A Word from Pastor Lisa: Praise Through Prayer

Savage, Augusta, 1892-1962. Lift Every Voice and Sing, or, The Harp, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56240 [retrieved July 21, 2021]. Original source: https://books.google.com/books?id=5VoEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+crisis+magazine+1939&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy8rT1_d_QAhVL8WMKHWw1AKA4ChDoAQgZMAA#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent, you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers.

– Psalm 104:1-4 (NRSV)

Prayer is the language we use in our relationships with God. It gives shape to what we sense, feel, and long for before our Creator. In Answering God, Eugene Peterson says God speaks to us, and our answers are our prayers. Of course, those prayers are not always words; sometimes they’re silence, sighs, groans, tears, or laughter. The answers are not always positive; sometimes they’re doubts, disappointment, or cursing. But always God is involved with us, whether in darkness or light, hope or despair.

I’ve discovered church folks would rather talk about God than talk with God, or even more, to be silent and still before God. The Psalms are a part of Scripture that resists these tendencies. They have been passed through generations of Judeo-Christian communities not to teach us about God so much as to give us tools to respond to God. The Psalms invite us to be active participants, not casual hearers. We don’t truly learn the Psalms until we pray them.

Over the next month, we’re going to explore in worship how we might pray different types of Psalms geared for praise, lament, anger, and special occasions. We’ll start with Psalms of praise. According to St. Benedict, through Psalms of praise, we allow the motions of our hearts to come into harmony with the movement of our lips. We learn to see the world as God does – created in goodness.

Before the Psalms were ever read aloud, they were sung in community. The prayer practice we’re encouraging this week is for you to sing Psalms of praise. You do not have to be Pavarotti to sing praise Psalms. Methodist founder John Wesley instructed us to “sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim to please [God} more than yourself, or any other creature.” Here are some hymns and songs based on Psalms:

“I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath” UMH #60 (Psalm 146)

“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” UMH #139 (Psalm 103)

“Bless the Lord, My Soul” Taizé (also Psalm 103 … note the differences)

“The King of Love my Shepherd Is” UMH #138 (Psalm 23)

“Psalm 100” praise song by Chris Tomlin

As you sing along with these songs and compare with the Psalms in your Bible,

1. What are the similarities and differences?

2. How do they allow your heart to come into harmony with the movement of your lips?

3. How do they draw you closer in prayer to God?

In Getting Involved with God, Ellen Davis says that “over and over again, [the Psalms] attest to the reality that when we open our minds and hearts fully to the God who made them, then we open ourselves, whether we know it or not, to the possibility of being transformed beyond our imagining.” I’m eager to see how we will grow through praying the Psalms together, that we might be transformed in the presence of God.