The Magic of Melody

Psalm 98 (click here to read the text)
Jazz Communion
September 6, 2026

William G. Carter

If the high school football team spent time in the gym, our marching band hung out in the band room. That was the scene for my teenage crowd. We brought our lunch trays to talk and listen to music. One fateful day, nobody was talking, only listening. Listening to the large, expansive music of an orchestra. At the heart of it was the sound of an improvising trumpet, or something like a trumpet.

“Who’s that?” asked one of the kids. A trumpeter said, “It's that new guy from Rochester, Chuck Mangione.” Tony, the Italian kid, said, “That's pronounced man-go-ni. Rhymes with macaroni.” “I like this,” said one of the flute players, “because it sounds like a symphony.” Another said, “It’s jazz. Normally, I don’t like jazz. But this is surprisingly good.”

They listened for a bit, captivated by the sounds. Halfway through the LP, one of them said, “I can whistle every song.” The trumpet player stopped him. “Don't do it. Let's just listen.” We were moved by the melody, transported. The school bell rang, calling all of us away from lunch period and back the class. Somebody said, “We have to do this again.”

That was the scene in my high school. In upstate New York, that was the scene in lots of high schools. There was a buzz about this young dude with long hair and a floppy hat. He lived not far away and created songs that moved our hearts.

We did not yet know Mangione had strong credentials from the New York jazz world. When Chuck was a kid, every prominent jazz musician who passed through Rochester was invited to the Mangione home for pasta and homemade wine. When Chuck was fifteen, Dizzy Gillespie, one of those musicians, gave him one of his up-bent trumpets. Not long after that, Dizzy recommended Chuck to join Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers with a young piano player named Keith Jarrett. With strong musical skills, prodigious talent, and an effervescent personality, he made a lot of friends.

So, imagine our excitement when our music teacher handed out one of Chuck’s tunes to our high school jazz band. It was called "Hill Where the Lord Hides." To a teenage Presbyterian, that almost sounded religious! I was so captivated that I borrowed the score off the conductor’s stand without his permission. I took it home, copied out the notes, and gave the tune to our basement band to play. In my musical photo album, there's a picture of me in a gray leisure suit playing that song with my friends in a high school talent show. Mangione's music has been with me for well over fifty years.

When we discovered Chuck was coming with his band to nearby Binghamton to play in the County Arena, I was euphoric. Their hit tune, "Feels So Good" was soaring on the radio waves. It was on all the AM and FM stations. I mustered the courage to ask a pretty young thing to be my date. In that era before cell phones, she sat through the concert looking at her watch. Meanwhile, when Mangione and his quintet hit the stage, they got a standing ovation before they played a single note. So, what was so exciting for everybody but her? Songs we could whistle but didn't. Tunes that lifted our spirits. Music that healed our souls. It was the magic of melody.

Ancient Israel knew all about melodies. According to the scrolls of First and Second Chronicles, the Jerusalem Temple had a multi-generational school to teach music through example and repetition.[1] In that time and place, music was taken seriously. It was an integrative art form. Like incense, music changes the room. It pulls together body, heart, mind, and spirit. Music creates community. It can be offered as the conduit for prayer.

Now, I love the Bible. For 41 years, I’ve been working with the Bible. My biggest gripe about the Bible is that somebody took out all the melodies. I now believe the culprit must have been a preacher, a preacher who considered himself superior to the choir director. “Words are what is most important,” he said, “just print the words.” It was a stupid mistake, for a life without melody is no life at all.

What is a melody, anyway? Pat Metheny, the jazz guitarist, said, “Melody is the most impossible aspect of music to nail down.”[2] A scientist can dissect a melody into notes and spaces, but for the average person that’s about as interesting as an autopsy. It’s just parts, no life. A good melody is full of life. As Metheny says, every melody has an inner wisdom. It speaks in invisible poetry. It can linger in the ear for years. It has the power to ignite imagination.

Psalm 98 celebrates the power of melody. Sing a new song. Make a joyful noise. Blow the horn. Strum the strings. Play a duet with creation, where seas roar, floods clap, and hills sing. Music surrounds us because it is inhabited with the life of the invisible Composer, Conductor, and Critic – a sonic Trinity if there ever was one.

