Sermon 20th November 2016

Today, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, concludes our series where we have been studying some of the Psalms. This week, we are looking at Psalm 98.

Here is the promised link to the YouTube clip that I would have played in church, had I been able to. It really is worth viewing in its own right; but for me it’s a near-perfect picture of what Psalm 98 looks like, so I suggest that you start with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87qT5BOl2XU

[It was captured 4 years ago, in a square on the outskirts of Barcelona. A little girl puts a coin in the upturned hat of a man holding a double-bass. He begins to play, and then is joined by a woman with a cello. Soon there’s someone with a bassoon; then 2 violinists; and so it goes on: by the 5-minute mark there are about 50 instrumentalists – adding trumpets, drums, trombones, etc; and a choir of at least as many voices too. All of them, first to open-mouthed amazement, and then to the ever-widening involvement, of the gathering crowd, are blasting out … yes,] Ode to Joy; the tune to which we sing the words of Psalm 98! And if ever a flash-mob conveyed the core message of a Bible passage quite as clearly as this scene does, then I’ve not yet seen it!

This really is quite the note to end this series on, I’d say. It is, to some extent deliberate of course; having myself chosen Psalm 98 as the one to finish with. Even in the planning of all this, many months ago, it seemed most appropriate to end our learning – and the church year – on a note of high praise of God. And 98 has long been one of my go-to Psalms for doing that: it’s wildly visual, punchy, engaging, and helps us to encounter God at work in the past, in the present, and in the future; and all in just 9 short verses. Of course it was written as a song, with all of these obvious musical instructions included; and even very non-musical-types can surely feel the song that is waiting to burst forth from such bubbling-up words of praise!

Our For Everyone commentary series friend, John Goldingay, is amongst those who offer good reason for this excitement. Yes, 98 is in a liturgical block of 6 Psalms that celebrate God as king. But key to 98 in particular is the likelihood that it was written (by some unknown person) around 539 BC. That is the year when the Babylonian Empire was toppled – by God alone is what the Psalmist is clearly claiming here. Yes, it was done through the human agency of the Persians; but God was force behind that, this Psalmist, and various prophets, stated. And this was as huge a change in its time as the tearing down of the Iron Curtain was at the end of 1980’s.

Yes, God had been at work, re-shaping the world; including the daily reality of his people in their 70-year exile in Babylon. The Psalmist says that it was primarily for them that God had done it – though there were benefits for everyone else who was also being crushed until that particular tyrannical heel. God had indeed set his people free; but that had been seen ‘to the ends of the earth’ – and so they too were invited to respond to it. A key aspect of this that we could miss without some Hebrew-speaking help is this. The word translated ‘victory’ in GNB and ‘salvation’ in NIV comes from the root yeshuah; and that should sound a bell in any Christian ear. With the benefit of our hindsight we are indeed being invited to make connections with the end of Psalm 98.

Of course it is in the person of Yeshuah – Jesus – that God has come to earth as promised here. And it’s also in the person of Yeshuah, Jesus, that he will come again both to rule (GNB) and judge (NIV) the earth and all its peoples. In Advent, from next week that is meant to be the focus of our Christmas build-up. Yes, I am getting a little ahead of myself here even in terms of this Psalm; and a long way so in terms of the people who first sang it with such joy and relief in light of the events of 539 BC. But this has been, and is, a key part of our last 3 months here. We’ve spent them thinking, and learning, about engaging with God wherever and however we are, by using these words written so long ago. The circumstances that they were written in may have been different to our own, perhaps; but this has all been about encountering God in the circumstances that we are in.

As ever, there’s been way too much ground covered in this series for me to begin even to try and summarise. Also as ever then I’ll point you the parts of our website where all the other sermons from it are also posted. They’re always on here: be it for specific reference on any particular Psalm; or for more general use about how the Psalms can help us to respond in whatever our circumstances might be. As I said at the outset of this series, the Psalms offer some 135 examples of things that we can say to God! There really is one available for any occasion, then. (In case you missed it, the other 10% of this 150-strong collection are either God, or one of his people, talking to us, so need listening to rather than being used as our own.) But the 135 fall into general categories which are the same as those that we also use for and in our essential everyday relating with other people.

