Our Liturgy of the Present and Future

Preached at Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church on November 12, 2023.

Scripture: Psalm 78:1-7

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known,
that our ancestors have told us.
We will not hide them from their children;
we will tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might
and the wonders that he has done.

He established a decree in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach to their children,
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and rise up and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God,
and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments.

Sermon

As some of you know, I was teaching confirmation last Sunday night. It went really well even though they caught me off guard once or twice.

During class, I write on a large whiteboard “Old Testament” and “New Testament,” and draw a line down the middle separating the two. I turn to the confirmands and give them one instruction. “Write down every single Bible story you’ve heard.” After lighting the match, I walk away as the room dives into chaos.

After about 15 minutes, I ask them to stop. To the confirmands’ credit, they did a great job. We then make a few observations:

They filled up the Old Testament in no time, but took a little longer to fill in the New Testament

They also remembered some popular stories, like Noah’s ark, Zaccheus, and Daniel and the Lion’s Den

They remembered some uncommon stories, like Cain and Abel and God providing water in the wilderness.

But embarrassingly, nobody wrote down the incarnation, a single miracle of Christ, the crucifixion, the resurrection, OR Pentecost.

The Christian Educator at Brown Memorial, Rachel, comes in the room after class, and I fill her in on everything. I look at Rachel and say, “isn’t it funny that these kids remember Cain and Abel but not Easter morning?” Then Rachel replies, “Well think about it. These kids are pandemic kids - they went to school online and had Sunday school on Zoom.”

Oof. I’ve been thinking about that, and realized that most adults don’t know a lot of the confirmation material, either. So we’re going to start with one lesson now, just in case.

In churches, we use the word “liturgy” a lot. We also use it pretty casually - sometimes we’re referring to a part of the order of worship, sometimes it means the whole service, and sometimes it’s just a prayer that feels churchy. But the word liturgy goes back far. Really far, back to ancient Greece.

The word leitourgia was something that rich Athenians performed. A leitourgia was some sort of job, task, position that a wealthy man did for the common good. It was volunteer work, a public service that benefited everyone. That word was also used for “worship of the gods,” which was related. In cultic society, worship of the gods kept a people safe, protected, in good favor. Worship of the gods was in everyone’s best interest, lest war or famine struck.

That word would be adopted by early Christian assemblies, people who gathered to pray, share a meal together, and commit themselves to the way of Christ Jesus. So our time together–praying, celebrating the Sacraments, listening for God’s Word–all of that is leitourgia. The root words are “public” and “work.” It’s a work of the people sharing in the kingdom of God.

All that said, today’s Scripture reading is a liturgy. Of course, that’s not the word that would have been used, but this psalm was intimately tied to worship in the temple. The inscription, A song of Asaph, which is shown in a Bible right above the text, isn’t super clear, but it lets us know this psalm was likely related to singing. This was something special, sacred, a little bit magical and sparkly.

And what a lovely song it is. It sings of God’s deliverance and covenantal work among the Hebrew people. The name of Jacob is invoked, heightening the sense of providence that is woven from before the foundation of the world, leading into the very present of those who sang it. This psalm doesn’t stop there, however, for it keeps drawing that line: first Jacob, then the present, and further past the horizon, into the generations on and on and on and on. That narrative isn’t limited to the yesterdays and todays, but pushes through time and into eternity. The psalmists who transcribed this liturgical song did so beautifully, composing something that would be read millennia later by some weird Presbyterians in a weird part of the globe with a bizarre language. We know now that what this psalm testified to came about. God’s love and movement did indeed pass through history. And this psalm is just as true today: the redemption, love, and providence of God will continue to extend outward through space and time.

Today, the psalms continue to hold a place in our collective mind. They are used in worship every Sunday throughout the church, and we still read them in hospital rooms and before bedtime, on retreats and special occasions. That’s for good reason. The human experience, in all of its messiness and grime and complexity is a liturgy of sorts. The way we live together as a community, as Dickey Memorial Presbyterian, is a true “work of the people,” a shared liturgy that we are writing together. There’s a great big point today: this liturgy of our lives and of this congregation matters deeply to God, and this liturgy of our lives also shapes how we live in this world. The way we worship, the way we care for this building, the way we connect with Dickeyville matters, because those parts of our grand liturgy will also form us as we create them. And the psalms model and participate in the liturgy of our lives and community, they are companions as we try to follow the way of God.

Today, we hear the psalmists say this: “I will open my mouth in a parable; we will tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and might and the wonders God has done.” It might not sound like much, but it’s remarkable. The psalmist frames God’s work–those glorious deeds like deliverance from Egypt–as a parable. This song reframes history as something far more interesting than a set of facts. Instead, this psalm suggests that the stories of old bear meaning, many different perspectives, new insights that are begging to be discovered. To say it another way, this psalm is demanding theological reflection. It’s asking about God’s movement among the listeners, inviting the listener to investigate the bigger questions surrounding mundane events. The psalm is inviting the listener to make something sacred out of what is ordinary. That’s what all liturgy does to some extent. It takes the doldrums or circumstances of our lives and brings it in conversation with God and the Spirit. Six days a week are placed in context of God’s reign and presence in our lives and community.

