Remembered in Song

[00:00:00] Speaker A: God of mercy, you promised never to break your covenant with us. Amid all the changing words of our generation, may we hear your eternal word, which does not change. Then may we respond to your gracious promises with faithful and obedient lives through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Psalm 77 is on page 467 of your Pew Bibles. I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, that God may hear me. In the day of my trouble. I seek the Lord in the night. My hand is stretched out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted. I think of God and I moan. I meditate and my spirit faints. You keep my eyelids from closing. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old. I remember the years long ago. I commune with my heart in the night. I meditate and search my spirit. Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has God's steadfast love ceased forever? Are God's promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has God in anger shut up? Divine compassion. And I say, it is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord, and I will remember the wonders of old. I will meditate on your work and muse on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What? God is great like our God. You are the God who works wonders. You have displayed your wonders among the peoples. With your strong arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. When the waters saw you, they were afraid. When the waters saw you, they were afraid. The very deep trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies thundered. Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your way. Your lightnings lit up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your way was through the sea, yet your footprints were unseen. You led your flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. This is the word of the Lord. [00:03:47] Speaker B: So Chris Ivins, our pastoral apprentice, is taking Hebrew right now. And Chris, it's wonderful, isn't it? You're just loving it. Actually, she will say, it's wonderful to learn Hebrew. Tough. It's a tough language. But there are some great things that come out when you learn it. For one, in English translations, like the one we have of Psalm 77, there are sometimes recurring words that we miss in English translation. Sometimes the translators want to make variety, want to mix up the way a particular word is translated so it reads more poetically. The problem with that is sometimes there's a particular word or words in the original Hebrew that would otherwise jump out and grab our attention. But in the English translation, that can be missed. Well, in today's passage, there is such a word in Hebrew that recurs so often and so often is at the beginning of a new verse or phrase that it emerges as a kind of unifying theme to the whole psalm. And that word in Hebrew is zakar, or in English, remember, remember. The 20th century Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once noted, much of what the Bible demands can be comprised in that one. Remember, remember. I did me some remembering. Just this past August, I went down to San Diego for a coup days to celebrate my high school graduating senior classes 40th reunion. I wasn't gonna go, but, you know, got a few invitations from people I knew and I was so glad I did. The weekend events began on a Friday afternoon with a big gathering to honor a longtime music teacher at my former high school, a fellow who had recently passed away, Keith Heldman. And in looking over my high school yearbook, I recalled how in the senior acknowledgments and recognitions, he was the one teacher I had described by name, thanked by name. And if you're wondering how I got hold of a yearbook since all my yearbooks were destroyed in the Eaton fire before this reunion, I called up my high school and said, hey, I'm thinking of going to this 40th reunion. Any chance you've got an old high school yearbook from 1986? Well, it turns out they did one that apparently began to a fellow named Evan. Now I've got Evan's high school yearbook. But even with that, even missing all the personal notes from my old yearbook, still I could see that senior acknowledgment of mine recognizing Mr. Heldman, this music teacher, and his impact on me. Well, at this Friday gathering that began the reunion weekend, I remembered Mr. Heldman along with a host of others. There were current students and parents of students and alumni all gathered in this big auditorium to remember Keith Heldman. And after all sorts of words were shared and songs sung, finally at the end, a singing group called the Madrigals, the a cappella singing group of this high school, came up to sing a song. And they invited former Madrigals alumni like me because I'd sung in this group, to come up to the front and join in the song that Keith Heldman had written. So I did this, and it was wonderful. And then immediately after we finished the song, a woman all white hair and glasses turned to me and said, Matt, and gave me a big hug. And I had no idea who she was, none. And then we started talking, and I realized, oh, this is Tammy. How could I forget? Tammy and I not only sang in the madrigals, Tammy and I were in shows together in Oklahoma. She was Laurie, the lead female. I was Judd, the villain. I even remembered this. I had to change one of the lines in my song because I was supposed to sing of Laurie's long, yellow hair. I couldn't do that because Tammy's hair was dark brown. So I sang. Her long auburn hair came close. She always said, it's brown. It's not really auburn. But anyway, now her hair was white. And I couldn't remember her at first, but then I remembered, and she asked me, matt, remember that trip we took, that invitational we got to go to in Hawaii? And I said, how could I forget? And then she said something that made me realize how memory can change, how memory can shift in a moment. She said, I still remember at that competition, that invitational, how I just forgot the music. Now, I had always thought this was. We sang the song Shenandoah, this big invitational competition, and it just collapsed. It was a catastrophe. We blew it. And I still remember Mr. Heldman, after he'd finished directing the last note, when putting down his hands and giving us the most dramatic grimace, like, you blew it. You blew it. And we had. And I always figured it was me and the tenors, because, you know, who are you going to blame but the tenors? And now she said, tammy said, I forgot the part. The sopranos lost it. And suddenly I remembered