As notes are shared, life is shared. We join all creation to experience what it is to be alive, the sorrow and the joy, the surprise and the confirmation, the passion and the pathos and the abundance of God's gift of life.

Musicians knew this in ancient days. They know it now. There is no rational reason musicians like these would make the music that they do, unless there was something life-giving at its heart, something that brings them alive and gives them an incredible purpose. They aren't doing it for the money, or the working conditions, or the travel. (Jeff, what time did you get up this morning to drive down from Syracuse?) Here we are, re-presenting the music of Mangione. It has been a gift for us, and we want it to be a gift for you. A holy gift, a life-giving gift.

Listen to how Chuck said it himself, “If you’re honest and play with love, people will sit down and listen. My music is the sum of all I have experienced.”[3] His love affair with music was characterized by “his boundless energy, unabashed enthusiasm, and pure joy that radiated from the stage.” And he wanted to share what had been given to him with as many people as possible. The night of that Binghamton concert, he sat on the edge of the stage after the show to sign records and photos for hundreds of people for people like me. His melodies were offered as a public gift.

In fact, the offertory today was Chuck’s Mother’s Day gift for his mom. The title, “Bellavia,” was her maiden name. It means “beautiful way.” The song was nominated for a Grammy for best instrumental composition. The other nominees that year were Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, Chick Corea, Henry Mancini, and Quincy Jones. Chuck said, “I felt like I was in the Kentucky Derby and I was riding Mister Ed.”  

He didn’t think he had a chance of winning, so he took a gig in Champaign, Illinois. That night, he watched on hotel TV as Paul Simon announced that he had won. Chuck said, “Buying Mother’s Day gifts is a hard thing, but I think I nailed that one.”[4]

You and I have the opportunity each day to offer ourselves as gifts to one another. What might you offer to make the world a more “beautiful way”? A “Bellavia”?

My friends and I are offering some melodies. Say what we want about jazz, I've given 35 years of my life to share the discovery that this music is internally alive, that the Creative Spirit is present in and among the musicians. When music happens, life happens. Friendships are built, rooms are changed, and people depart with residual amounts of the holy leading them out into the world.

That's the power of music, God's gift to all who have ears to hear. And it has been a deep, deep joy to join my friends in offering this music as our gift to you.

 

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] See, for instance, chapters 15 and 25 of First Chronicles and chapters 5 and 7 of Second Chronicles. Specifically, a school is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 25:7-8.

[2] Richard Niles, The Pat Metheny Interviews: The Inner Workings of His Creativity Revealed (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Books, 2009) 137-140.

[3] Chuck Mangione, https://www.wzum.org/jazz-blog/2025/8/01/mcgjazz-r7ltk  

[4] Ibid, 42:08 – 43:10.

Walking in Integrity

Psalm 26 (click here to read)
August 30, 2026
Series: Dwelling in the Psalms
William G. Carter

We have spent enough weeks in the Psalms that it was inevitable we would discover where they are. In the classroom, we invite folks to find the Psalms in the center of the Bible. “Open up the book in the middle, and there they are.” Right in the middle. The Psalms are prayers for the faithful community. In every generation, they have been re-set to music. Even though many of them speak in the first person – “The Lord is my shepherd.” “I will bless the Lord.” - When they are put into the air, they speak for the community. They become our texts.

And where are the psalms? In the center of things. In the middle of real life. In the complications of human situations. So, we have the psalm for today.

It resonates with many of the other texts in Israel’s prayerbook, for it distinguishes between right and wrong. It names the distance between good and evil. It spells out the behaviors. This is one of the ways Israel taught morality. There are stories of life going askew. A lot of them! And there are these poem songs – the Psalms – which summarize and clarify the stories.

This is one of those psalms. Life can go this way, or it can go that way. “I can worship God in the Temple; I can lose myself in the songs of thanksgiving” Or “I can thirst for blood and take a bribe.” There is no middle ground in between.

