October Psalm Challenge: 5 a Day

We are about to enter month two of our three month series in the Psalms.  In the month of October, I am challenging church family (both those present with us in worship and those who we think of fondly as members in absentia.)

October Psalm Challenge

5 a Day

It is what it sounds like.  If you read 5 Psalms a day through the month of October, you will have read the entire Psalter with one day to spare (in case you need to do any make-up reading.)  Praying regularly through the Psalms is a practice used to center the devotional lives of  Christians around the world from Eastern Orthodox priests to Billy Graham.  It is something I have been doing for about 4 months although, I confess, I have tended to read them all at once. If you are already making a habit of reading the Psalms, I invite you to join me in "upping the ante" and trying to read them at regular intervals throughout the day, like "praying the hours," according to some Catholic or Anglican traditions.  One when we wake up and one every 3 hours until we go to bed.

There are many ways of doing keeping on track.  A calendar is going to be published in the newsletter.  You can also set up a reading plan on the YouVersion app on your iPhone.  If you prefer, you can listen to the Psalms being read to you, using some internet sites or smartphone apps.

Please consider joining me for the 

October Psalm Challenge

5 a Day

Praise: the postlude

It never fails that I think of what I should have said in the sermon right about 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon.

Last Sunday, we talked about Praise -- how it is something that can either become or can be perceived as simplistic or naive.  That sometimes, saying the truth about who God is comes from the overflow of our hearts and sometimes it comes forced through gritted teeth.

It kind of reminds me of this:

"I love you."

Man! There are so many ways of saying those words, aren't there?  

- Sometimes they come from the overflow of our hearts, bubbling up, maybe even saying it before the logic behind those words has even settled in our minds. 

- Sometimes we say it from the force of habit, when leaving the house or hanging up the phone.

- Sometimes we say it in order to learn how to mean it.

- Sometimes we want to shout it.  Sometimes we whisper it almost in desperation.  

- Sometimes we say it in pride or in amusement or in amazement.

Maybe the most simple way of understanding the act of praising God is that we are saying those words, "I love you."  Just as there are numerous ways of saying it and meaning it in human relationships, the same holds true when we are talking with God.

- "Spread Your protection over them, that those who love Your name may rejoice in You."

- "But I trust in Your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation."

- "Show me the wonders of Your great love,"

- "I love you, Lord, my strength."

- "For I have always been mindful of your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness."

- "Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells."

- "I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him will never fail."

- “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

- "I love the LORD, he heard my cry."

- "Save us and help us with your right hand, that those you love may be delivered."

Airing Our Dirty Laundry

This week: 

Confession 

The back story
David stays home from battle #poorchoice
David sees Bathsheba in the bath and shrugs  #YOLO
#poorchoice
Bathsheba ends up pregnant #whosawthatcoming?
David retrieves Bathsheba's husband from the battlefield #what? #noreason
Bathsheba's husband won't enjoy R&R while his troops are still at war #respect
#thisdoesnotlookgood
David sends Bathsheba's husband under direct military attack #notcool #poorchoice
Bathsheba's husband dies #whosawthatcoming?
David marries Bathsheba #whatamess
David figgers he got away with it. #notsofast
Nathan #prophetofGod shows up. #uhoh
Nathan #prophetofGod tells the story of a selfish rich man stealing a poor shepherd's only lamb. #poorshepherdproblems #notcool
David gets mad & takes the poor shepherd's side. Nathan #prophetofGod says #youtheman
#boomwhatsup
#dropthemike

Psalm 51
"Have mercy on me, O God
     According to your unfailing love;
     According to your great compassion

Blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
And cleanse me from my sin."

David thought he had gotten away with it.  He thought he'd shoved those poor choices so far in the back corner of the closet that no one would ever find them.  He was ready to move forward.  Then Nathan shows up, unearths the wrinkled, mildewed and stained mess.  And, in public, he airs the King's dirty laundry.

Get out the tide stick, the bleach and Heloise handy tips for stain removal.
God is about to muck about in our dirty laundry.

God doesn't show up with cellophane & starched new clothes.
God the washer woman gets to work.
Taking what is old and soiled and wrinkled and torn.
God mends and soaks, scrubs and irons us back to life.

Our secret addictions.
That ancient mistake so carefully hidden.
Pieces of ourselves crammed in a closet corner.

Maybe, like David, we think we are in the clear.
Maybe, like David, God sends us someone -- a friend, a therapist, a spouse -- some modern day prophet to air our dirty laundry.

