2023 01 15 Sermon
Sing a New Song
Epiphany 2 A
Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
The first Psalm I ever memorized was the 23rd Psalm, and probably many of you have, too, maybe in Sunday School or Confirmation Class. The second Psalm I memorized was Psalm 40. Why? Well, when I was about 13 or 14, my friend Andrew lent me a cassette tape of a concert called “Under a Blood Red Sky—U2 Live at Red Rocks”. The last song of the concert began with the singer, Bono, saying to the crowd: “Sing this with me, this is 40.” The song sounded like a prayer. I didn’t know rock songs could be prayers. Why was this song called “40”, I wondered? Then I remembered something our pastor taught us in confirmation class, that the psalms are prayers. I was curious, so I opened a Bible and found Psalm 40. Sure enough, those were the words Bono was singing!
“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined and heard my cry. He lifted me up out of the pit, out of the miry clay …I will sing, sing a new song… He set my feet upon a rock, and made my footsteps firm…” And here Bono takes some artistic license and changes the wording slightly, so instead of singing “Many will see and fear” he sings “Many will see and hear.” Now, the meaning of “fear” in the context of this psalm is “to stand in awe of God.” But many people don’t hear it in a positive way like that. Instead we hear it negatively, as in “being afraid of punishment”. Maybe that’s why Bono changed it. Or maybe he was alluding to later on in the psalm where it says “you have given me an open ear.” Or maybe he just liked the sound of it. But in any case, St. Paul reminds us in Romans that “faith comes through what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17).
The first thing we hear Jesus saying in the gospel of John is recorded in today’s gospel reading (John 1:38). Jesus turns to two of John the Baptist’s disciples and asks “What are you looking for?” They respond, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” This seems like a disjointed answer, or maybe one of those games where you can only answer a question with another question! (Did you ever see that on Whose Line Is It Anyway?) But because they realize that Jesus is a Rabbi (meaning a Teacher), they’re saying that they want to stay where he is so they can learn from him.
Jesus responds by saying, “Come and see!” Jesus invites them to not simply gain information about him, but to check out the things he does and to experiment with trying those things yourself. Jesus encourages them to take the first step on the journey of participating in his life; growing in faith; strengthening their spiritual bond with him.
Following this journey into the life of Christ takes patience. Very few people suddenly wake up one morning and have everything about God all figured out—and if you think you do, just wait a few minutes, and you won’t have God all figured out anymore! But what we do get when we embark with patience on this journey of faith, and when we accept Jesus’ invitation to “Come and see” - we get these “little epiphanies”, these little “ah-ha!” moments, when something about the way of Jesus begins to make sense. And we give thanks for that!
Jesus’ invitation to “Come and see” also means that as we begin this journey, no one starts out as a “finished product”. No one is perfect, and no one ever reaches perfection, not in this lifetime anyway. We are all broken in some way. We each have some part of our lives that we need to cry out to God, with a petition of prayer, for help. We each have times when we need to lament that we have fallen into a desolate pit, and we need God to lift us up into new life.
This is the model given to us by Psalm 40—to begin with thanksgiving, and then move into making our prayer petitions, and then move to making even our laments—all while we wait patiently for the Lord’s salvation to become real in our lives. In this way we can make Psalm 40 our own.
In the song “40”, Bono made the psalm his own, as well, as he concludes the concert by singing along with everyone in the crowd: “How long to sing this song?” These words echo his lyrics from an earlier song in the concert where he laments “The Troubles” (as they’re known)—the 30-year period of terrorism and violence in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. He laments the reality of people trying to solve their problems by turning to violence, and the 3500 people killed and the tens of thousands injured during those times.
So he cried out to God, in prayer and lament, “How long do we need to sing this song?” When will we stop singing that we can find salvation through violence? When will we stop singing of the need to inflict trauma and fear because of our own hurts and betrayals? When will we learn to sing a song of forgiveness and healing? of love and faithfulness? That's the song given to us by Jesus—a song where we can start imagining that our opponents, and even our enemies, can become our partners in finding a way to build the future together. In Ireland it finally happened—after 30 years of conflict—with the Good Friday Accords in 1998, where people who were opponents and enemies took a risk to “come and see” a different way of relating to one another, if not as friends, then at least as partners for peace to build a new future together. No one got all they wanted, and everyone had to give up something, but enough people got something that they could live with. And so they began to sing a new song!
Today, Jesus continues to invite us to “come and see”, and he has given us some important tools to strengthen us for this journey of following him: We have a spiritual family that we call the church; we share a faith in the dying and rising of Christ, into whom we were baptized. We have a family meal known as Holy Communion, where we receive the divine nourishment of forgiveness, love, and grace; and we are united with Christ and all the saints through this heavenly food. We are molded by God to be the Body of Christ ourselves, as our hands and feet and hearts and minds go into the world as ambassadors of God’s grace in a hurting world. And we get to interact together as a community of faith, to help and support and pray for one another, as we build each other up.
In short (to borrow the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:9), God has called you “into the partnership of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” God has called us to be his partners for peace in the world, and peace with each other. And the Holy Spirit has given us all the spiritual gifts we need to fulfill the ministry that God has called us to do.
Even though we are partners with Jesus, we are not a perfect community, and we’re not perfect people—far from it. So we can make Psalm 40 our own as we take a new step on our journey with Jesus each day: by offering thanksgiving for God’s blessings, then moving to prayer, and then even to lament, because we are each broken in some way, and in need of healing; we need forgiveness and new life. But those broken places are where the beautiful light of Christ can best shine through. And by his light, we can find a new song to sing. Amen.