It’s clear from the very first psalm, which offers an overture of the whole book: “Happy are those who do not take the advice of the wicked, but delight in the law of the Lord.” Good people are planted like trees in the riverbank. They flourish. Their lives are fruitful. As for the evil? Well, they have no roots. When the wind blows, the wicked are blown away.

Hear the similarity between Psalm 1 and Psalm 26? You are good or you are evil. You are righteous or you are wicked. No sliding scale – this or that.

It might have been Walter Brueggemann who pointed out that people tend to talk this way when they are certain they are in the majority, when there is a wide consensus about right and wrong. So, there is agreement about “those people.” The finger pointing is clear.

And the distinctions don’t always hold, do they? We had a kid in our third-grade class. His name was Little Ricky. Red-headed, big freckles, had a cowlick that defied gravity. When he grinned, you knew two things: one day he would need braces, and he was scheming about something. He filled the toilet bowl with paper towels and pulled the handle. When the teacher yelled and wildly waved her hands, he stood behind her and mimicked her actions. He was that kid.

One day, she kept him at his desk while taking the rest of us to the playground. When she brought us back in, he had stolen all the erasers from the blackboard. The chalk, too. In complete exasperation, our teacher said, “Ricky, you’re never going to turn out well.” Years later, we saw his picture in the newspaper: CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He must have gotten his teeth fixed, yet there was no evidence he had straightened out his soul. In the words of another psalm, Psalm 73: “Why do the wicked prosper?”

Or another memory, which could have only happened in Lackawanna County. Right after I arrived in town, one of our congressmen was arrested on federal charges: conspiracy, racketeering, accepting illegal bribes.[1] The grand jury said it was an open and shut case. In response to the allegations, the city of Scranton threw a parade on Lackawanna Avenue to show their support. That night, Channel 16 interviewed an exuberant paradegoer, who said on camera, “He may be a crook, but he’s our crook.” I remember thinking, “Where did I move?”

You know the stories are all around us. Every day, somewhere, another story comes to light. We are flooded by them. They dull our spirit. So, to counter this dullness, the Psalmist speaks up with moral clarity. “This or that.”

^“I do not sit with the worthless…” The Hebrew word for “worthless” is the same word we translate as “vain,” as in “Don’t speak the Lord’s name in vain.” The commandment has nothing to do with cursing. It has to do with using God’s name for “empty purposes.” Like calling on the name of Jesus so you can do things Jesus would never approve of.

“I do not consort with hypocrites…” I knew a church elder who called an absent member to say, “We miss you.” The absentee said, “I stopped going because of all the hypocrites in the pews.” Lois said, “There’s always room for one more.” True enough; but the word here is not the “play acting hypocrites“ that Jesus criticized. These people are hiding and scheming. They refuse to step into the light and be accountable.

And then, “I hate the company of evildoers and will not sit with the wicked.” Oops – here is the thing: they are sitting in the same place the psalmist is. They are part of the same company, the same congregation. Can you believe it? That there might be sinners in the sanctuary of God?

You know, I thought this was getting clearer but it’s not. The poet of Psalm 26 says he washes his hands in innocence and dances around God’s altar. He sings the hymns and tells the holy stories. And yet there are cracks in his perception of perfection. He professes his trust in God. He distinguishes himself from those who are corrupt and violent. In the same breath, he adds, “Vindicate me, O Lord. Test me, prove me, redeem me, be gracious to me.” Could it be that he’s not as innocent as he says?

In the commentaries, one of the scholars says this poet sounds a bit self-righteous, as if he’s saying, “What a good boy am I!” (Limburg, p. 84) He stands on one foot to defend himself, to boast of how he’s always going to worship. “You and me are good buddies, Lord. You know who I am and what I am.” 

But then he says, “Please cut me a break.”

As Eugene Peterson translates verses nine, ten, and eleven, “Lord, when it’s time for spring cleaning, don’t sweep me out with the quacks and crooks, men with bags of dirty tricks, women with purses stuffed with bribe money. You know I’ve been aboveboard with you, now be aboveboard with me.”[2] He says it because he knows God is the only one who sees every soul with absolute clarity. 

