November 20, 2022 Sermon
Sermon title: "Happy Thanksgiving!"
Scripture: Psalm 100
(Other lectionary choices include Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Philippians 4:4-9, and John 6:25-35.)
Psalm 100
All Lands Summoned to Praise God
A Psalm of thanksgiving.
1Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. 2Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. 3Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. 5For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
In just a few days it will be Thanksgiving Day, and I love it that in their wisdom, whoever put together the lectionary centuries ago put the 100th Psalm there for us to read and read again! In my Bible at home, it says "a psalm for the thank offering" at the top of the 100th Psalm. So.... as I think it says in the Book of Common Prayer, "it is altogether meet and right" that we should do this: give thanks.
In the Interpreter's Bible, a copy of which we have in the church office, it says "A Psalm of praise" at the top of Psalm 100. The Interpreter's Bible also says Psalm 100 is very similar to Psalm 95 - check it out, if you wish! But the Interpreter’s Bible also says that Psalm 100 "summarizes the creed of Judaism....This creed, which corrects in measure the conception of Judaism presented in the New Testament is made up of six capital statements: (a) the Lord is God; (b) he is our creator; (c) we are his people; (d) the Lord is good; (e) his kindness is everlasting; (f) his faithfulness endures to all generations. Such a creed helps us to understand how the Jews were nerved in the Maccabean period to resist the attempts of pagans with their lesser creeds to stamp out their faith; and how, first of all peoples in the world, they took up the cause of religious freedom." Isn't that something? Right there in the Interpreter's Bible is the assertion that the Jewish people were the first in the world to stand up for religious freedom. I learned something in preparing this sermon, because - as a guy in a Spectrum commercial on TV says - "I never knew!"
You and I both probably have the 100th Psalm as one of our favorites, probably right after Psalm 23, which begins, "The Lord is my shepherd." But the Interpreter’s Bible says that Psalm 100 isn't really one of the best, as far as "poetical art" is concerned. But WHO CARES?! It's like some of the hymns we sing that have become our favorites: maybe not the best theology or the best poetry, but the melody gets us right HERE in our hearts. The same for the 100th Psalm: it's real, we learned it as children, and we'll never forget it!
To those of you who came to Bible study when we were studying the Psalms, the following may sound familiar. It's from the commentary I used during our study, and it was written by George A. F. Knight. This Psalm, says Professor Knight, is meant for the whole world. ALL LANDS are invited to make a joyful noise before the Lord. So, there is a "missionary" aspect to this Psalm. And they are being INVITED. not FORCED, to worship the Lord, the God of Israel.
What does it mean to come into the presence of the Lord? Our word "presence" comes from the Hebrew word for "face" - that's "PUNIM" in Yiddish! The point is that worshippers are invited in to see the FACE of God, meaning to have a personal relationship with a personal God, not some distant deity.
George Knight believes that this Psalm was used in an interesting manner. Says he, "We are to see a group of pilgrims arriving at the outer gate of the Temple, perhaps....from as far away as Egypt....or Mesopotamia to the east." This is interesting because the Hebrews had been SLAVES in Egypt, and the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the Temple back in 586 B.C. In other words, even Israel's enemies, past and present, are invited to worship with the Jews! Isn't that something? Could you invite Vladimir Putin to come to church with you? How about your least favorite politician? Could you invite him or her to share a pew with you? Well, the 100th Psalm DOES do that! I just had a thought: when Jesus said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, he had an example from his own Jewish tradition: THIS PSALM!
It is thought that this Psalm was used in worship, and a Temple official would invite those coming to the service to turn their backs on the Temple for a moment, and look out over all the lands and invite everybody to come in, including the cruel Edomites to the south and the warlike Syrians to the northeast. And not only was everyone invited...... everyone was invited to come into the Temple courtyards WITH SINGING! When they shout, "Know that the Lord is God", what that really means is that ONLY God is God. And they are shouting that to the pagan nations! Then they turn toward each other and say, "It is he who made us and we are his." "In these words they remind themselves that they are God's own possession among all peoples,....actually words that God had spoken (in Exodus 19:5) through Moses at the moment when he made his Covenant with Israel at Sinai. But God had not stopped there. Some modern Christians wish that he had. For he declared next that his people were to be his kingdom of priests, that is, priests who were to mediate the love of God to all other peoples, even those under whom they had suffered and died." Isn't that great? Looky there: the command to love and be hospitable even to those peoples who treated you badly. Again, Jesus didn't invent the idea of loving one's enemies. It's right here in the 100th Psalm!
Next point: when the worshippers say, "We are his", or another translation is, "It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves", they are saying that they are not their own property. "For it is the Lord who makes individual believers into a congregation; it is not we who say, 'Come, let us create a church.' So, the expectant worshippers, like ourselves when we reach the church door on Sundays, are reminded of 'whose we are and whom we serve', and that even the building itself is not ours, but his." Verse 4 says to "enter his gates with thanksgiving." Whose gates? Ours? NO! HIS gates! Just another reminder of exactly whose building this is!
Our commentator, George Knight, suggests that the worshippers "have now gone through the outer gate and are standing together at the Court of the Gentiles. If so, then it is there that the priest helps these folk to make profession of their faith. He tells them to repeat after him: "(We believe) that the Lord is good. and so also with the last two lines, in which they proclaim their faith in the God who is utterly loyal to them in love, and who has chosen them to be members of his Covenant People."
And one last thing: members of the Covenant People are thought of as co-workers with God so that the world may learn of God's love. And, of course, God's faithfulness will continue through all generations. No wonder that's a favorite Psalm! Amen.
Pastor Skip
