Holy Week is here. Easter’s coming! It’s going to get a lot darker, though, before we see the light. So let’s keep praising our God!
What follows is the sermon from Palm / Passion Sunday.
“Praising God”
Luke 19: 28-40 and Psalm 118: 1-2, 19-29
Rev. Dr. Teri McDowell Ott
March 28th, 2010 – Palm / Passion Sunday
Have you ever known someone who was in constant need of praise? Someone who, no matter how many compliments you give them, still don’t believe you and still are in need of more? It gets tiring after a while, doesn’t it? It gets a little annoying! And it makes you wonder why he or she really needs so much praise?
Well, this week I began wondering if God was a little like this. You know, throughout our scriptures we, as believers, are constantly called upon to praise God, to give thanks to God, to cry out with the disciples, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “The title of the book of Psalms in Hebrew is a word which means praises, and many of the psalms begin and end with a call for people to praise God. Furthermore, throughout the scriptures, the ‘end times,’ ‘renewed creation,’ or ‘heaven’ is depicted as a time and place when believers from every nation will ceaselessly praise and worship God.”[1]
So what’s the deal here? Is our God’s ego so weak as to need an ever-flowing stream of praise? Is our God’s sense of self so fragile that we need to prop our Creator up with compliments? Well, I don’t believe this is the case. But, this call for praise really does make me wonder? Why are we supposed to spend our days ceaselessly praising our God? What is the purpose of all this praise?
Poet Mary Oliver says we can learn a lot about praise from the roses, how in their own exotic fragrance, in their huge willingness to give something to the world, they leaf and bud and bloom into the blue sky, joyfully rising in gratitude and in praise.[2] All creation is to praise the Creator. All creation is to turn to God. All creation is to leaf and bud and bloom in response to all that God has given us. And so, we humans worship, and we sing, and we serve and we love, all in the name of the God who inspires such praise. We join the multitude of disciples today who joyfully praise God with loud voices. We wave our palm branches. We shout our Hosannas. And we do all of this not so much for God’s sake, as for our own.
“Have you ever noticed that delight spontaneously overflows into praise?”[3] Unless we get self-conscious, and our self-consciousness brings our praise into check, we talk about the things we enjoy. In fact, the world rings with words of praise. Music fans praise their favorite music group. Sports fans rave about their team. Food lovers commend their favorite restaurants. We talk about the things we enjoy because we want to share our joy with others and because our joy isn’t really complete until we have shared it.[4]
One of the joys of parenthood is that you get to see and learn about the world all over again as your child learns and grows. As your child wakes up to the world, you do too in a way. For example, I never would have noticed all the tractors, trucks, buses, airplanes, and basketball nets that we drive by if I didn’t have a 2-year-old in my back seat pointing all these things out to me. Isaac and I have a great time driving down the road looking for all these things that bring him joy. This has become such a ritual now, that whenever I am driving by myself and I see a tractor or a truck or a basketball net, it feels a little frustrating because I can’t share that joy with Isaac. Our joy is not complete until we can share it. We cannot fully enjoy anything, unless we can sing its praises.
This is why God asks for our praise. What is the chief end of humankind? Asks the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The chief end of humankind is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever. Our joy is not complete until we share it. We cannot fully enjoy God unless we sing God’s praises. Just think about how much more meaningful an experience of God becomes when you can share that experience with others, and talk about it, and relive it. Just think about a moment when you experienced God in worship, and that moment was kept alive, and known more fully all week long, because you shared it with a whole community of people. God wants us to enjoy him fully. And so God wants us to sing God’s praises.
So we praise God to enjoy God, but also as the Westminster Catechism says, we praise God to glorify God. Our praise isn’t just for God. Our praise isn’t just for us. Our praise is also for others. Our praise, no matter what form it takes, is our witness, our testimony, our story to tell about the God whom we love so much. To glorify God means to reveal God or make God clear. To glorify God is to direct our attention and the attention of others to the transcendent in our midst. This, we do, by our praise.
Phil and Patsy Keith recently shared a story with me of an experience they had while traveling in Washington, D.C. They were riding a crowded subway train heading back to their hotel when a man of Korean descent quietly boarded the train. As the doors of the subway train closed, the man immediately broke into song. In a loud, beautiful voice for all to hear he sang:
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of God’s unchanging love!
When he finished, the people on the train burst into spontaneous applause. He took a little bow. And then got off the train.
Our praise is our witness, our testimony, our story to tell about the God whom we love so much. To praise God is to glorify God. To praise God is to reveal the transcendent in our sanctuaries, in our places of work, in our schools, in our homes, and in our subways. To praise God is to reveal God in our midst.
On his way to Jerusalem, riding along on a young colt, watching the people spread their cloaks in front of him, smiling to the children waving their palm branches, and listening to the whole multitude of disciples who joyfully, and loudly cried out to him, Jesus refused to silence the people’s praises. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” But he refused. At the risk of his own life, he refused. Because why would he take that moment away from them? Why would he keep them from fully enjoying their God? Why would he keep them from glorifying God and revealing the transcendent in their midst? This was the gift Jesus came to bring. This was the gift he was on his way to Jerusalem to protect. So as we follow our Savior down that long and fateful road, may we do so with loud shouts of, “Hosanna!” and with heartfelt songs of praise.
Now to our God, be all honor and glory, thanksgiving and praise, now and forevermore. Amen.
[1] Lindsay P. Armstrong, “Preaching the Lenten Texts”, Journal for Preachers, Lent, 2010, pgs. 11-12.
[2] Mary Oliver, “The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts,” Thirst, (Beacon Press, Boston, 2006), pgs.5-6.
[3] Lindsay P. Armstrong, “Preaching the Lenten Texts”, Journal for Preachers, Lent, 2010, pgs. 11-12.
[4] Ibid.
Dan
Teri
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