So, twice in the psalm, we have the word “integrity.” For us, integrity usually means sticking to our principles, standing up for our values. But here, integrity is re-aligning ourselves with the purposes of God. Integrity is ‘fessing up where we fall short and need forgiveness and then doing what we can to improve. Integrity is practical righteousness, in the deepest sense that God is the One who declares us righteous. Integrity is not a matter of defending ourselves, because that would make it all about us.

Instead, in the words of the Psalm, integrity is “loving the house” where God dwells. We live with God, continually instructed by God’s values, waking each day to realign ourselves with the Holy One and his ways.

All of us know some people get it, some people don’t. Most of us are on a long journey somewhere in between. I just think of two examples.

One is a man who is running for national office in another state. He’s been in trouble with the law over and over again. He has been credibly accused of real estate scams, taking bribes, making back room deals to benefit himself. His wife wants a divorce, and he’s stalling until after the election. In a most surreal revelation, he was caught on camera of stealing a $1000 ink pen and not giving it back. His opponent’s latest ad says with a smile, “Vote for our guy. He won’t steal your pen.” His own political party defends him by saying, “He is the best candidate we can find.” They may be right.

Yet in a world of moral compromise, this week we honor another kind of person. She grew up in poverty in east Tennessee, one of twelve children. Her father could not read or write. The family struggled but spent a lot of time in church where her grandfather was the preacher. Against all odds, she started writing songs, three thousand of them. If you write that many tunes, some of them are bound to be heard. When Dolly Parton died this week after a brief illness, people praised her unanimously. Not just for her music, which came from an honest heart, but for the kind of life she led.

In honor of her father, she created a literacy program that mails books to 850,000 children each month. She created jobs in the depressed area where she was from, funded vaccinations and medical research, and offered a high school scholarship program that reduced the regional drop-out rate from 35% to 6%. She donated millions to flood victims, rebuilt communities destroyed by hurricanes, and advocated for those excluded – all while keeping a sense of humor about herself and a deep concern for all in need.

Someone summed it up this way, “Every time I was with her, I always went away feeling better about myself and more optimistic about the world.”

What’s the word? Integrity, that’s the word. Integrity with the love of God. Integrity with God’s purposes for the world.

Could I end it this way? In a world of morally empty public figures, be a Dolly Parton.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2016/03/11/150-people-who-made-scranton-great-us-rep-joseph-m-mcdade/

[2] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message, Psalm 26:9-11.

Holy Hospitality

Psalm 84 (click here to read)
August 23, 2026
Series: Dwelling in the Psalms

William G. Carter  

Psalm 84 reminds me of the first time I ever walked into this sanctuary. My hostess had said, “Wait until you see it!” The room was dimly lit, but I could tell … the walls needed a coat of paint. Clearly, the harvest gold carpet was well-loved. By that point, it was about twenty-five years old. I leaned against the Danish-looking communion table, discovering it wobbled from side to side. Fortunately, somebody screwed two metal braces to stabilize it. My hostess said, “Isn’t it great?” 

I heard her say it, but I was busy looking behind the pulpit. The little shelf had all the things that get stashed inside a pulpit: breath mints, cough drops, a couple of broken pencils, a used Kleenex or two, and a half-full glass of last week’s water. But then I saw the piano, a small brown piano. You know I had to give it a try, so I sat down and played a few licks by Thelonious Monk – and the piano was almost in tune!

By far the most prominent feature was the array of white organ pipes, front and center. One of them had a visible dent, about eight feet up, but it still looked impressive. I didn’t yet know those pipes were only for show and weren’t connected to the organ. Meanwhile, my hostess was so excited for me to see this sanctuary for the very first time. She gushed, “Isn’t it wonderful?”

I should have been more careful when I replied, “It has a lot of potential.” That wasn’t the response she was looking for. So, I stepped back, took a breath, and gave it all a second look. I said, “I love the natural wood. This looks like an alpine chapel. There’s a simplicity to this room.”

“Yes,” she responded, “but it’s what happens here that matters the most.”

That was a long time ago, about thirty-six years ago this week. The old carpet is long gone, the fake pipes were removed, and the piano has been replaced twice. And what she said still lingers in the air: what happens here is what matters the most.

Now, I have minister friends who love to boast about their sanctuaries. “It has a marble pulpit. There are comfortable pews. The stained-glass windows actually have pictures on them.” All good, I suppose, and aesthetically pleasing. Some churches are so beautiful they are overwhelming. You’ve probably been to some of them. St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York. St. Nicholas Anglican in Galway, Ireland.

One of the most impressive structures in Presbyterian Land is the East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. Built with millions of dollars from the Mellon family, founders of Mellon Bank, it is opulent, even over the top. Mr. and Mrs. Mellon are buried in the wing of the sanctuary. This had led some in Pittsburgh to sarcastically call it “Mellon’s Fire Escape.” The locals figure it was old Mr. Mellon’s attempt to make up for the excesses of greedy capitalism.[1] The excesses are obvious. On most days, it resembles a museum, not a living congregation. We certainly don’t want that. Give me a modest Alpine chapel any day!

Psalm 84 celebrates the ancient temple in Jerusalem, the original one, the one they were still rebuilding in the days of Jesus. It was an extraordinary structure, the largest in the land. The temple was the heart of Israel’s faith. There were teams of musicians, as well as a musical school to train the next generation. There were artisans and craftsmen, stone masons and fabric weavers, all on the payroll. The temple was the singular theological center of the nation where faith was taught and the Bible was studied. It was a big operation. There was a lot going on.

And all of it – all of it – had the singular purpose of connecting people with their God.  

The poet says, “God, your house is a lovely place.” It’s not a reference to the furnishings, extravagant as they may have been. “My soul longs, even faints with the desire, to step into your presence.” That’s the language of a life-giving relationship. “Happy are those who live in your house.” Obviously, he’s not quoting one of my daughters, who said at an early age, “Dad, do we have to spend all day in church?” And the Psalm exclaims, “Happy are those whose strength is in you.” Aha – do you hear what’s going on? There is an inner strength at work, nurtured as we come and go from a sanctuary like this.

Please take note, there was a lot of coming and going. Dr. Beth Tanner of New Brunswick Seminary reminds us that many of the temple worshipers did not live close at hand. At best, they may have attended once or maybe twice a year.[2] This psalm may have been their travel song: I long for the temple, I can’t wait to return to your presence. People like that go from strength to strength, says the psalm. As they travel through the valley of Baca, they make it a bubbling spring of living water. They irrigate the landscape with their joy – and other refreshed.

This is a good reminder that some folks may not be able to get here for worship every week or every month, yet they long for the same things that others of us desire. They want a closer connection to the Wisdom that rules the universe. They hunger for a personal knowledge that our lives are part of a deeper purpose. In a time when so many people are isolated, they want to join our hearts and voices to something far greater than ourselves. Again, this is what happens here. The building is more than a building; it’s a temporary container for all the praises.

Picture the composer of this prayer. He or she finally gets to the destination and steps into the sanctuary. The incense is ignited. The prayers are swirling upward. The music begins to build when suddenly there’s another voice joining in. Look up – it’s a sparrow, singing its heart out. Or is it a swallow? The psalmist can’t quite decide. The ushers aren’t going to take down the nest or shoo out the winged creatures.

Now, if you look around today, you may catch a glimpse of such holy hospitality. All God’s creatures are welcome, just like anybody else. In this sanctuary, we have had bees, yellow jackets, and wasps. One Christmas Eve, a bat circled over our heads; one of the children said, “It’s an angel.” (Might have been!) Today on a regular old Sunday, if you look across the aisle, you just might see a few strange birds. God welcomes all.

Reminds me of the Abbey on the Isle of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. There are ferns growing out of the stone wall. Somebody believed they should have been pulled out, but no, in the wisdom of that Christian community they keep them in the wall and water them regularly. As one of their leaders explained, “We are part of God’s creation, not separate from it. God created the ferns, just as God created the rest of us.” And if you listen very closely, you might hear them singing, too.

Inside a building like this, there is vitality. Virtually every day of the week, something is going on. Voice lessons, yoga classes, self-help groups, and Bible studies. Like she said to me: what matters most is what happens here. I have it on good authority that the dent on the old white organ pipe may have been caused by a children’s program, or a stewardship banner, or perhaps someone climbing up to feed a nest of swallows. At this point, who can say?

