human life allows
evil things to happen, but, inspite of that, the Lord is good ~ His love endures forever,

That's the critical difference with Biblical faith. The Bible does not tie its
theology to good fortune, good health, victory in battle. That's how it was for everyone
else in history until a Hebrew prophet one time suggested that God loves and cares for His
people precisely when things are not going well. The Jews gave the world the ability to
see God even in suffering and sickness and defeat. The Jews gave the world one of their
sons - whose death on a cross, we believe, is the demonstration of God's love; not the virts
of evil and death, but a gesture of love.Gratitude sometimes seems more profound somehow
in adversity. Joy somehow scams ire authentic when it is experienced and expressed in the
facé of tragedy - just as the light of a cendle takes on its essential character the minute
if is surreusded by darkness, Thus this prayer, scribbled on a wall in the Warsaw Ghetta:

"T believe in the sun, even if it does net shine,

p M I believe in love, even if I do not feel it.
; [4 4 - I believe in God, even if I do not see him,"
ZA. pl (Hans Kung, Signposts for the Future, p.164),

Thus, the haunting line from Anne Frank's Jast Hannukah, 'We have so much for which

to be thankful. Let us praise God!" (See Carl Dudley, More Than Thanksgiving, A.D.,
November, 1980, p.48). Thus Lincoln, establishing the national holiday in the midst of
a Civil War, and Washington, eight separate times, calling the early Americans to prayers
of gratitude and, of course, back before it all - that pathetic little bank of Christians
who had burled most of their friends, relatives, children, precariously perched on the edge
of a new world, celebrating Thanksgiving. They knew what they were about. They knew the
meaning of the English hymn they brought with them, All of them - all who have had faith
big enough to feel gratitude, to express it, to share it in the midst of adversity - knew
the méaning of the ancient words...

Make a joyful neise to the Lord, all the lands.

know that the Lerd is Ged.

Give thanks to him: bless his name,

For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever

and his faithfulness to all generations.

Amen.

Lord God ef all, we would give expression to the gratitude that is in us. Hear
our thanksgiving; our joyful noises; hear our tentative expressions; hear even the faith
which is expressed in doubt and skepticism, For all You are, we give You thanks; through

Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen,