Psalm 40:1-11
I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. 3 He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord. 4 Happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. 5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted. 6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.7 Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. 8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.” 9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord. 10 I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation. 11 Do not, O Lord, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.
As you know, summer officially began last week. I can't believe next Sunday is the 4th of July!. As a result, next week we'll be looking at the relationship between freedom and independence. Over the last 16 months I think we've all learned, hopefully, a little bit about ourselves and what freedom and independence has meant when we felt like our freedom and independence were significantly cramped.
Interestingly, the last time that we looked at this particular Psalm was November of 2019, before any of us had any inkling how our lives, and the world, would change forever. And at that time, I shared with you that Psalm 40 was so powerful that Bono, the lead singer for U2, wrote a song called “40” that his band would play at the end of every city that they toured in, which was a full dedication to Psalm 40. I also sent you to look at the YouTube video of him and Eugene Peterson, who authored The Message, and it's well documented that the two of them had a beautiful relationship. Eugene has gone on to the Great Reward, but it has well over two million views. If you haven't seen it yet, it's very inspiring.
Psalm 40 is a song of praise. It's a song of praise and actually sheer joy. The Psalmist says that even in the worst, most unbearable circumstances, still God heard. God saved. God transformed. This Psalmist was given new life, and, not only was he given new life, but his rescue from God was so powerful that the lives of many, many others were changed as well.
So, like so many Psalms, Psalm 40 is a celebration of deliverance from God's saving hand.
It's often even titled or subtitled “I Sing a New Song.” This poet is so filled with gratitude and joy from being delivered from truly life-threatening trouble, that he wants to share this good news with everyone. His praise is so spirit-filled that the song itself was even put in his mouth and his heart, by the Lord. That's what I want. I want to be able to say these words and feel them and believe them. I want that for you. I want that for me. I want that for this church. I want that for our families, our friends, for this entire community. But we're not there yet. We're still hung up on what's not right, what's not happening, what hasn't happened, what's not good enough, what hasn't been resolved or completed and that's kind of a hard way to live.
But then something happens. Something happens beyond our own doing. Something changes. Something new and wonderful happens, even beyond our own doing or our thinking or our acting. And it resets us. It puts us on a new and better track, even just for a little bit. And for a lot of us that happens when a particular scripture just sears our heart, where we hear music that just changes our whole attitude. And sometimes it's music and scripture together.
Yesterday, I finally acquiesced and bought a new cell phone. And, as you know if you've bought a cell phone recently, they're no longer free. They are extraordinarily expensive. And, as you know (Sarah and I were just talking about this a few minutes ago), if you hold on to your phone long enough it's just going to stop working. We talked about the built-in obsolescence, which is not a new concept, but the cell phone company kept warning me: “Your phone is hot. It's six years old. One day there's going to be an update and it's not going to work”.
So, I thought, you know what, I'm just going to get a track phone and wait for this day to come. And then when my phone dies, I'll just use the track phone and then get a new one. And I thought that's just kind of silly. So, I bought a new phone and then spent a good portion of yesterday trying to figure how to turn it on. Well, not really, but it's amazing how many tutorials you can see on YouTube for, like you know, changing the screen color and all that sort of stuff. I spent hours on this yesterday.
So to make an even finer point, I wake up early on Sunday mornings and I don't like to wake up to an alarm. Some of you may have the same thing where your alarm goes off and Spotify or one of the applications plays. And this morning I really didn't want to get up, but Spotify played a Bill Withers song, “Lovely Day.” “Lovely Day”, right? It's an old song and I leapt out of bed! I thought, “This is going to be a great day, even if no one comes to church and it's hotter than hades, it's gonna be a great day”, because Bill Withers changed my frame of mind. Well actually, God changed my frame of mind through Bill Withers, but you know where I'm going with this.
I know we've been very bruised and very battered by the last 16-18 months and we don't know where we're going in the future. We're just trying to do our best. But I want us to have a new song. It may not be the same song for all of us, but I want us to be able to have a new song that we can sing and praise and pray with.
Today the choir is going to be introducing a new song, a new hymn that some of you may be familiar with. I had not. And not that I know a lot about hymns, but I work with them on a pretty regular basis. I had never heard this hymn. And I really want us to learn it, because it's 120 years old. This particular hymn was written by two brothers in honor of Abraham Lincoln's birthday. These two brothers wrote this in honor of the emancipation of slaves. It's a hymn that we should be singing in honor of their emancipation. It's a hymn we should probably sing every week to be reminded of what God did for those people. How God brought the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. A cry for liberation from slavery is not one that is easily sung, but I think we need to sing it on a more regular basis.
As we hear this Psalm again through the voice of the slaves, you can imagine what it was like for them to hear that Psalm when they were being forced to sit in the balcony on Sundays, because the white people sat downstairs. Imagine them singing this when they were out in the fields being beaten and abused, when they were in the dark night, in the heat of the summer, in the freezing of the cold, where their families were separated. They sang this Psalm, because “they waited patiently for the Lord. God heard them and drew them up, out of the desolate pit and set their feet on a rock. He put a new song in their mouths--a song of praise--and many would see and praise God as a result. They trusted God. They did not turn their back on God and they kept praising God in spite of their misery. They knew they didn't even have to offer a sacrifice; but they knew God's law, and God's will was in their hearts” (Ps 40), and no one could take that away from them.
Friends, if our African-American brothers and sisters were able to do that, then maybe we can just a little bit do that, too. I want us to have a new song. It may not be today, but God is waiting to hear a new song. And, in a few minutes, we're going to sing it for the first time--at least since I've been here--and praise God regardless of where we are or what we're waiting on or the suffering we're in, because God? God's not done with us yet.
Thanks be to God. Amen.