Even outside the building, there are those who work the door. One of my favorites was a former school principal. When he worked as a principal, he administered justice and sent criminals to detention. When he was here, he stepped outside to have a quick smoke while his wife was praying in her pew. After studying this psalm, Psalm 84, I stepped out to join him one Sunday. I gave him a slip of paper with a verse on it, “Psalm 84, verse 10.”

“What’s this?” he asked. So, I recited the verse, “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” He looked back at me and said two words, “Darn right.” 

Such strange birds, all of us. All of us, welcome. Welcome to pray and sing and study and serve. Welcome to ding up the fake organ pipes and keep the ferns lubricated. Welcome to build friendships and enjoy the gift of human community. Welcome to be in the Presence of One who is greater than ourselves. For God is here, somehow, somewhere, in ways both visible and invisible. That can happen anywhere, I suppose, but it certainly happens here.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] See, for instance, https://offthebluff.com/history-of-the-fire-escape/

[2] Beth LaNeel Tanner, The Book of Psalms (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014) p. 650

Song for a Sabbath Day

Psalm 92 (click here to read)
August 9, 2026
Series: Dwelling in the Psalms
William G. Carter

We are seven weeks into our series on the psalms. It should be clear we have a diversity of material. We have heard praises and complaints. We have encountered both memories and hopes. There are prayers that are very personal, and instruction that directs large groups of people. In commenting on the Psalms, John Calvin declared, “They offer the anatomy of the human soul.”

Today, Psalm 92 is unlike all others. It offers thanks, like many others. It warns of enemies, as a great number of psalms do. It is unsigned, as most of the psalms should be. Even if it says at the top, “A psalm of David,” old King David was probably too busy to write a lot of poetry. He had a staff to do that. They wrote the psalms; he took credit for them. That’s what kings do.

What makes Psalm 92 stand out are the fingerprints left at the top of the page. After the poem was written down, an editor added a few words in Hebrew as a matter of description. This is “a Song for the Sabbath Day.” No other Psalm gets that description. No other Psalm is pinned to a particular day of the week, much less the Sabbath.

You can hum the first stanza of this Psalm. It resounds of singing, music, and melody. The Sabbath is not intended to be silent. No, it’s a time for joyful noise, for declaring the saving grace of God by day and night. We declare with our lips and strum our stringed instruments. It’s all there in the first stanza: to say thanks, to sing praises. Sabbath is music that gladdens our hearts and sets us free to sing.

The second stanza reminds us that our singing is contested. God makes us a musical world, but some folks don’t seem to pick up the tune. Mostly they are of two types. The poet calls one group “The Evildoers.” They sprout up like weeds. For a time, they appear to get their own wicked way. The Evildoers announce with their deeds that they have no need for God. Oh no, they are a world unto themselves. They stomp along and think that whatever they do will last forever. The Eternal God looks at them and groans.

Then there’s the other group that cannot sing.  The Psalmist simply calls them “stupid.” The Hebrew word is translated “dullard” or “dolt.” These are the people who just don’t get it. This has nothing to do with their intelligence; it’s something far worse. God puts a rainbow in front of them, and they look down at their watches. God gives them a world of intricate design, and they believe it’s flat, stale, and tasteless. God creates whales that leap, sparrows that sing, seas that split in two, and the dullards yawn. The Hebrew Bible smirks at such people and calls them fools.

Because, you see, our lives are about God. God gives us breath, first to receive, then to exhale in praise. God surrounds us with wonders, glorious gifts of sense and sound, some of them with saving power. Yet it’s possible to ignore all of this. The Evildoers go their own way, indifferent to God’s holy purposes.

As for the Stupid Dolts – well, maybe we shouldn’t dismiss them so quickly. One of my favorite places in the world is Banff Park in the Canadian Rockies. My wife and I have been there twice. Both times it was too much beauty to take in. By the fifth day of each trip, I distinctly remember saying, “Ho hum, another 10,000-foot-high mountain. No big deal.” I was overwhelmed. Any sense of wonder was shut down; that was the evidence of my sin.

