Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Lets pray.
Holy God, as we read your word, may your spirit speak through it that it may be for us the word of life.
Amen.
Today's scripture Passage is Psalm 96. Listen for God's word to us.
O sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth.
Sing. Sing to the Lord. Bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations.
His marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be revered above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols. But the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before him.
Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
Ascribe to the Lord. O families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory. Do his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in holy splendor.
Tremble before him all the earth.
Say among the nations, the Lord is king.
The world is firmly established. It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field exalt and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest Sing for joy before the Lord. For he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with his truth.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Erwin.
Good morning, friends, and welcome as we share the word of God. My name is William.
You probably may have heard of a story of a person from a country that I'm going to just share right now. And this is a story of a gentleman by the name Andrew Fletcher. Andrew Fletcher was a 17th century Scottish patriot.
This is from the country of Scotland, and he was an advocate for his country's independence.
Andrew lived during a period of immense strain for the Scottish nation.
And he stood at an historic crossroad, famously opposing the 1707 act of Union, which was a treaty that was meant to merge the Scottish and the English parliament together.
Fletcher was deeply concerned that this union would erase Scotland's distinct identity, draw its wealth towards the distant power center of London, and leave his people without a voice in their own future.
He is known for his famous saying that Give me the music of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws.
Give me the music of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws.
His point was profound.
Laws may command our outward compliance through force, but it is the song of a people. Their stories, their laments, their celebrations, and their shared memories that truly shape their hearts, that truly also shapes their identities and subconscious values.
Now, if you want to understand the true spirit of a people, listen to what they sing.
Songs carry memory.
They shape our perception of the world and mobilize us towards action.
Fletcher's legacy reminds us that true societal transformation begins not in the halls of power, but in the songs we choose to sing.
And that we must always be mindful of the songs that claim our hearts and claim our alliance.
Songs of power.
Songs of power.
Now, I recently spoke with Dr. Zak Niringiye, a scholar and an Anglican bishop from Uganda, about the role of children's music and songs in pre colonial Africa.
And Dr. Niringiye explained to me that children's songs were used to mobilize the society against injustice.
Very interesting.
For instance, when someone reported instances of child abuse in some African communities, the intergenerational community identified the abusers and called them out by way of crafting a new song and singing the ampusas out to not only shame them, but also create awareness and warn the community about them.
I found this very intriguing and something that I never knew about any of the African communities.
Now, children were at the center of such voicing practices, using songs and especially new songs to sing out, sing out the abusers who abused them. According to Niringiya, children had their language and their grammar and their dictum through music and song, and they sang and danced it out.
Now, friends, it is not only that music is powerful, but it also feels okay to say we are a singing.
We are singing people or singing beings or musical beings if you want.
We carry songs and stories now and even in the future.
We actually sing every Sunday here.
And I remember Pastor Max the other day reminded us of the music genres in contemporary society.
But today I want to add, we sing old songs and we like to sing them.
We sing familiar songs.
We sing songs of love and cultural songs, and especially songs that relate with our own cultures. We sing patriotic songs, love songs. We sing lullabies, and sometimes we sing them for far too much.
We also sing hyper nationalistic and state anthems. We sing them. We sing songs of victory. We sing catalog and legacy songs, songs of control and domination, songs of hate. Unfortunate, the songs that we always sing matter.
And it's important actually to question our songs.
Yes, even songs that we sing in worship, in church today, we consider how the Lord might be calling us to sing a new song.
Psalms 96 is historically hanged in the Davidic era, specifically associated with the movement of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.
And as we can see this in First Chronicles chapter 16, after years of civil strife and the eventual unification of the tribe of Israel, King David sought to establish Jerusalem as not only political but also the spiritual center of the nation.
And you know what he did?
The Ark of the Covenant, which was a symbol of God's presence among the people, had been residing outside of Jerusalem in a place named Kiriath Jearim.
And David orchestrated a ground, I mean a grand public procession to bring the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.
This was not a small private affair. It was a massive cross cultural and intergenerational celebration.
It involved musicians and singers and Levites and priests and the entire assembly of the people of Israel.
We can see in First Chronicles chapter 16 details that the liturgy of this event whereby the chief priest Asaph and his associates were appointed to praise the Lord before the Ark of the covenant.
Psalms 96, which we just read, it appears in this chapter, 1st Chronicles 16, it was part of that inaugural hymn. It was part of that inaugural hymn. For generations the presence of God had been moving from one place to another.
But by bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, David was declaring that God's presence was now at home among the people. It showed that the kingdom of Israel was not just a political entity, but a community centered around the divine.
By bringing the hack of the covenant into the city, David was declaring that God of Israel was the king of all the earth.
The Psalms declaration that all the gods of the peoples are idols in 1st Chronicles chapter 16, verse 26 was a bold counter cultural claim at a time when idol worship was paramount in this society.
Now many times the Ark was associated with exclusivity because, you know, only the priests would handle the Ark of the Covenant.
