2012-09-09 "Make a Joyful Noise That's More Than Just Noise"
James McTyre
Lake Hills Presbyterian Church (USA)
Rally Day
Hang on, everybody. Because today, on Rally Day, we're going to have not ONE scripture reading, or even TWO. We're going to have SIX. And five them are going to come from the Old Testament. Woohoo.
Everybody always talks about how we're supposed to obey scripture. If you see something once or twice in scripture, you figure, God wants you to do it, but would probably be forgiving if you mess up. But, when you see the same thing, three, four, five or more times in scripture, you'd likely think God's pretty serious about that one. So, here is a command from God made five times in scripture. Ask yourself, if you've obeyed God on this one, even once, today.
Psalm 100:1 (ESV)
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Psalm 98:6 (ESV)
With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!
Psalm 95:1 (ESV)
...let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Psalm 95:2 (ESV)
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him...!
Psalm 98:4 (ESV)
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
So, ask yourself, when you sang today, were you really thankful? Did you really make a joyful noise? Really?
---
Mark 12:28-31
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?"29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
---
James McTyre
Lake Hills Presbyterian Church (USA)
Rally Day
Hang on, everybody. Because today, on Rally Day, we're going to have not ONE scripture reading, or even TWO. We're going to have SIX. And five them are going to come from the Old Testament. Woohoo.
Everybody always talks about how we're supposed to obey scripture. If you see something once or twice in scripture, you figure, God wants you to do it, but would probably be forgiving if you mess up. But, when you see the same thing, three, four, five or more times in scripture, you'd likely think God's pretty serious about that one. So, here is a command from God made five times in scripture. Ask yourself, if you've obeyed God on this one, even once, today.
Psalm 100:1 (ESV)
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
Psalm 98:6 (ESV)
With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!
Psalm 95:1 (ESV)
...let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Psalm 95:2 (ESV)
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him...!
Psalm 98:4 (ESV)
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
So, ask yourself, when you sang today, were you really thankful? Did you really make a joyful noise? Really?
---
Mark 12:28-31
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?"29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
---
Hey, it's Rally Day! The choir's back. Can I get an Amen? Bells are ringing! Can I get another Amen? (That's about a year's quota for Presbyterians.)
Let's do some real rally stuff. Gimme a "P." Gimme an "r". Gimme an "e". Gimme an... "sbyterian." What's it spell? I don't know, either. Sounded like, "Presblyentiahnlaba."
It's Rally Day, and that's the kind of stuff people do at rallies. Cheer. Yell. Spell things. Get pumped up. Get themselves in the spirit. Maybe we should have tailgating before worship. That'd get people in the spirit.
You know what to do at a rally before a game. But it's a little weird in church. Because, in church, you don't know if it's OK to make a lot of noise and shake your pom poms.
It's not like at a football game. Could you imagine being at Neyland Stadium, UT scores a touchdown, and 106,000 people wonder, "Is it OK to applaud? I mean, we're in a football game."
I'm just thankful it's considered bad form to boo in church. Or yell from your seat. "That sermon's incomplete! He never had full possession!" ("Possession." Another word that means something else in church.)
Presbyterians get a bad rap. Misinformed people call us, "The Frozen Chosen," because they think we never get excited. Yeah, as if all of you took a vow of silence yesterday afternoon. C'mon. Some of us are hoarse from yelling so much yesterday. Some people might not even be here because they were so thawed yesterday. "Presbyterians Gone Wild." You've seen the video. Love the scene where they pass the offering plate down the same row twice. Outrageous.
It's not fair to pick on one denomination, or even religion. Everyone who goes to church, or synagogue, or temple, or Mass puts on their best behavior. Unless you're Pentecostal or Sufi Islam, where they do a lot of shouting or spinning and dancing, worship pretty universally means sitting still, being quiet, and behaving as if God's watching - very, very closely. Don't talk. Don't turn around. Don't write notes. Don't text. Don't check email. Do not EVER fall asleep. (And yet we wonder why people don't come.)
One of the reasons people don't come to church is that there IS this disconnect between the way we act in church and the way we act the other six days of the week. But why is that so bad? For example. If you have relatives coming to visit next weekend that you haven't seen in a long while, how are you going to spend your spare time this week? Cleaning house. Getting the kids cleaned and pressed. Maybe give yourself a trip to the stylist. Does that mean your visit next weekend is fake? Or does it mean that you're trying to be your best for the ones who are important to you?
Or, another example. When you go to someone else's house, do you behave the way you do in your own home? Do you shuffle around in a stained undershirt and leave empty cans on the coffee table? Probably not, if you want to be invited back.
So, here we are, invited guests in God's house, on the annual Day of Rally. And it CAN be confusing. Because in scripture, God tells us, again, and again, and again - at least five times - to, "Make a joyful noise (exclamation point!)." To, "Enter God's house with thanksgiving." To come into God's place with praise, with loud shouts, and songs of joy. But this is not a game. We're supposed to be different in worship. We're supposed to be on our best behavior in church because we are invited guests. Worship reminds us that we need to work on ourselves. That we need to conduct ourselves in ways that are divinely UN-usual. So the noises we make on Sunday morning, joyful as they may be, are supposed to be different than the ones we make the other six and one-half days of the week. Even on Rally Day.
---
What kind of noises do you make? Don't demonstrate. To each his own, or her own. Whatever they are, they probably aren't all that joyful. They might even be unholy. I make a lot of grumpy noises. Grouchy noises. Complaining noises. Why? Because everybody makes them. And it's so easy to go along with the crowd.
There's a lot of random noise, too. It's neither good nor bad. It's just noise. The indistinct noise of the crowd. It has no meaning. No value. It's just noise. Like when kids who are learning to talk simply talk because they can. Not to pick too much on one group, but I'm convinced a lot of politicians talk simply to show that they do indeed have verbal skills. They want to prove they're so much more evolved than the silent antelope, or giraffes.
The Bible is painfully clear. We are to make a joyful noise. All the earth is to make a joyful noise in praise of its creator. Not grumpy noise. Not noise-noise. Joyful noise. But what does that mean? Especially in church?
Some churches seem to give more points for volume than content. Other churches spend more time taking roll and counting heads than getting into them. Other churches take great pains to disturb neither the furniture nor their neighbors, as if the point is to come and leave without anyone knowing you've been there. Some churches try to make as little noise as possible. Others never stop making noise.
What kind of noise do you make for God? Is it joyful? Is it grouchy? Is it random? Is it noise for its own sake? Is your God-noise just an extended echo of the sounds you make everywhere else?
Jesus had an idea about how to really rally for God. Jesus talked about how to make a really joyful, joyful noise. And, no surprise, it sounds different than the noise we're used to making.
---
In Mark 12:28, there's a story about people arguing with Jesus. They were challenging him with questions. And, things were getting loud. So loud, in fact, that a scribe - one of the men whose job it was to keep the noise down - came up to them, and put a question to Jesus. Here's how it goes:
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?"
Now, Jesus is really smart. I guess that goes with the territory. Jesus quotes scripture. The scripture doesn't start out saying, shout, yell, accuse, hiccup, yawn, or shush.
29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear' -
'Hear, O Israel...'
The genesis of joyful noise is to hear.
Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one.30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
Joyful noise doesn't start with shout, yell, accuse, hiccup, yawn, or shush.
It starts with, "Hear." And hear this.
The Lord is one. And you shall love God. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There's no commandment greater.
So. It turns out joyful noise isn't noisy. Joyful noise is a love song. Joyful noise is the sound of hearing. (Ooh, that's zen-like.) If you're sitting in church, joyful noise is the sound of people working especially hard to hear, and to take God's commandments to heart. Because in church, you hear the reminders - or maybe you hear for the first time - that you really have only two basic commandments. Two commandments. That's all.
Love God.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Which means, you're going to cut your neighbor some slack, just like you do yourself.
Love God. Love neighbor. If you do that, then, the sounds of God and the people around will be very joyful. You'll be joyful, too. Love God. Love neighbor. And your life will be a joyful noise unto God, the rock of your salvation.
---
In the Bible it says at least five times that we're to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. That we're to enter his gates, that we're to come into God's house, with thanksgiving. That we're supposed to enter God's house singing loud songs of praise. Like a joyful noise rally. And that's all well and good. For the people who show up.