So, Psalm 92 is our Song for the Sabbath Day. Sabbath is the time we take to awaken from our boredom, shrug off our neglect, and open our hearts to God’s holy extravagance. It’s the time we take to move ourselves out of the supposed center of the universe and to let God rule gently and firmly, especially over those situations that we cannot control.

The Quaker mystic Howard Thurman encouraged this in his writings. In one book he writes,

How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by!

The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic:

Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,

while something deep within hungers and thirsts

for the still moments and the resting lull.

With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;

a direction, a strong sure purpose

that will structure our confusion and bring meaning to our chaos.[1]

This desire to “turn on the quiet” points us to the last stanza of the psalm. There are three remarkable verbs: flourish, grow, planted. The well-balanced life is compared to three trees.

• The righteous flourish like a palm tree. Ever see the lushness of a tropical palm? They are so full of life they have to be trimmed so they can flourish even more.
• The righteous grow like the cedars of Lebanon. These cedars were the legendary trees of antiquity. They grew tall and straight, were reported to have medicinal powers, and were cut for the great temple of Solomon.
• Then there is the tree laden with fruit, described as still productive in its old age. Old age in the time of this Psalm, by the way, was somewhere after fifty. If you were fifty, you were old – but you could still be productive, still green, still full of sap, and still pointing to the Lord, the source of all life.

Psalm 92 pushes us to ask ourselves what it will take to flourish, to grow, to stay planted and to remain productive. These are the Sabbath tasks, the Sabbatical tasks. The poet of Psalm 92 believes that Sabbath rest makes room for us to flourish and be fruitful. 

Now you’re not going to hear that from the Evildoers or the Dullards, especially in our culture. We live in driven times, with 24-7 accessibility and demand. How many times have you heard it? I called you on your phone, why didn’t you answer?

Or the friends that try to schedule a lunch date. They pull out their phones, look at their calendars, and say, “What do you have available in the second week of November?”

Or listen to the retired person who says, “I am busier now than when I was working.” Well, I’m starting to listen, and I wonder what’s that about? If retirement is about flourishing, growing, staying planted and productive -- good for you. That is the blessing of God!

But lest we fall into the obsessions and addictions of our culture, we need the word that God speaks in the Ten Commandments: “Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy . . . Remember you were slaves in Egypt, and God brought you out of there.” That is why we rest from labor – to show that we belong to God, and not to our labor. It is proof of our freedom from slavery.

This is especially important if we enjoy our work. Some of us have that blessing; I love the work that I do, and I love the people that I work around. Most days, I can’t wait to get to it. Most nights, I have a hard time shutting down. It’s a blessing to love your work. But God invites us to take Sabbath, so that we can realign our loves. We take the time to love God more than our work.

The truth of the matter is, as good as our work can be, it can wear us out. You know it, I know it. To stay focused, to keep going, to still believe there is a sun in the sky, we need to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is time, time that is full of spaciousness. As John Calvin wrote, Sabbath is time to rest from our work so that God can work in us. Or in the words of Psalm 92, “To stay green and full of sap.”

Isn’t that what we want? To get through life alive! For our souls to be free to sing! To know deep in our bones that God is the Rock upon which we stand! To keep doing the work God gives us to do with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love!

You see, God is concerned for our well-being. God gave us these lives and wants us to flourish. That’s why Sabbath was not given as an obligation, but as a gift. It is commanded of us because we forget how good God is. Yet Sabbath is always a gift. It is a gift of time for us to rest from what consumes us, a time to receive the Spirit that God wants us to have.

So, take a moment, grab a pen or pencil, and answer this question in the margin of your worship bulletin. Ready? What is it that is going to keep you green and full of sap? What will make your soul sing? Aye, there is a worthy question. And I hope it nips your heels every single day until you are overflowing with the joy of God.

May this day be for you such a time of blessed Sabbath that you wish to repeat it over and over. And may God make you to flourish, body and soul, in all the time that you are given. Be gentle with yourself and I will see you again soon.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

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[1] Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 2023) 93-94.

Come and See! Come and Hear!