And it was kept behind the veils. It was kind of just kept somewhere behind the veils. Yet this procession that David engineered was marked by joy, dance and music that involved all the people. Everybody was part of it. The Psalm itself called upon all the earth to sing.
David's victory was once one where covenant was not the privilege of a few people like the Levites or even the priests, but for all God's people.
Now when we look at this story which I've just described in 1st Chronicles chapter 16, which actually is the real context of Psalms 96, we see a vision of a society where the center of public life is not idols, like idols of wealth, of idols of materials, or even idols of ego.
But a commitment to the Divine Presence.
It teaches us that worship is an act of defiance against the status quo. A refusal to accept the fractured, then divided world as the final word.
It invites us to believe that when we gather at the table, when we gather at the table where everybody is included, bringing our all different kinds of conditions, all different kinds of cultures and ways of life, we are aligning ourselves with a justice that is far higher than than any political boundary.
So what?
Today we have our own modern idols, friends, the pursuit of status, the anger for political power and the worship of wealth. Psalms 96 calls us to distinguish between what we create, I.e. our brands, our own ideologies, distinguished that with the Creator himself.
It asks us what are the gods of our culture and demands our aliens and do they truly offer the peace and justice that they promise? What are those gods of our time and our culture that demands our alentiance? And do they really provide that which they promise? Psalms 96 invites us into a new song.
New song, not just a new melody or a new tune. No.
It casts a vision of the entire creation in flourishing mood, conveying an image of a global table where everyone is part of and with all creation. And God is honored by that.
At the global table, the idol of division is dismantled.
No more division at the global table.
That idol is fractured and the world is summoned to sing a new song. A prophetic practice of equity, shared ambulance, you know, sharing what we have and what God has given us and even cosmic justice.
It is so interesting to see at the end of the text, towards the end of the text, the Bible telling us that even the trees are clapping.
There's so much flourishing, you know, at the end, at the end of God's coming, of Christ's coming, that is all. Shalom. Everything is together.
What a missional call for us today, a call of worship.
When we have this image of bringing everyone together, everybody together and the flourishing, imagining the flourishing of society, of the world, of creation, talking about worship as an act of justice.
To sing the new song is to refuse the old songs. It's kind of refusing the old songs of domination. And agreed. And I want to believe when David brought them together, when David brought the ark of the covenant together, there was this kind of a feasting celebration and inclusion of everyone.
So to sing this new song as we are seeing it in Psalms 96 is like, you know, to refuse the old songs of domination and of greed. It is a prophetic choice.
Now, friends, I am involved in some work and I can just share right here. That I'm studying children's participation in social change and my research investigates the effects of adolescent centered activism.
Artisim is art I V S M activism as part of prophetic advocacy against child trafficking in coastal Kenya.
Now the primary source or sources of data for my research are the Gen Z and the Gen Alpha adolescents from Christian faith based organizations and churches in coastal Kenya.
These are organizations like Compassion International, World Vision and others.
And as well also I'm also getting data from the workers, the people who work with those children.
And these are people who are like teachers, these are people like social workers and you know, they're involved in working with these young people every day, every time.
Now one of my field research events took place this last Friday.
It was daytime here, I mean in Kenya and it was night here in the US And I was present just live watching an adolescent creative arts exhibition being facilitated by my Kenyan research assistants.
And I watched as these adolescents presented their own crafted music, dance and murals.
And this failed researchers against them in creative practices that gave them a voice to speak about things that affect them and also help these kids to voice, you know, to arouse consciousness in some ways and on matters pertaining exploitation.
I tell you now, the musical call for change stuck with me.
It called the entire world to unite in honoring the dignity of young people and even to protect them, to love them and to care for them. It felt like a new song for justice, spelling new hope and desire in the work of a brokenness or in the wake of brokenness in society. For example, I would say at the wake of the so called abstain files.
So I saw these kids pick up and you know, kind of, you know, paint this hope, bring about this kind of a hope in a world which is so much broken and a world whereby they are so vulnerable and their lives are so much in danger. But they brought this picture together. And to me they were singing new song. They were bringing out a new song, friends to sing. The new song is about valuing our differences.
Verse 7 calls us upon all families and peoples of the world to honor the Creator.
In a world as diverse as Los Angeles or any other global city.
This reminds us that our cultural heritages and distinctiveness are precious.
We are not unified by erasing our differences, but by standing together as diverse people.
And we do that before the Creator.
And I think that is an act of worship because Psalms 96 has been thought to be a call to worship.
But I feel like when we put aside our differences just by doing that, we are worshipping a God who is our Creator who has created all this diversity, all this beauty, all these differences in us. So to me, that feels like an act of worship.
It's the struggle, I want to say, even for churches in diverse city like Los Angeles, to cut across differences. Sometimes it's hard, it's not easy. But let me say, there is so much value when a church like Knox starts and nurtures a bicultural community.
There is something about that kind of a nurturing of a bicultural community in a place like here.