Jesus finishes the song. The Psalms tell us how to ENTER God's house. Jesus tells us how we're supposed to EXIT God's house. Jesus tells us how we're to enter the rest of God's creation the other six and one-half days of the week. We're to take the love we hear in church, and share it with our neighbor.
That might be hard to hear, but it's pretty simple to understand. Go out from here and love God; and love your neighbor, the same way you love yourself.
Can you imagine? If every church? If every follower of Jesus did just those two things? Every day? Can you imagine the joyful noise that would echo the world over?
I want to ask you to make a commitment today. And I know it gets scary when the preacher says stuff like that. I want to ask you to make a commitment today. I want to ask you to make a commitment to God that no matter what kind of noise surrounds you, that you'll make a joyful noise. That no matter what kind of noise other people try to jam into your head, you'll do your very best to reply by loving God, and by loving your neighbor as yourself. Can you make that commitment today? I hope so. I hope you will. Because I think that would be the best Rally Day ever.
Presbytery of East Tennessee
865-268-9628
Let's do some real rally stuff. Gimme a "P." Gimme an "r". Gimme an "e". Gimme an... "sbyterian." What's it spell? I don't know, either. Sounded like, "Presblyentiahnlaba."
It's Rally Day, and that's the kind of stuff people do at rallies. Cheer. Yell. Spell things. Get pumped up. Get themselves in the spirit. Maybe we should have tailgating before worship. That'd get people in the spirit.
You know what to do at a rally before a game. But it's a little weird in church. Because, in church, you don't know if it's OK to make a lot of noise and shake your pom poms.
It's not like at a football game. Could you imagine being at Neyland Stadium, UT scores a touchdown, and 106,000 people wonder, "Is it OK to applaud? I mean, we're in a football game."
I'm just thankful it's considered bad form to boo in church. Or yell from your seat. "That sermon's incomplete! He never had full possession!" ("Possession." Another word that means something else in church.)
Presbyterians get a bad rap. Misinformed people call us, "The Frozen Chosen," because they think we never get excited. Yeah, as if all of you took a vow of silence yesterday afternoon. C'mon. Some of us are hoarse from yelling so much yesterday. Some people might not even be here because they were so thawed yesterday. "Presbyterians Gone Wild." You've seen the video. Love the scene where they pass the offering plate down the same row twice. Outrageous.
It's not fair to pick on one denomination, or even religion. Everyone who goes to church, or synagogue, or temple, or Mass puts on their best behavior. Unless you're Pentecostal or Sufi Islam, where they do a lot of shouting or spinning and dancing, worship pretty universally means sitting still, being quiet, and behaving as if God's watching - very, very closely. Don't talk. Don't turn around. Don't write notes. Don't text. Don't check email. Do not EVER fall asleep. (And yet we wonder why people don't come.)
One of the reasons people don't come to church is that there IS this disconnect between the way we act in church and the way we act the other six days of the week. But why is that so bad? For example. If you have relatives coming to visit next weekend that you haven't seen in a long while, how are you going to spend your spare time this week? Cleaning house. Getting the kids cleaned and pressed. Maybe give yourself a trip to the stylist. Does that mean your visit next weekend is fake? Or does it mean that you're trying to be your best for the ones who are important to you?
Or, another example. When you go to someone else's house, do you behave the way you do in your own home? Do you shuffle around in a stained undershirt and leave empty cans on the coffee table? Probably not, if you want to be invited back.
So, here we are, invited guests in God's house, on the annual Day of Rally. And it CAN be confusing. Because in scripture, God tells us, again, and again, and again - at least five times - to, "Make a joyful noise (exclamation point!)." To, "Enter God's house with thanksgiving." To come into God's place with praise, with loud shouts, and songs of joy. But this is not a game. We're supposed to be different in worship. We're supposed to be on our best behavior in church because we are invited guests. Worship reminds us that we need to work on ourselves. That we need to conduct ourselves in ways that are divinely UN-usual. So the noises we make on Sunday morning, joyful as they may be, are supposed to be different than the ones we make the other six and one-half days of the week. Even on Rally Day.
