Reclaiming the "p" word: Praise as humility put into action

Psalm 113

As many of you know, words sometimes mean something a little different in some places than they do in the rest of the world. For example, today’s Psalm is about praise. In most places in the world—with most people—praise is a word that evokes images of joy and worshiping with abandon, but in this part of the world I’m come to find that praise is looked upon with something else—something more like suspicion. So, today, I’ve invited my cultural translator, Samantha, to translate Psalm 113. I’ll read. She’ll translate.

Ready?

Frank: ¹ Praise the Lord!
Sam: Sit still and think good thoughts.

Frank: Praise, O servants of the Lord;
   praise the name of the Lord.

Sam: Sit very reverently. Don’t make eye contact. God doesn’t like eccentricity. Just chill.

Frank: ² Blessed be the name of the Lord
   from this time on and for evermore.

Sam: <whisper> God is good all the time… just as long as I don’t have to talk about it.

Frank: ³ From the rising of the sun to its setting
   the name of the Lord is to be praised.

Sam: At least ten times a day I will consider saying something about God, then reconsider because I don’t really know what to say, because it’s better to be silent than to say the wrong thing.

Frank: ⁴ The Lord is high above all nations,
   and his glory above the heavens.

Sam: God is way up there somewhere, so dancing and clapping and whatnot are kind of pointless, because God hears me whether I whisper or carry on like a lunatic, amirite?

Frank: ⁵ Who is like the Lord our God,
   who is seated on high,

who looks far down
   on the heavens and the earth?

Sam: Rhetorical question! Like all the ones the pastor asks!

Frank: ⁷ He raises the poor from the dust,
   and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
⁸ to make them sit with princes,
   with the princes of his people.

Sam: Good, good, raising up the poor. But I’m not sure about this prince thing. That sounds like something for those people on the coasts. I mean, what would the neighbors think?

Frank: ⁹ He gives the barren woman a home,
   making her the joyous mother of children.

Praise the Lord!

Sam: <monotone> Amen. Hallelujah.

           

Thank you to Sam, my cultural translator.

OK, so here’s the thing. I don’t want to insult what makes us who we are. I’m one of these people who doesn’t know what to do with the word “praise” either, but if we can’t make fun of ourselves a bit when it comes to this then we probably aren’t very fun. And this whole concept of “praise” does expose an area of our church experience that has some trouble jiving with the images of worship we have in the Bible.

Now, when I say the word, “praise,” I don’t know what you imagine. So I want you to think for a moment about what comes to mind when you hear the word “praise” in church.

Is it Lifting up hands?

A Praise band?

Community singing?

Music of all kinds?

Saying “thanks!” to God?

            So, there is a problem with the way we generally think about praise and it is borne out of our examples of it. Our examples are praise bands, people raising up their hands to Jesus on TV or at concerts, people praying loudly or holding up signs at sporting events. All of those are ways of doing praise. But praise is also much wider than that. All praise begins with a willingness to put God before us and often what follows is that we feel compelled to leave our comfort zones. We become aware that what our neighbors think of us is not the most important thing, but we feel this not in a selfish way but in a way that models humility.

            I have a fairly embarrassing personal example of this. One time in college when I was in charge of an Advent service I found myself in the role of singing in the background during the candle lighting. This was the idea. It just fell apart when put into practice—to put it mildly. My accompanist ended up backing out and I, naively, went forward with it anyway, singing solo and a capella, which Anna Kendrick can pull off… but not me, and it was terrible. I mean, the silences were awkward and there was a key change that I completely messed up. During a time that was supposed to be reflective and inspiring, I’m sure the majority of people there just felt uncomfortable and sorry for me. But, in what was probably one of my only wise moments in my early twenties, I came away from that service feeling not embarrassed but something else. I remember telling some friends afterward that the whole experience is a good reminder that it’s not about me. And, in a way, that’s what praise always is—an understanding that how I feel coming out of worship is secondary to my faithful appreciation of the God I came to worship. And I pray I always have that wisdom.

            I get asked—like probably every pastor gets asked—how I stand up here every Sunday in front of all of you with some of you judging me, some of you loving me, and then next week you mostly flip, just to keep me on my toes; and the simple answer to that is the same: It’s not about me. If I give a sermon you think is great, it’s not about me. If I forget somebody in the prayers or spill the communion wine, it’s not about me. None of this is about me.

But it’s not about you either.

            And this is where this matters for all of you. If you’re in worship to get something out of it, I understand. That’s natural. I know I feel that way most of the time I go to worship, and sometimes I go away thinking, “Man, I didn’t get anything out of that today.” But, you know what, it’s not about me, and it’s not about you. Praise is humility put into action. It’s putting your own wants and needs in the background and instead focusing your attention on God. Every image we have of the heavenly throne in the book of Revelation looks like this: people worshiping around the throne, day and night, not for their own satisfaction but praising God for everything God has done. Most of our modern visions of the afterlife are pretty selfish by comparison.

            The other thing about praise that we tend to miss is that it is catchy. Nobody raises their hands in song during our worship services here (and that’s fine; it kind of makes me uncomfortable when people do), but if you go to the worship services in certain traditions raising up your hands is the norm. In other churches shouting out “Amen!” or “Hallelujah!” is the norm. Sometimes dancing is commonplace. It’s easy to point out in those traditions what it means to praise God, even if we find them a little strange, but the question before us is not whether those traditions are doing praise correctly (as if there were such a thing) but, rather, how are we to praise God in this place with this community.

There is one place I know this happens at least once or twice a month, and it is communion. It’s the only time when most of you raise up your hands in worship. Sure, it’s only yea-far, but that’s not so bad for Lutherans. And communion might be the only time on a given Sunday we do anything with our bodies and not our minds. In this simple gesture of taking the bread and the wine, eating and drinking, you embody the humility of praise. You come forward, acknowledging your sinfulness—there’s no reason to take communion unless you know you aren’t all that great—and then that gesture of raising our hands for bread and wine becomes catchy. Look at the kids who come forward, not old enough to partake. Every other one does that same thing: they raise up their hands, and if it wasn’t for you parents who grab their arms and tuck them back in under the rail, I have half a mind to give it to them, because these kids know what it means to be denied by their community and if there is a greater prerequisite for sharing in the Lord’s Supper I don’t know what it is.

            More to the point, communion reveals something about what praise can be for us. Praise is not just rah-rah stuff. That’s maybe the only way some of you will accept it. But it is essential to worship, because it is our humble response to God’s grace. Christ humbled himself on a cross; we humble ourselves in worship. It’s not about you or me. It’s about God. And the sooner we get that through our heads the catchier our faith will be, the more open we will be to share it, and the less judged we will feel about whatever it is that we believe, or don’t even know what we believe. This is what the kingdom of God looks like. It’s us, doing our thing for the sake of God and not for our own standing, and it’s people saying, “Hey, that looks like a good time.” That’s the start of the party.