And I think it portrays that, honoring the beauty of diversity that God has created. And as an act of worship, a creator is on top of all of us, is binding us all together, regardless of where we come from and regardless of who we are, even in our own, even in the way we see ourselves, it doesn't matter. But the Creator holds us together.
You know, there's something about our pastor here in this church, and I should say I'm just thinking about David, when David was kind of bringing all the people together, you know, cutting across the cultures. And, you know, it was a time whereby worship is not about the Israelites. The Ark of the covenant is not hidden. It is out here. And everybody is participating as part of that. And there's something about our pastor here which kind of just relates to that kind of an image.
And I. Probably some of you might bear me witness when you come to this church and probably you're new or. Yeah, some of you may have come just. Just the other day. You bear me witness, Pastor Matt, as a way of kind of holding us and putting us in places whereby we feel we are part of everyone. And, you know, even putting you to some work somewhere. I know, Jeff, Chaos, you would bear me witness. I just saw you the other day put to some kind of work. And, you know, you came the other day and that's exactly what happened for me and maybe so many of us here, whereby regardless of where you come from, regardless of, you know, I mean, you just find your space, and Pastor Matt curates that kind of a space for all of us. And I. I just want to appreciate that. I know he's not here and maybe he's watching, but, yeah, that's a beautiful thing to lift up there for our own pastor here. I think it is something that, you know, all the dignity of people.
And that is an act of worship. I want to bring. That is an act of worship because, you know, sometimes we think about worship as when we raise up our hands and we tell God all this beautiful thing. Psalms 96, 96 is telling, is talking about God. And that is nice. That is wonderful. But, you know, and I probably want to print this kind of a picture.
When people are preaching in a multitude.
Imagine this. People are preaching, somebody's preaching. When there's a big multitude, maybe in a big stadium, and there are thousands of people seated there. And you ask them to raise up for worship. And then this time raise up your hand for worship. And you. All those people raise up their hands in worship. If you take a picture of that, that's a very beautiful picture. If you ever try something like that, just try that in a massive kind of congregation and people are raising up their hands. You take a picture of that. It's really beautiful. But, you know, when we do, we turn around things and instead of lifting up our hands, this multitude of people just stretches their hands to hold one another and maybe lift up those hands together as a way of worship.
There's something so powerful about that, whereby worship is not just when we lift up hands and tell God all the beautiful things. Yes, that is nice. But when we honor one another, when we recognize the dignity when we cross the borders to hold hands with other people, to touch lives, you know, to share what we have. When we do that, we are actually honoring God. We are worshiping God who has created these people, who has, you know, created all these people because they bear his image. So that's a powerful kind of a picture that I'm getting from here in this particular text, you know, as he talks about worshipping God, but really bringing all the people together and all the people of the world. What about challenging our consumer culture?
Now, the psalmist in Psalms 96, aggressively aggressive stance against worthless idols, talks about idols, offers a lens to question our worldly, consumeristic culture.
If we are to be a place where God reigns, we should audit how we use our resources.
I think during David's time, one of the things which was very common at that particular time was idolatry and idolatry, you know, these gods which were worshipped.
And today we may not talk about a particular God somewhere. And of course they are there. They are of different types.
But there is one that I'm calling it out, and this is the God of consumerism.
I think the image David portrayed in 1st Chronicles 16 is an image of sharing, instead of just holding on to our idols of materials, of properties, of our own things, but just sharing those with others.
And I think that is so powerful, which is really displayed in this particular text.
The image of sharing, of giving. It is also an aspect of worship.
Now, the psalm ends with the promise that we would be judged by truth.
This gives us an objective standard that stands empower any political party, any religious division, or even a national identity. It invites us to confess not just individual mistakes, but our part in global injustice.
The Bible says the Lord is coming to judge.
And as he talks about when he's coming to judge, he says it's coming to judge with equity, amazingly, justice, righteousness, and those are the qualities of God. He's coming to judge with all that.
And I want to feel that it gives us, you know, an objective standard. That is the standard. Justice, equity.
Those are the standards through which God is coming to judge. And my prayer is that he finds us measuring to those standards, measuring up to those standards.
And that's what we are called to do. So, friends, as we sing and as we get in, be invited into the song.
This new song in Psalms 96.
I think it's an opportunity for us just to pause and imagine what worship is like for all God's people.
Worship that entails incorporating all other people, just like David did, cutting across cultures, bringing everybody on that table and sitting on that particular table.
True worship changes how we treat one another. Friends, when we look at those in need, we shouldn't just offer our leftovers.
That is not generosity, that is dismissal.
Instead, we must look at the brokenness around us and see the inherent dignity, the image of God in every person in us.
When we honor our neighbor, when we share our table, and when we protect the vulnerable and the creation, we are worshiping, we are worshipping. And I want to imagine this is the new song. This is the new song we are singing a new song. A song of equity, a song of flourishing and radical love.
This is the posture of a people who have dethroned the idols and decided to build a table where everyone belongs.
People are always drawn by that.
People are always drawn by that new song. A song of hope, a song of revelation and a song of justice.
Let that be our music.
Let that be our music. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
