Make a Joyful Noise (Psalm 100)

So the past few weeks we've been reflecting on the beauty of the Psalms in our series, Summer in the Psalms. And we know that the Psalms are a place where we can go to express gratitude, wonder, joy, and awe as faithful people, or even a place where we can cry out and lament to God. Whether they are sung, read, or wailed, they can bring peace, comfort, and connection to God's people and to God. Today's psalm, in which Pastor Steve read, begins with shout for joy to the Lord all the earth, worship the Lord with gladness, come before Him with joyful songs.

So I want to ask you, when was the last time you really sang? Not mouthed the words, but sang in worship, like belted it out, singing loudly together and not caring how you sound. There have been a lot of times in which I have sung joyfully, in praise, and was moved by the Spirit. One that happened recently was a one-of-a-kind experience.

Last year, a group of us traveled to Sager Brown, which is where the United Methodist Committee on Relief, UMCOR, has operated a supply depot for many years and has collaborated with other warehouses across the United States to swiftly bring relief supply kits to those impacted by disaster. We were there to serve and to help pack those cleaning buckets and hygiene kits. We also had an opportunity to serve the Baldwin, Louisiana community.

Our group, we were newbies and overachievers, and we signed up for almost every community outreach opportunity, which didn't leave a lot of options for others. But one of those things that we signed up for was a visit with an assisted living facility. And pretty much right before we were supposed to go, someone realized that it said concert, not visitation.

We were singing, leading a concert, and only two of us were singers out of eight. So we decided we'd go and sing a little bit and maybe see if there were people that we could visit with instead of doing a full-fledged concert. We got there and we just kind of walked around trying to figure out the situation.

Some of us went ahead to find a spot to sing, and we got scared, so we started to walk our way back. And then as we turned to the corner, we saw Missy Sewell walking down the hallway telling everyone we were from Nashville and we were going to sing. Walkers and wheelchairs were following behind her like a pied piper.

So we sang, and we asked the residents for their favorite hymns, and we sang more. I think we spent an hour singing, so it was a full-fledged concert. We created a beautiful worship community right there, and it was amazing.

And I know the Holy Spirit was present encouraging us all the way while also embracing the praise and joy we were all expressing. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs.

And we did. Goodness, we did. And after our full-fledged concert, we left with sore throats, but we were changed.

And we were a little bit giddy, I might add. Singing together is a powerful way to express our love and thanks to God. And also, this might be a shameless plug for the interest meeting for our Sager Brown trip this Monday, 6.30 in the J.O.Y classroom.

We invite you to share in this experience, maybe not a full-fledged concert, but some other wonderful experiences at Sager Brown this October. The psalm doesn't say make a joyful noise, those of you with good voices. It says all the earth.

John Wesley, Methodism's founder, understood something that we may struggle with even today. That singing in worship isn't a performance for the talented few. It's the voice of the whole body.

In his day, Anglican worship had largely handed singing over to the choir. The congregation sat and watched. Wesley pushed back against this.

He wanted every person lifting their voice together. I also might add that Charles Wesley, John's brother, wrote thousands of hymns, 6,500 hymns. He wrote, and many are found in hymnals across the world.

The Wesley's believed in the power of song and its reflection of scripture. So if singing was so vital to worship and theology, what did the logical, practical John Wesley do about this? He created rules for singing, of course. If you'd like, because once a teacher, always a teacher, you can get out your hymnals in front of you, the dusty books that contain all the songs, and you can turn to page seven in the numeral seven, V-I-I, and you can see these instructions.

And we're going to go through them a little bit because they're quite interesting. So these are John Wesley's directions for singing. He included this in the 1761 publication of Select Hymns, a hymnbook for the early Methodists, and there are seven.

It begins with, this is part of divine worship. Maybe the more acceptable to God as well as the more profitable to yourself and others. Be careful to observe the following directions.

One, learn these tunes before you learn any others. Two, sing them exactly as they are printed here without altering. Three, sing all.

See that you join the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a slight degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find it a blessing.

Four, sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead or half asleep, but lift your voice with strength. Five, sing modestly.

Do not ball as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation, but strive to unite your voices together as to make one sound. Six, sing in time. Whatever time is sung, be sure to keep with it.

Do not run before it or stay behind it. Lastly, this one's a long one, so bear with me. Sing spiritually.

Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself or any other creature. In order to do this, attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually.

So shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here and reward you when He cometh in the clouds of heaven? It's pretty easy, right? I think we all follow these rather well. I've always loved these rules, and they're rather wordy, but I love what Wesley was striving for. It was to use the hymns to teach and bring the congregation to God the strong word and melody.