Not to be unkind.
Not to shame or ridicule

But because God the washer woman won't work in the back corner of closets.
God the washerwoman uses soap and fresh air.
Taking what is old and soiled and wrinkled and torn.
God mends and scrubs and hangs us on the line.
Not dirty laundry
Rather refreshed, remade, redeemed,
Pure hearts flapping in a strong summer breeze
Steadfast spirits soaking sunshine

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation."

Praise Preview

This week we move from God's Call to Worship in Psalm 95 to our response of Praise in Psalm 8.

The high school Sunday School class will be leading our time of confession & assurance of pardon, using this song by Matt Redman.  Listen, learn, prepare to sing but, mostly, remember that -- even in weeks like this one -- there are reasons yet to Praise.

Call to Worship: Recap

Last Sunday we focused on Psalm 95 as a song intended to call us to worship.  The "Call to Worship" is a formal part of our church's liturgy but it's importance extends beyond formality to ethics.  What kind of people do we become when we recognize that we are called to worship God by God?  Where in the creation, where in our daily lives, in other words where beyond Sunday morning do we hear this call?

I'd love to read some comments. Places where you have felt God calling you to worship this past week.  Below I will share two of mine:

1) A friend posted this on Facebook:

http://www.faithit.com/what-happens-when-worship-leaders-from-around-the-world-take-the-stage-with-chris-tomlin-just-watch/#.UjTAZTKirbE.facebook

2) Another friend wrote this on her blog:

http://www.calliefeyen.com/?p=1972

Enjoy!

Weird

It used to be -- or at least a nostalgic portrait of Norman Rockwell's 1950s would have us believe -- that everyone went to church.  10am Sunday morning, you knew where your neighbors were going to be. You knew where you were supposed to be.  The only "Call to Worship" needed was societal expectation.

Not so the Millennial!  But this is NOT yet another long-winded, hand-wringing polemic about why "our young people are leaving the church in apocalyptic proportions!!!"  This is NOT yet another strategy-session, try-it-this-way infomercial for the coolest (maybe, in a fit of hipster irony, not coolest) way of doing church.

This is a recognition of the fact that what we do in corporate worship is -- and always has been -- profoundly weird.  It has always creeped me out a bit that the nostalgic portrait of Norman Rockwell's 1950s seems oblivious to the fact that they are doing a profoundly weird thing.

Church is weird, y'all!  If you exchange more that a "Christ be with you" with the person next to you in the pew, you would realize the church is full of weird people -- beginning with you.  And the things we do are weird.  We sing out loud. Together. With exception of baseball's 7th inning stretch, where else do we do that?  We let someone yammer at us for 20 minutes (without commercial interruption.) That's weird.  But the weirdest thing of all:

We talk to God.
And we listen believing that God talks to us.
Weird.

Pastor and theologian Eugene Peterson reminds us that the Psalms teach us to pray, to talk and listen, by turn, to God. In worship, then, "We decide to leave an ego-centered world and enter a God-centered world."  

Everything about our daily lives points us in the direction of ego-centrism.  Everything about worship points us in the direction of God-centrism.  We are acclimated to the former, and alien to the latter.  Maybe that is why the Psalms are filled with "Calls to Worship."  Because if we truly understand what we are doing, it might well take some cajoling to get us to do it.

"Sing to the LORD a new song."
"Shout for joy to God, all the earth."
"Praise the LORD."

The "Call to Worship" that begins a service of Christian Worship is not formality.  It is not simply a greeting, like a handshake.  The "Call to Worship" is an invitation to subversion. It is a coaxing to patterns, behaviors, ways of thinking, believing and feeling that are not immediately comfortable to people shaped by an ego-centered world.  It is a drawing back of the curtain to reveal the possibility of a God-centered world.  A "Call to Worship" is a call to be weird. Thanks be to God.

Call to Worship

Why do we do what we do in worship? It is a good and fair question. One that we are allowing the Psalms to help us answer. This week, we focus on what it means to be a people "Called to Worship."

Below is a quotation to center your thoughts and a new song we will be introducing into the liturgy on Sunday morning. Take a listen (or 12) as we all prayerfully prepare for the work of worship.

When we come together to worship we do so in response to God’s call.  In the gathering, we acknowledge that God has invited us to meet with him through his Son, Jesus Christ.  God takes the initiative to invite us to worship and we respond with great joy.  We say a hearty “Yes!” to the invitation and prepare to celebrate the greatness of the God who desires to be in fellowship with us.  A dialogue has begun.  God calls us to worship; to this invitation we joyfully respond.

- Constance Cherry “The Worship Architect”