A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Winnette

The Inflamed, Ardent Soul

Psalm 138

This morning along with Protestant Congregations worldwide we give thanks for our Reformation Heritage.   It is fitting to preach Psalm 138 on Reformation Sunday.  Through John Calvin’s efforts the Geneva Psalter was created and it served as the primary hymnbook for many congregations for hundreds of years. In the preface of the 1542 edition he wrote: “And in truth we know by experience that singing has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts of (people) to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.[1]” He includes some strong words for worship: great force, vigor, inflame, vehement, ardent zeal.   He sets a high worship bar; and I think we are up to it. Later we will sing one of his hymns from the Geneva Psalter, I greet thee, who my sure Redeemer Art.

It prays - Our hope is in no other save in Thee; Our faith is built upon Thy promise free;

Lord, give us peace, and make us calm and sure, That in Thy strength we evermore endure.

We really need to believe thus hymns good words. We hope in God. We need Christ’s peace, we need God’s strength to endure the banes of our world.  So let’s sing the hopeful words into being. Imagine singing the hymn later, praying it, believing it with great singing force and vigor.   Imagine our hearts inflamed as we invoke and praise God.   Calvin uses the word vehemence. Can you imagine our vehement worship? It’s a strong word – a word not usually attributed to Presbyterian worship – can you imagine us filled with vehement and ardent zeal? John Calvin can? The Psalmist can?   I know many of us can be quite comfortably vehement: passionate, heated, vigorous in other venues – like football games.

Last night many of us had great fun at our Homecoming Celebration remembering old high school excitements – homecoming games, dances, kings and queens.   We have some passionate dancers in our congregation.  I recalled the energy of the high school pep rallies. Do you remember the competitive cheer – “We’ve got spirit, yes we do we’ve got spirit how about you?” “We’ve got spirit, yes we do we’ve got spirit how about you?”   This cheer was meant to stir up energy & passion. It was meant to build hope in the team that we might impart to it our enthusiasm. Let’s use it in worship sometime – “We’ve got (capital S) S -pirit, yes we do we’ve got S-pirit how about you?”

The Psalms are our scriptural songbook and they serve us in a similar cheer-building way. They present to us the breadth of human pathos and emotion. They allow and elicit our emotions especially within our worship of God.   They help us build our capacities to respond to God. If you ever ponder how you can relate to God – try reciting and singing the Psalms; they will teach you.   Some Psalms cheer with gratitude and our hearts grow in thanksgiving. Others allow us to rail against God in anger for a world of injustice and suffering. Some help us channel our grief, our lamentation and worry.   And others build our faith in God. They put us in our proper places in the world with respect to God. Psalm 138 is one of those. It is a thanksgiving hymn and it builds within us greater hope in God. It teaches us to trust. It reminds us that we are not God but we are creations of God and God is mindful of us.   

Listen with me again to some of Psalm 138 but this time in the King James Version:

I will share some thoughts on three verses: 1, 3 and 6. They are about PRAISING GOD WITH OUR WHOLE HEARTS, STRENGTHENING OUR SOULS, and GOD’S RESPECT FOR THE LOWLY.

Weeks ago, the Adult education committee presented a well-attended series on Anxiety. I was blessed to offer some of Christian theology’s treatment of anxiety. In summary – our great theologians seem to agree that anxiety is unavoidable; it has some positive attributes, and it can be very destructive of life.   The most powerful antidote to anxiety’s destruction of life’s happiness is TRUST in God.   As we grow in our trust in God’s providence anxiety loses his stranglehold on us.   Psalm 138 helps us by teaching us to grow in our trust.

It starts with a popular biblical injunction that we give thanks to God with our whole heart. We can learn better how to observe our lives realizing God’s blessings giving thanks to God.   The psalmist may be asking us to become obsessive in our gratitude. Obsessive Compulsive Disorders are serious and I don’t make light of them now, but our culture seems to be too critical of some obsessive behavior. Last week when we were in New Orlean’s ninth ward laying tile and I was cutting and nailing baseboards I came to appreciate that OCD behavior is necessary sometimes. As I miter-cut baseboards with the powerful chop saw, I tried hard to be perfect.   Wasn’t but wanted to be.   I wanted to do my very best for Wesley’s home. We can give more of our hearts to God. Particularly, we can be a good bit more obsessive in the thanksgiving department.   A wholehearted obsession of gratitude to God can only help our lives. 