He knew something happens when the whole room sings that can't happen any other way, the shy voice next to the strong one, the grieving person carried by the ones that aren't. This is why we sing together. It is an act of worship.

But if we're all going to sing, what does that look like? Not half-hearted, not sleep walking through the words. Worship the Lord with gladness. Or, as Wesley stated, sing lustily and with good courage.

Wesley was blunt about lazy singing. He warned against singing as if you were half dead or half asleep. He said, lift your voice with strength.

We should be no more ashamed of our voice here than be embarrassed to cheer at a ballgame, sing Rocky Top, or laugh at a good story. There's a famous line attributed to a pastor watching early Methodist sing. He said he longed for the good old Methodist thunder.

The early Methodist church was known for its singing. People recognized them by it, and that doesn't mean volume for its own sake. It means engagement.

It means bringing yourself to the song instead of holding yourself back from it. The Psalm says, worship the Lord with gladness, and gladness is an act of will, not just a feeling. You can choose to show up with your whole self.

And yet, Wesley's deepest concern wasn't even about volume or participation. It was about what is happening on the inside. One of the rules says, sing spiritually.

Attend to the sense of what you sing. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His.

Wesley cared deeply about the words of His. So much that he warned people not to change them, even casually. He understood that we can learn our theology from what we sing.

When we sing something enough, we believe it. When we sing it together, we form one another. He urged worshipers to attend strictly to the sense of what you sing and not let the melody carry you away from the meaning.

Don't just enjoy the sound. Let the truth land. This is why the selection of songs in worship matter.

This is why we don't just sing whatever's catchy. We're shaping one another's understanding of God. As Psalm 100 verse 3 says, the Lord is God and He made us.

We belong to Him. That's a theological statement. And every time we sing in worship, we're reflecting on what is true, especially on the days we don't feel it.

This happens here every Sunday, and it also happened in the common area of an assisted living facility in Baldwin, Louisiana. The lyrics, the message, the melody, it brought us together. Song and singing is an amazing way to bring one another together for worship.

And we don't just sing for ourselves. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Courts and gates.

The imagery here is corporate. There is a gathered people moving together in the presence of God. There's a rhythm to it, a shared moment, a shared movement.

Wesley had a practical instruction that sounds almost funny until you think about it. Don't run ahead of the music. Don't drag behind it.

Keep in time with the congregation. Move together. That's more than musical advice.

It's a picture of community. We don't worship alone. We're not doing our individual thing while others happen to be in the room.

We're entering together at the same pace through the same gates. There's something about singing in time that forms us into a community. In a way nothing else quite does.

It's harmonious. We are brought together in a moment in time in which nothing else matters, but our praise and worship of God together in harmony. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever.

His faithfulness continues through all generations. We sing across time, past, present, and future. All generations.

When we sing the great hymns of the church, we're not just singing old songs. We're joining a chorus that stretches back centuries. Those who sang these words in hardship, in joy, in exile, in celebration, we add our voice to theirs.

Wesley was deeply aware of this. He didn't invent congregational singing. He worked to rekindle it.

He reached back to the Psalms themselves, to tradition, and said, These belong to each of us, and we don't need to throw it away. This doesn't mean we never sing anything new. It means we sing with awareness that we belong something larger than this moment, this congregation, this time.

The faithfulness God showed then is the same faithfulness we stand in now. And the ones who come after us will stand in it too. Singing is a way we can pass it on.

I think back to our experience in Baldwin, Louisiana, and how these hymns connected generations, how they had been passed on beyond physical and cognitive ailments, residents that the residents may have been experiencing. These hymns connect. They connect us.

And as some of you may know, every second Sunday, we have a worship service at Pavilion. And what I have observed is as soon as Kay Tally strikes a chord on the piano, it's apparent the hymn lives within the residence. It is as if they are in the pew of their home church singing.

They return to their church and are singing in harmony with all of those who want sing with them. You see, singing together is powerful. Our voices in song and praise and worship, it transcends time and place, connecting us to God and to one another.

Just like the Psalms in which followers have faithfully turned to for hundreds of years, we can also turn to such hymns to find peace and encouragement. So, let's go back to where we started. When was the last time? You really sang as a means of praise and worship.

Wesley said to sing spiritually, have an eye to God in every word. The Psalmist said, enter his courts with praise. Maybe this week, the most faithful thing we can do is open our mouths and sing in praise.

So, today when we sing our song of response, let's not sing as a simple transition, but let us sing with good old Methodist thunder. Let us sing joyfully and lustily, responding as an amen to God's love for each and every one of us. Amen.