the whole thing differently. Suddenly, Mr. Hellman's glare was not just at me, it was. It was on us. And not only was this delightful, but as together, we remembered how wonderful that trip to Hawaii had been. It was a joy. And it not only brought back wonderful memories, it reframed, reshaped what I remembered. All the empirical study on memory out there today will say our memories are malleable. They can be adjusted, and there is power in remembering together. That's what we did. We remembered together. Well, Today's Psalm, number 77 pivots on a move of remembering together. It's an act of drawing not just on an individual memory, but a collective memory. And when that happens, in today's passage, the psalm turns from a lamentation to an anthem of praise. The first and second half of the psalm, in fact, are so different than some scholars have wondered. Are these two separate psalms, separate songs that just got spliced together? You know, there's verse 1 through 10, which is sad, lamenty, kind of a dirge. And then there's 11 through 20, which is a celebration of God's wondrous works in the past. Maybe somebody just popped them together, but there is enough common vocabulary that scholar, many others think, no, this is meant to be a single psalm. And many of the psalms do take us, as this one does, on a kind of journey from one place to another, often from one emotion to another, sometimes through several emotions. We're invited on that kind of a journey in the Psalms. And I love it when a single song can do that, take you for from one place to another in a single song. Great music, great poetry can do that. And reading this psalm made me recall a song I loved back in my high school days that did that kind of thing. It took you on a journey from one place to another. Some of you will remember it. It's the song by Billy Joel. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. Any recognition out there off the album the Stranger? All right. At least one remembers that song, if you've ever heard it. It begins with a kind of lyrical, kind of romantic piano ballad feel. And the song begins with the singer imagining they are meeting with a friend and singing to this friend at their favorite Italian restaurant over wine and a meal. And then the pair begin to reminisce about their high school days. They think back on these old times when they had known one another in high school, and the whole tone of the song changes. It shifts to become this driving rock song as they remember wild high school days and a king and the queen of the prom, Brenda and Eddie, and recall some of the things they had done together. And then after this extended rock song section with a fast rhythm, then it returns again to this slower piano ballad, a lyrical tone. And we are back in that restaurant, no longer in the past, but now in the present present, where this pair are enjoying time and food and drink together. I love it when you can go on a journey in a single song. Psalm 77 takes us on that kind of a journey from one mood and form and emotion to another. It begins not with a wistful, romantic feeling, but one of lament and longing. It begins with anxiety and discomfort. It begins as a kind of blues song, or perhaps a dirge. I cry aloud to God, the psalm begins aloud, that God may hear me in the day of trouble. I seek the Lord. I moan, I moan. I'm so troubled I can't speak. And the psalmist asks, will the Lord spurn me forever and never again? Be favorable? Has God's steadfast love ceased forever? Alone in the night, the psalmist's own memory doesn't comfort. Instead, the psalmist recalls what we suspect are better times. And it makes this present moment even harder for the psalmist. As they're alone in their grief, their sense of loss, their difficulty, God's presence seems now a million miles away. Have you ever felt like that, with anxiety in the night, where all you could see was the troubles? And reflecting on better times wasn't a comfort. It instead made you sad that those days are not this day. But then the song turns. It shifts in tone from a blues number or dirge or lament to a celebratory anthem. And the transition happens precisely at verse 11. It turns on the Hebrew word zakar, or in English. Remember, verse 11 begins, I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord. The psalmist is referring to God at this point in the third person, as so often the psalmist has done in the first section of the psalm, referring to God, singing about God, speaking in reference to God. But in the second half of verse 11, suddenly we hear the psalmist addressing God. I will remember, I will zakar, your works of old, O God, your work. I will meditate on your mighty deeds. Walter Brueggemann famously called this a shift in the psalm from I to thou, from a focus on the self and the self's troubles to a focus on God, a kind of turn. And it's like God is suddenly present because there's this reference to God directly, as those listening to the psalm read, or as those reading it. It's like God shows up. God appears. God is revealed to the psalmist, as the psalmist turns to God as a vow. Now, what brought about this change in the psalmist? How are they able to now speak not just about God, but to God? What spurs this shift? And I don't know about you, but I want to know. I want to know because when I'm stuck alone in the night, filled with anxiety or grief, singing the blues or a funeral dirge or lament, when I reflect on times of old, not in a way that comforts, but sadd, because those days seem so far in the past. When I think of yearbooks and so many other objects of value destroyed in a fire, or worse yet, on this All Saints Day, when I think of people I knew and cared about impacted me, Mr. Heldman, among so many others now, who I can't speak to in person, I want to know. A time of hope and joy lies ahead it's easy to get stuck in that place of loss and of grief and to think that's it. Now, don't get me wrong, there is a time for leaning into loss and grief. I thank heaven that our psalms run the whole gamut of emotion. And there are words to speak to those times and places to we cry out because we see injustice, we see the wrong. We have our own anxieties and grief to deal with. And the psalms remind us we can bring all that to God. There are words to give us that we can pray and even sing to God when we are in the depths. There's a time to lean in to that dirge or laments. Buts there are also times where I want to get from that place to a place of hope, of promise, of a sense that at least I'm not alone in this God is there, others are