Sunday Message
May 9, 2004
Richard L Sheffield
Text: Selected Psalms

Someone once said, "People sing because they are happy, and they are happy because they sing!" ¹ Somehow that sounds naive in a world like ours. Somehow, singing,

"I'm singing in the rain,
just singing in the rain.
What a glorious feeling
I'm happy again.

I'm laughing at clouds
So dark up above
The sun's in my heart
And I'm ready for love

Let the stormy clouds chase
Ev'ryone from the place
Come on with the rain
I've a smile on my face

I'll walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
And singing just singing in the rain." ²

Somehow that sounds more like "spitting in the wind," as my Grandma used to say.

Singing in the rain is a great way to get wet, catch your death of cold, and pretty much prove what you're pretty sure other people think about you anyway.

On Friday, after that gorgeous day on Thursday, I was sitting in my office writing this sermon. The skies got pitch black to the north, there was lightning, my internet connection kept dropping, the lights were blinking, and I was wondering – what if it started to rain and I ran out into the parking lot and started singing like Gene Kelly? "I'm singing in the rain!"

I don't have to wonder – I know – I know what the serviceman from WCOIL and the staff from Headstart and Bob Singhaus who was working on a problem with the porch at the courtyard entrance, and anyone else who happened by would think. Grandma had a phrase for that too. Not having enough "sense to come in out of the rain."

You don't sing in the rain, you come in out of it, if you're smart, and together, and grownup enough to know better. Except, sometimes you can't. You can't come in out of it. Sometimes it rains inside, in your soul. Sometimes you don't have to sing "let the stormy clouds chase," because they caught you sometime also. And you're getting soaked. What then? Sing, "I'm a little teapot, short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout?"

Well, as a matter of fact, Yes! It won't solve your problem, but it may salve your soul. Something as seemingly silly as that!

Or so suggests Dr. Jean Feldman, Ph.D., in an article on early childhood development. ³ Dr Feldman bemoans the fact that we are raising a whole generation of children who don't sing, and who don't know songs like "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and "Old McDonald." Hopefully we're doing better with "Jesus Loves Me," but her point is that teaching our children to sing teaches them more than songs. It teaches them how to cope when it rains. How to live when life's like that storm last Friday morning.

I'm convinced that's why people want to sing familiar hymns in church. The Bible says: "Sing to the Lord a new song." That's why pastors pick new hymns! Now you know. But most of us, much of the time, are singin' in the rain, and familiar songs, are like umbrellas.

The familiar songs of the Hebrew people, the people of Jesus, were what we call "Psalms." We read them. They sang them. We sometimes sing them. Sometime, not now, but sometime, take a look at the Hymnal in the pews. Hymns 158 through 258 are all Psalms, straight out of the Biblical hymnbook. The last hymn we will sing this morning, is Psalm 150, set to a Brazilian folk melody. I doubt Jesus ever sang it quite that way, but the words if not the tune would be familiar.

The 150th Psalm doesn't say a word about singing though. Instead it talks about trumpets, and tambourines, and dancing. This morning we'll do two out of three. We're Presbyterians. You can guess which two are more likely: trumpets, tambourines, or dancing in the aisles. It doesn't say "singing" but Psalm 150 ends with these words: "Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!" ⁴ If you're breathing you should be singing God's praises, said the Hebrew song writer. And he said it a lot.

The lesson I read was really a "medley" of some of the Psalmist's admonitions to sing. Fifty-five times in 150 Psalms there is an explicit call to sing. And that's only the number of times my computer could identify just the word "sing." It doesn't count other times when he says things that suggest singing: "The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice." ⁵ Or the familiar words of Psalm 100: "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with sing–ing." ⁶ The computer didn't catch that one. Computers take you at your word. If you ask for "sing" you don't get "sing-ing," much less, "rejoicing." But you get the picture.

The Psalmist calls us always to be a singing people. And apparently isn't too worried about how well we sing, just whether we do. Non-singers like me have always taken refuge in the Psalmist's words: "Make a joyful noise!" If you're making noise, and you're joyful about it – you're singing! The Psalmist didn't write our first hymn this morning, but it underlines his intent:

"When in our music God is glorified,
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried:
Alleluia! Alleluia!" ⁷

But – what about those times you don't feel like crying "Alleluia!" You just feel like crying. The Psalmist knew those times too. I read these words from Psalm 13: "I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me." ⁸ But before the Psalmist said that, he said this, same Psalm: "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?" ⁹

How long, O Lord? Ever feel like that? The Psalmist did. And he said so often. The Psalms are as full of laments as of alleluias. Because the Psalms are full of life the way we live it. And if you live life long enough, you'll sing like John Denver: "Sometimes I feel like a sad song." ¹⁰

Sometimes the Psalmist did too, and he sang them. Jesus "sang" one of his sad songs on the cross. It goes, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest." ¹¹

God hears us singing those songs too.

Sometime back several of you introduced me to the novels of Jan Karon. The "Mitford" stories. You were passing them around and they got passed on to me. And I read them. Jan Karon writes what someone has called "gentle fiction." One review at Amazon.com described Karon's books this way: "Mix one part All Creatures Great and Small with two parts Lake Wobegon, sprinkle a little Anne of Green Gables and get: Mitford, the pinnacle of provincial life, where homespun wisdom, guarded tradition, and principled faith are the precepts of good living." ¹²

I think this is where I'm supposed to sniff and sound sophisticated, but frankly, you can do a lot worse than praying for a world like that. I find Karon's words easy to hear, and her characterization of Father Timothy, the local priest, downright charming.

The other day I started one of her books I missed that first time around. This one I'm "reading" in the car on a CD. Being "read to" while I drive is something I've come to enjoy. I think it reminds me of something and someone a long time ago. The "book" I'm "reading" is called A New Song. It takes its title from Isaiah: "Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof." ¹³

In the book Father Timothy and his new wife have moved from Mitford, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, to Whitecap Island, off the Atlantic coast where they get to know "the isles, and the inhabitants thereof." It's all sand, and sea, and blue sky. "A new song," a new life, a new day. Then life catches up with Father Timothy as he goes about his daily work as an interim rector, and gets to really know "the isles and the inhabitants thereof."

At one point the good Father quotes the devotional writer, Oswald Chambers, who said: "The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity. But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different." ¹⁴

That's what the Psalmist was saying in his old songs. That in life which as any mother can tell you does not look like a Mother's Day card – when we're singing in the rain, we're not spitting in the wind. That we are delivered not from adversity, but in adversity, because we're loved by God who, "Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, ... is faithful still." ¹⁵

That's not from a card, or Karon's book. It's from our Presbyterian Confession of Faith.

"Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, God is faithful..."

God keeps faith with you and me – even when its raining, and we don't feel like singing. Even when its hailing like it was on Friday morning.

The Psalmist knew that, so he wrote this:

"O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!" ¹⁶

1. http://www.earlychildhood.com/Articles/index.cfm?A=341&FuseAction=Article
2. Need copyright information.
3. http://www.earlychildhood.com/Articles/index.cfm?A=341&FuseAction=Article
4. Psalm 150:6 NRSV.
5. Psalm 97:1 NRSV.
6. Psalm 100:1-2 NRSV.
7. The Presbyterian Hymnal, 264.
8. Psalm 13:6 NRSV.
9. Psalm 13:1-3a NRSV.
10. John Denver, "Unknown Album."
11. Psalm 22:1-2 NRSV.
12. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140265686/103-2069458-9735828?v=glance
13. Isaiah 42:10 KJV.
14. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.
15. A Brief Statement of Faith – Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
16. Psalm 95:1-2 NRSV.