---
What kind of noises do you make? Don't demonstrate. To each his own, or her own. Whatever they are, they probably aren't all that joyful. They might even be unholy. I make a lot of grumpy noises. Grouchy noises. Complaining noises. Why? Because everybody makes them. And it's so easy to go along with the crowd.
There's a lot of random noise, too. It's neither good nor bad. It's just noise. The indistinct noise of the crowd. It has no meaning. No value. It's just noise. Like when kids who are learning to talk simply talk because they can. Not to pick too much on one group, but I'm convinced a lot of politicians talk simply to show that they do indeed have verbal skills. They want to prove they're so much more evolved than the silent antelope, or giraffes.
The Bible is painfully clear. We are to make a joyful noise. All the earth is to make a joyful noise in praise of its creator. Not grumpy noise. Not noise-noise. Joyful noise. But what does that mean? Especially in church?
Some churches seem to give more points for volume than content. Other churches spend more time taking roll and counting heads than getting into them. Other churches take great pains to disturb neither the furniture nor their neighbors, as if the point is to come and leave without anyone knowing you've been there. Some churches try to make as little noise as possible. Others never stop making noise.
What kind of noise do you make for God? Is it joyful? Is it grouchy? Is it random? Is it noise for its own sake? Is your God-noise just an extended echo of the sounds you make everywhere else?
Jesus had an idea about how to really rally for God. Jesus talked about how to make a really joyful, joyful noise. And, no surprise, it sounds different than the noise we're used to making.
---
In Mark 12:28, there's a story about people arguing with Jesus. They were challenging him with questions. And, things were getting loud. So loud, in fact, that a scribe - one of the men whose job it was to keep the noise down - came up to them, and put a question to Jesus. Here's how it goes:
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?"
Now, Jesus is really smart. I guess that goes with the territory. Jesus quotes scripture. The scripture doesn't start out saying, shout, yell, accuse, hiccup, yawn, or shush.
29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear' -
'Hear, O Israel...'
The genesis of joyful noise is to hear.
Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one.30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
Joyful noise doesn't start with shout, yell, accuse, hiccup, yawn, or shush.
It starts with, "Hear." And hear this.
The Lord is one. And you shall love God. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There's no commandment greater.
So. It turns out joyful noise isn't noisy. Joyful noise is a love song. Joyful noise is the sound of hearing. (Ooh, that's zen-like.) If you're sitting in church, joyful noise is the sound of people working especially hard to hear, and to take God's commandments to heart. Because in church, you hear the reminders - or maybe you hear for the first time - that you really have only two basic commandments. Two commandments. That's all.
Love God.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Which means, you're going to cut your neighbor some slack, just like you do yourself.
Love God. Love neighbor. If you do that, then, the sounds of God and the people around will be very joyful. You'll be joyful, too. Love God. Love neighbor. And your life will be a joyful noise unto God, the rock of your salvation.
---
In the Bible it says at least five times that we're to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. That we're to enter his gates, that we're to come into God's house, with thanksgiving. That we're supposed to enter God's house singing loud songs of praise. Like a joyful noise rally. And that's all well and good. For the people who show up.
Jesus finishes the song. The Psalms tell us how to ENTER God's house. Jesus tells us how we're supposed to EXIT God's house. Jesus tells us how we're to enter the rest of God's creation the other six and one-half days of the week. We're to take the love we hear in church, and share it with our neighbor.
That might be hard to hear, but it's pretty simple to understand. Go out from here and love God; and love your neighbor, the same way you love yourself.
Can you imagine? If every church? If every follower of Jesus did just those two things? Every day? Can you imagine the joyful noise that would echo the world over?
I want to ask you to make a commitment today. And I know it gets scary when the preacher says stuff like that. I want to ask you to make a commitment today. I want to ask you to make a commitment to God that no matter what kind of noise surrounds you, that you'll make a joyful noise. That no matter what kind of noise other people try to jam into your head, you'll do your very best to reply by loving God, and by loving your neighbor as yourself. Can you make that commitment today? I hope so. I hope you will. Because I think that would be the best Rally Day ever.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
James McTyreLake Hills Presbyterian Church (USA)
Presbytery of East Tennessee
jamesmctyre@usa.net
865-268-9628
No comments:
Post a Comment