Sermon for June 21st, 2020

Psalm 96:1-13

1 O sing to the Lord a new song;
    sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
    tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous works among all the peoples.
4 For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
    he is to be revered above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
    but the Lord made the heavens.
6 Honor and majesty are before him;
    strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

7 Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    bring an offering, and come into his courts.
9 Worship the Lord in holy splendor;
    tremble before him, all the earth.

10 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.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
    let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12     let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13     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.

Psummer of Psalms - Psalm 96

On September 11th, 2004 (the day my son Grady was born) I gained an incredible new superpower: The ability to tell Dad jokes. On December 16, 2007, when Abby was born, I leveled up. And on December 16th, 2011 when Jonah was born, I became a Jedi-Dad-Joke-Master. Since today is Father's day, I will now indulge in this ancient, sacred, art on behalf of Dads everywhere.

• Why are elevator jokes so good? They work on many levels.
• Why do eye doctors live so long? They dilate.
• Why does a chicken coop have two doors? Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan.
• What do you call an alligator in a vest? An investigator.
• What do you call a broken can opener? A can’t opener.
• What do you call a group of rabbits walking backwards? A receding hare-line.

Last Sunday we looked at Psalm 86, which can be used as a model for how to pray. This Sunday, we're going to look at Psalm 96, which functions as a model for how to worship. I'm going to be honest--while I often have people ask me to help them learn how to pray better, I rarely have anyone ask me "How can I worship God better?" It's not something we think about much, even though worship is pretty fundamental to who we are and what we do as people of faith.

But this question, "How should we worship" has been on MY mind a lot in the last four months. Four months ago, we thought we had the whole worship thing down: You come to church Sunday morning, sing a few songs, say a few prayers, stand up, sit down, shake hands, listen to the sermon, say a few more prayers, sing a few more songs, stand up, sit down, pass the offering plate, go home. I'm only exaggerating a little.

And then came Covid19, and suddenly you couldn't shake hands or pass the offering plate. Then you couldn't even come to church. How do you sing songs when everyone is in a different location and their internet connections are 3 seconds out of sync with each other? How do I preach a sermon when I can't look into the faces of my congregation and see the joys or the sorrows, the confusion or the understanding reflected in their eyes?

We struggled through it, doing our best, trying new things, making new mistakes and new discoveries every week. Churches started to re-open, ours included, but it wasn't as simple as just "going back to what we did before." In a world where it's still not safe for some people to come back to church, that won't work. And last week, I learned from some of our military families (we have several here in El Paso) that their employers don't consider it safe for them or their families to participate in online worship services, for reasons of national security. So it's not enough to just do one or the other. We have to do both.

How do you hold together different communities, worshiping in different ways, with different rules and expectations? Add to that the problems we already had before Covid19, like different preferences in music, different political, generational and socio-economic backgrounds, and YES...I would absolutely LOVE to hear what the Bible has to say about how we should worship God in this crazy, frustrating, ever-changing world!

Psalm 96, verse 1: Sing to the Lord a NEW song; sing to the Lord ALL the earth.

• Our sermons are not so much cheerleading for God as they are attempts to notice and name both where and how God is acting in our congregation and in the world.
• There is no satisfaction to be found in songs of praise to various earth idols.