there. I'm on a journey that has a happy ending, or at least an ending of greater promise than this time. And what allows the psalmist to make that move? In this psalm, what we see taking place as part one shifts to part two is not just this move of the psalmist from I to thou. It's a move from me and God to we and God. You notice in the second half, the language shifts, and not only is God present, but suddenly there's a community present. It's not just I. It's not just the psalmist speaking to God. Now in the latter half, not only is God, the psalmist speaking to God, but there is a community. What God is so great, the psalmist declares, as our our God, it is not my God, it is our God. With your strong arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. The first half, Psalm 77, is an I song. In the second half about us, the psalmist recalls how God acted decisively as well, to liberate not just the psalmist, but a people. Your way was through the sea, your path through the mighty waters. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. The psalmist is recalling here, of course, the Exodus and painting God as one who has powers even over the waters, where even the waters tremble in comparison to God's great strength. And it recalls that quintessential story of God's people, of how God intervened. And when a people enslaved and held in bondage in Egypt cried out to a liberating God, God intervened and through Moses, led them out of empire, out of the control of a ruthless king, and across a Red Sea to a new Space of freedom. And the song recalls how as God's people crossed that red Sea sea and Pharaoh and the armies were chasing him, how the waters closed over that army, freeing the people from there. That's the song we hear recalled in this psalm today. You know, it's the very first song we have in Scripture. If you want to look for lyrics of a song in the Bible, the one that you can go back to is in Exodus, first time we see lyrics put down in print. And the lyrics are, of course, about this event from Exodus, about how God intervened to save a people, delivering them from bondage and then sending them into the wilderness to become God's people. They were called and claimed by God. And that song is sung first by Moses and the Israelites, and then it's sung, and I love the language of this, by Miriam, by the sister of Moses, and by the women, the female Israelites. They bring tambourines and dance and they celebrate how God has saved a people. Women and men together giving thanks to God for the wonderful salvific work God has done. You can see, can't you, why the Exodus, why this song was so crucial for Martin Luther King Jr. And the Civil rights movement. Because it was this song. When a people together can recognize God has been at work and in a people in the past, and God can bring liberation, freedom, a movement toward greater justice and peace, an end to racism in our time, this can be our song too. That's how a song from the past can come to the present. When we remember. When we remember together. You remember alone. You get a lot wrong. You miss things. We can think the story is just about me. It's not. We can think the story is just about my people, just about the tenors. And now, let's face it, the tenors make for a great story, but it's not just about them. The sopranos matter too. Miriam and the women of ancient Israel are part of the story. Leading a people, not an individual, in remembering God's word, gracious work in song, alone with our thoughts and anxieties as we ruminate alone on failures. We can forget God's there too. We can forget how we're connected to others in the journey. We can forget God cares not just about my suffering, but the suffering of the world. God cares especially about the widow, the immigrant and the orphan, those in particular places of difficulty and need. Those who cry out for God's justice today and what. What power there is in remembering together, remembering in song. Well, every time we celebrate communion as we'll do today we remember in prayer God's saving acts through history, especially God's work freeing the ancient Hebrew people from the bondage of that empire called Egypt under Pharaoh. But we remember something else too. At this table, we remember how in the the fullness of time, God acted again to save a people, as God has done in the time of Miriam and Moses. Only this time God sent a messiah, one called God's own son, who would not only be a great prophet and teacher and healer, he would bring God's very realm near to earth. That we might know God's healing will at work. We might know the ways that make for peace in Christ. We saw how the one who came in the name of the Lord was put to death by the political and religious authorities of his day. And in him we saw God's power to overcome even death in that savior, Jesus Christ. We believe we are made one body, one people, one community. Jew and Gentile, female and male, people of all manner of races, backgrounds, nationalities, sexual orientations, orientations, gender identities. Any category you can come up with that might divide people one from another. All of those different kinds of people we read in Scripture are made one through Christ and through faith in him, are connected, linked to God, to one another, and to the precious gift of God's creation with whom we are, with which we're invited to enjoy a mutual relationship of care in this people, people God had called and claimed. God is also at work reaching out to bless the world and show the world what God's realm really looks like. Well, friends, as you come forward to receive communion today for this all Saint Sunday, if you wish, you can take one of the pillar candles and you can light one of the smaller candles. And as you do that, you can recall in prayer a person's name or maybe multiple people's names who you're thinking of today who form for you part of that great cloud of witnesses, the people with whom you feel a connection today. Because that's the connection we have in Christ. Not just with God, through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and not just with one another, but we also have this connection to the saints of the church through time, with all those who God has claimed as God's own in Christ. And if you like, you can say their name out loud or silently and remember how you are linked to them. One people, one body. You are not alone in the journey. Once you were no people. Now today you're God's people. Let's remember that. Let's savor that together in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, amen.