sermon from the 20th sunday after pentecost, october 14 2007

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Hallelujah! Give praise, you servants of the Lord;
praise the Name of the Lord.” (Psalm 113)

Today I wish to speak about Psalm 113, in your service leaflet, which we have just sung / said together. What does it say to us? What are WE saying when we recite it – when we take its words onto our lips and make its message our own? What are we saying when we sing this Psalm?

First a word about the historical context of this Psalm’s original use – This Psalm, 113, is the first of the great so-called “Hallel Psalms”, or Psalms of Praise. The Hallel Psalms constitute Psalms 113 through 118. The word “Hallelujah” means “Praise the Lord” in Hebrew, and these five Psalms were just that – hymns used by the Jews in praise of the Lord.

This particular Psalm, along with the one after it, 114, were sung by the Jews as the opening ritual at the Passover meal, before the first ritual cup of wine was passed around. As you may remember, the Passover of the Jews was the great feast commemorating the Lord’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt. It is fitting therefore that this commemoration of deliverance begins with an exhortation to “Praise the Lord.”

And this exhortation in Psalm 113 is all the more emphatic in that it is THREEFOLD. Translating the “Hallelujah” of the first verse, the Psalm begins: “Praise the Lord! Give praise you servants of the Lord; praise the Name of the Lord.”

As Christians, we will see in this threefold exhortation to “Praise the Lord” a veiled reference to the Holy Trinity. In the knowledge of the truth of God’s Trinity, we know that to praise God is to Praise Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To “Praise the Name of the Lord” is therefore necessarily and mysteriously a unitary yet threefold act.

Likewise as Christians we will take up the Jewish situatedness of this Psalm at the beginning of the Passover meal, before the handing around of the cup of the Passover. We will be aware, today, that we too have sung it at the beginning of our own Passover meal, before the cup of salvation is distributed in our Eucharist. We will remember that at the Passover, the Jews were praising God for bringing them out of slavery in Egypt, and we will see the fulfillment of God’s deliverance of Israel in our own deliverance in and through Christ.

We will remember that just as the Lord fed Israel in the wilderness with Manna from heaven, so in Christ the Lord came down from heaven and fulfilled what the Passover commemorated, giving HIMSELF to us as bread. Jesus ties himself explicitly to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, and therefore to the Passover in John’s gospel. He says:

“Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn. 6.49ff).

Therefore today we sing this Psalm at the beginning of the Passover of the Church, in the context of the Holy Eucharist. We three times exhort one another to “Praise the Lord! Give praise, you servants of the Lord; praise the Name of the Lord.” We give glory to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for our own deliverance from slavery in the world – from our slavery to passions and appetites and death. We praise God for delivering us and nourishing us with HIMSELF in the person of Jesus Christ.

Indeed, as the fifth verse of today’s Psalm asks: “Who is like the Lord our God, who sits enthroned on high,” yet who, in the humility of Jesus Christ, has stooped “to behold the heavens and the earth” – who, in Jesus Christ, has taken up our weakness out of the dust, and lifted us poor sinners from the ashes; who in Jesus Christ has set us with the princes of the people he has chosen to be his own possession. For in being united to Jesus, we are united to the only-begotten Son and heir of the Father. For in being united to Jesus, we become the sons and daughters of God, the heirs of God’s kingdom, as St. Paul says in today’s reading from 2 Timothy 2:

“If we have died with him, we will also LIVE with him;
if we endure, we will also REIGN with him.”

Therefore we Praise the Name of the Lord.

….

This way of reading Scripture may seem illegitimate. It may seem like stealing –to take this Psalm and offer it to God as though it were our own prayer, whereas everyone knows it was actually the product of an historical context very far away from us, by a people not our own, namely the Jews – of taking this Psalm as though it came from our own hearts, as though the aspirations, praises, and prayers of the Psalmist were actually our own aspirations, praises, and prayers. As though they were OUR words to God, the product of our own hearts, expressive of our own situatedness in the world, our own life contexts.

But taking Scripture and using it in this way is in fact not only very legitimate indeed, but also NECESSARY, if what we say we believe is TRUE. To read the Bible in this way is to affirm what God has done in Christ – namely, that it is the SAME GOD at once revealed in the Old Testament Law and Prophets, who is now revealed DEFINITIVELY in Jesus Christ; that in Him, the eternal Word of God is made flesh and dwells among us (John 1).

When we take up and use the Old Testament in this way, we affirm that the Word of God is “living and active” (Paul) – that this Psalm, for example, is in fact ultimately neither OUR word, nor the word of the Jews living in Old Testament times, but that it is the WORD OF GOD – the Word of God given TO us, and FOR us, to be used precisely in this way.

And if we accept the gift of God’s Word, we will find ourselves mysteriously taken into it, and by being taken into it, we will find ourselves taken into God himself. We will begin to see in the Word of God not just the situation of a long-ago people in a far-off place, but we will see in it the narrative of OUR OWN LIVES. In God’s fidelity and forgiveness to Israel in the midst of ISRAEL’S sickness and suffering and sin, more and more you will see God’s forgiveness and fidelity to YOU in the midst of your own sin and suffering and sickness. As you draw closer to God in the love of Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, you will find your very identity increasingly in HIM, in Jesus, who took on your sin, who became sick and afflicted for your sake. And you will find yourself, with St. Paul, with an increasing certitude that: If I have died with him, I will also live with him; if I endure, I will also reign with him.

Therefore:

“Praise the Lord! Give praise, you servants of the Lord;
praise the Name of the Lord.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.