            The Philippians passage read earlier includes a half-glass full kind of command – “Rejoice – do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Paul gives the advice that we become obsessive in our positive-thinking, I imagine he was thinking this a way to worship God with our whole heart. He said, “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” The Psalmist, John Calvin and the Apostle Paul are teaching us to worship God whole-heartedly!

            Verse 3 promises that God will strengthen our souls. I love the idea of strong souls, robust souls, muscular souls.   Our worship of God, our singing of hymns, our mission, our prayer all strengthen our souls like good exercise strengthens our bodies, like good study strengthens our minds.   As we balance our days, let us make sure to include practices that invoke God’s strengthening soul power.    Jesus Christ came teaching and witnessing to a gospel that frees us to be strong.    In Christ we are freed from worries about death. We are freed from obsessions with guilt. We are freed to find purpose within God’s vision for the world.   And Christ is Lord; we don’t need to be gods ourselves. 

            And finally verse 6, “For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away.” It’s a slap-down. It can sting a bit. It’s a slap-down; we are being put in our place. We are not gods. God is high. We are low.   And it’s is a good thing. We are freed to be creatures made in love; we are not the rulers of the universe. What a relief. The Psalmist calls for humility. Mystic Evelyn Underhill wrote, “For the life of personal worship -- that is to say the increasingly adoring relation to the Holy -- is grounded in two qualities: humility and charity. Humility is or should be what one feels about self over against God...Humility in its beginning arises from negative contrast; one’s sense of his/her own faults and imperfection, his/her nothingness over against God. But at its height it is caused by positive contrast: the supreme love, worth, and beauty of God in God’s self, God’s perfection striking upon the soul.”

Humility is not self-denial or self-abasement. It is grounded in God’s love. We can trust that God loves us as we are – beautifully made in God’s image.   As we pray Psalm 138 we are invited to trust in God’s infinite love and concern for us.  Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “If at every moment both present and future I were certain that nothing has happened or can ever happen that would separate me from the love of the Infinite, that would be the clearest reason there is for joy.” 

            I close with a story that I have not shared in years about a dear woman I met when I was a camp counselor the summer of 1987. She exemplified this Psalm’s faith, courage and trust.   I guess Ruby was in her late fifties; she lived in a group home for people with mental and physical limitations.   She was delightful. We were taking the group from her home on a hike in the low mounts of eastern Tennessee.   I was the leader and I picked a three mile hike. I thought it not too long, nor too short. It beautifully meandered in places beside a deep, spring ravine. I thought it not too difficult, nor too easy.  We took plenty of water and snacks and planned on many rest breaks.   I must say, I would never do it again.   I had no idea what I was doing taking these new friends on this hike.  

You see, Ruby was blind. I encouraged her to stay back at the camp with some of my campers but she insisted on going.   So in my youth-filled exuberance and foolishness, we went.   I put Ruby in the middle of the pack.   After the first time she fell over a root she began to sing, Great is thy faithfulness. I wondered about taking her back but she sang with such energy and her face shone with joy.   She sang, Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see.   All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!   We kept going. I was terrified as we stumbled along the deep ravine that she might fall. Her friends supported her and she sang, “Great is thy Faithfulness.” I had no idea whether we had made mid-point or not and pondered turning back many times until up head I saw the clearing.   We all sang loudly, “Great is thy faithfulness” as we returned to camp and our lunches. Ruby and all her friends were beaming with great joy. She stopped singing and after sitting down, simply said, “I made it. I made it.” We were all so proud.    Ruby sang us through. 

“And in truth we know by experience that singing has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts of (people) to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.” May God bless us as we worship. May God teach us the words to sing that will enflame our hearts with love, strengthen our souls with power, and help us to bow that we might receive God’s full blessing. We’ve got Spirit, yes we do. We’ve got Spirit. Amen.