Here’s another example of this, what the liturgy of this psalm is doing. Kate Bowler is a scholar of religious history, who was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. Colon cancer is horrific, and she had some very complicated experiences. But remarkably–in a very exceptional and unexpected way–her cancer was frozen in its tracks. She’s still alive, years and years and years later, stuck with this terrifying and painful experience. As a result, she’s spent a huge amount of time trying to unpack her experience, and even wrote a book called “Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I Loved)”. Her sense of meaning and purpose changed drastically. And one of the things she says–which invites others to engage with the complexity of life–is this: “Have a beautiful, terrible day.” It’s a bit of a mind bender, but she’s simply asking us to reflect on the unexpected, complicated beauty of our lives, especially the experiences that aren’t fun by any means. It’s to conceive of our lives as part of a grander narrative and liturgy, composed by God’s people and the Great Author of the Spirit.

“That’s a vision of what worship can be every single Sunday morning - the propulsion that extends our attention and focus to our children, our children’s children, our children’s children’s children’s children. The psalm shows us that the liturgy of our lives and our worship on Sunday morning reverberates.”

That’s what this psalm is asking, too, in a way. Where is God moving in the ordinary? What is God inviting you to see and understand in new ways? The psalms are asking us to explore and craft the liturgy of our lives. A liturgy of the present. In the life of this church, there is plenty to explore. I preached from this pulpit last week rather than the floor, which begs a question: Why does it matter if we preach from the pulpit or the floor? What difference does it make? Whatever the answer, there is meaning in the ordinary–some sort of liturgy in the present moment–that will change us if we let it. And asking these sorts of questions about the ordinary will draw us to what the Spirit is speaking.

Besides crafting this liturgy of the present–a shared work of reflection and theological exploration–the psalms draw us to the future, too. Today’s Scripture reading talks a lot about descendants and ancestors. It’s pretty reasonable to say that this selection is almost entirely about future generations. What a gift. We’re somewhere in the middle on the timeline of history, no matter what it feels like. The world came long before us, and it will exist for a long time after us. This psalm pulls us into that standpoint, while giving the listener perspective.

That’s what all liturgy and worship does. If we stare too long at the minutiae of ministry–the paperwork and check signing and vacuuming and coffee hours–we will certainly forget about God’s “glorious deeds” and mighty wonders. This psalm warns against forgetting “the works of God” and the deliverance that has been woven throughout communities. The sacred meaning that is infused into the ordinary.

Whenever we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, what does the presider quote: “Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me.” And later, after the words of intinction, “Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup, we remember the Lord’s saving life, death, and resurrection.” The liturgy of this psalm and the liturgy of the Eucharist are shouting this at us: Do not forget!

Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church has a long history, a beautiful, rich history. Ken and I were chatting the other day, and he mentioned that there is a Christmas caroling tradition that has started on the steps of this church for over a hundred years. This village of Dickeyville also has a long history–and even it’s own historical society. Remembering is not about navel gazing, but gaining perspective. We’re retelling a parable about the mission of God: of baptisms and new grandbabies, of lost loved ones and friends, of traditions and casseroles. We’re remembering all of that not for its own sake, but because God has lived among us for our whole existence, and God hasn’t gone anywhere. These things move us to action, to say “yes and amen,” to listen to the liturgy and saints that came before us. The same love of God and fellowship of the Holy Spirit that was in this church one hundred years ago is still here, beckoning us to action. And we are writing our life together as one great liturgy that spans across seasons and pastors and hurts and traumas and arguments. We’re gleaning seeds of meaning, planting them in the ground, so that our descendants may reap their harvest here in Dickeyville and Baltimore County.

This psalm and its liturgy also points us to the future.

In case you aren’t familiar with Patti LuPone, she’s a 74-year old actress and singer who has been on broadway forever. Her style is somewhat bizarre but you will know when she is within a mile feet of you. Patti is also a graduate of the Julliard School in New York, and has a voice that is powerful enough to break every wine glass in your home.

Someone asked about the power behind her voice, and she had an unexpected answer. Here’s what she said: “When you’re singing, you want to use enough air that you could blow a throatful of peanut butter clear across the room. So if you ever see me choking on peanut butter, leave me be, because if I can’t handle that on my own, then the Patti LuPone you knew and loved is already dead”

That’s the psalm, that’s liturgy. That’s a vision of what worship can be every single Sunday morning - the propulsion that extends our attention and focus to our children, our children’s children, our children’s children’s children’s children. The psalm shows us that the liturgy of our lives and our worship on Sunday morning reverberates. When we make decisions, when we invite preachers to the pulpit, when we hire musicians (or don’t), today’s psalm invites us to make those decisions in a way that will reverberate. Those decisions go far beyond today. They go into the future and affect our siblings who will come after us in faith.

Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church–everyone in this room, on Zoom, who’s somewhere else instead of worship–we are writing a liturgy together. A work of the people, full of emotions and feelings and thoughts and values and ideas. A work that weaves the ordinary into something infused with sacred meaning. This liturgy we are writing is full of the works of God–of past deliverance and love and faith–that is still reverberating here today. We don’t have to write this shared liturgy perfectly, but we do have to write it faithfully, tenderly, and patiently, with love and hope and joy in one hand and faith and trust in the other. So do a little reflecting, do a little thinking, do a little Bible reading and a little bit of praying. Let it be propelled across the room by the worship we share, the experiences we hold, and the work of all God’s people, our liturgy of the present and of the future. Amen.

Sources

Miller, Patrick. Interpreting the Psalms. Fortress Press, 1988, https://archive.org/details/interpretingpsal00mill