As I said too in September, the story the Bible tells – from start to finish – is of God’s consistent longing and attempts to communicate with people. He made us to know, and be known by, Him; and the Psalms are a written record of how certain people have tried to express, or develop that relationship through the centuries. The Psalms are mostly left deliberately vague in terms of their own circumstances, so that other people in other ages – people like us – can try them for size; to see if their words can help us in our relating to God in our own circumstances. So the best way in which we can use the Psalms is not just to read them but to adopt them; make them our own: to sing them, to say them, and/or to pray them. That is after all not least what they have been given to us for.

So, in theory at least, that’s what preachers have been doing in this series. We have each taken specific Psalms that have meant, or said, something to us at some point, and tried to explain how they helped us relate with God in those circumstances. As you’d hope, with the riches of a 7-strong preaching team, there has been a wide variety offered. But as the sermon titles have hinted, there has been a key common denominator each time – and yes, that is God! It’s all too easy to get caught up in life’s every-day; from all the mundane repetitions, right through to the unexpected societal shifts of a Brexit, or Donald Trump becoming US President. The challenge for anyone of faith is to relate to whatever God is doing, or saying, in those circumstances.

Again and again, this is where the Psalms come into their own, potentially; and so that is what I hope you will above all take from this series on them. As I also said at the outset, what we have done could only ever be illustrative of how we might each go about using these wonderful resources of the Psalms for ourselves, whatever circumstances we are ever in. And that is the main reason that I’ve chosen 98 to end this series. What it put in front of us is the ultimate perspective for our lives: God at work in the past; God at work in the present; and God at work in the future. And of course what that demands of us is to respond to that work, to God; most especially and very specifically with praise for wonderful deeds

Psalm 98 – quite rightly – trumpets God’s salvation/victory that all have seen. Amazing as God’s ending the Babylon Empire was, it doesn’t begin to compare to God’s salvation/ victory yeshuah that He has accomplished in the person of Yeshuah. As we will be reminded when we come to Communion later this really has changed all things for all people for all time. The death of Jesus has permanently dealt with the consequences of all sin. His resurrection from the dead has put an end to death; let alone some human empire. And there really literally isn’t now any end of the earth that’s not heard the Good News of God’s salvation in Christ. All peoples everywhere have been, and are, invited to respond to what they have seen and heard: with praise of God.

All that, quite clearly, is God at work in the past – though it very much has implications and consequences in the present, of course. As the upcoming season of Advent will remind us, there are just as significant implications and consequence in the future too. This is where Psalm 98 ends, with its third 3-verse section. Again the Psalmist wrote from a much less informed place than we now live, after the human life of Yeshuah. We realise much more fully what it means that God will come to rule, and judge, the earth. We know from what Jesus said that this will be the end of all that we know when he returns. We know too that there is an urgency about sharing God’s Good News now, in the present, with all people everywhere – as Jesus told his followers to do. And that is, of course, God at work in the present: helping us to respond to Him, and do what He has commanded.

Psalm 98 really does set it all out; and is the best way to end this series, and this year, before Advent. It reminds us of the context in which we live – of God’s yeshuah: His salvation; His victory; His son. That is in the past; but it completely shapes our future; and very much our present too. Whatever may happen to us personally or corporately; whatever we may go through, we are, it is, in the hands of the God who has already won the victory. We are going to see the fullness of His yeshuah, of his salvation, his victory, and his son, in the future; and so in the present we can and must live lives of praise that invite the whole world to join in too …

So then, as the Message version of Psalm 98 puts it, let’s:

Sing to God a brand-new song.

He’s made a world of wonders!

He rolled up his sleeves,

He set things right.

God made history with salvation,

He showed the world what he could do.

He remembered to love us, a bonus

To his dear family, Israel – indefatigable love.

The whole earth comes to attention.

Look - God’s work of salvation!

Shout your praises to God, everybody!

Let loose and sing! Strike up the band!

Round up an orchestra to play for God

Add on a hundred-voice choir.

Feature trumpets and big trombones,

Fill the air with praises to King God.

Let the sea and its fish give a round of applause,

With everything living on earth joining in.

Let ocean breakers call out, “Encore!”

And mountains harmonise the finale –

A tribute to God when he comes,

When he comes to set the earth right.

He’ll straighten out the whole world,

He’ll put the world right, and everyone in it.

And so let’s now pray to Him …