Psalm 66  (read it here)
August 2, 2026
Series: Dwelling in the Psalms
William G. Carter

There is a rumor going around that I announced my retirement last Tuesday. That’s true. I plan to wind up my pastoral work in the middle of next April. If you are hearing this for the first time, I apologize. We tried to get out the word to everybody at the same time by e-mail, postal letter, and personal announcement. Nothing was posted on the internet until we heard many folks had received the letter.

As the news spread, I had a decision to make. We have been working through the Psalms this summer. Most of them were selected in a haphazard way – let’s try this one, or that one, or here’s a psalm they have never heard. When it comes to the Bible, I love a good challenge. And the text that had been randomly selected for today was Psalm 88.

Do you know what it says in Psalm 88? Everything is going to fall apart. Nothing will turn out well. Life is terrible. We are full of sickness and about to die. It is the only psalm of lament that does not make a positive turn at the end. It leaves us in complete despair. Yes, I know there are those days. The emotions are real. The feelings are mixed. Yet that’s not the message that I want to impart today.

So, I randomly flipped back a few pages and landed on Psalm 66. Come and see what the Lord has done! Come and here what God has done for me. I didn’t need to dig any further. So, what follows is a bit of reflection on this ancient poem and a few very personal reflections on where the psalm may narrate our own lives.

Come and see. Come and hear. Faith always grows by invitation. A Voice summons us. A companion calls to us.  And we are invited to see and hear for ourselves what God has been up to. Admittedly, that’s a slippery invitation. God may be busy, but God is not always obvious. We have to lean in, look around, listen deeply, and pay attention. Even then, the holy work may require a wide view.

What is remarkable about Psalm 66 is how it is shaped by memory. The invitation is here and now, but the evidence is what has been accomplished. “God parted the sea and we walked through on dry land.” Remember that one? Yes, it was three thousand years ago. According to the book of Exodus, it happened. Didn’t happen for us, but for Moses and a multitude of escaping slaves. Yet the psalm calls us to claim that old story for ourselves, then see our own lives through that lens.

So, when has God done that for us? When has God opened a way when there was no way? I have my stories. Maybe you do, too. Some of you have found your way back to church when you had all but given up on church. Some of you have been challenged to step forward to grow when you had gotten stuck. That old crossing-the-Red-Sea story is more than an ancient miracle. It’s a metaphor for how God opens up the new future. You and I have to hang onto that one.

I’ve been here long enough to begin a lot of my stories, “Years ago.” Classic beginning of an old duffer. Years ago, our elders were considering a request for building use. A local A.A. group wanted to start meeting here. It prompted a bit of conversation. Who are they? “Can’t tell.” Can we trust them with a key to the building? “We have a hundred keys to the building, don’t even know who has them.” So forth and so. It was an easy vote, only a couple of folks needed to talk themselves into it.

The A.A. group and other affiliate groups have been meeting here ever since. That might seem like a small scheduling thing, but hundreds of people have found help and healing by those groups. They found a way through the sea. When we redesigned our meeting space in 1994, we designated a room to be adopted by the recovery groups we host. Some of them have outgrown the room. Come and see what God has done.

The psalm says, “Bless the Lord who has kept up among the living and not let our feet slip.” We can claim that verse too, as congregations struggle, church buildings become a burden, and leadership is hard to come by. This congregation is among the living. Our feet can slip at any moment, but we are doing God’s work together. We are blessed to have a congregation where retired ministers come to worship, a church family that welcomes others who don’t feel welcome where they had been, and an outreach to the community that is a model for everybody around.

It’s because this church is strong that I feel confident about retiring next spring. I suppose I could stay and run you into the ground, but there’s no sign that you are slowing down or pulling back. Attendance is good, the offerings are generous, and the activity level is vital. You have a promising future because you are alive and your feet aren’t slipping. Please hear that. I’m going to be 67 in February, so it will be time for me to back off and do other things while I still can. I’m going to be fine – and you are going to keep flourishing. As the psalm says it, “We are among the living; bless the Lord!”

And the psalm speaks of worship, and singing, and paying our offerings, and making our prayers. That is the central work that happens in this room. “Years ago,” (there I go again), the sanctuary was stuffed to the gills; I do remember that. I also remember how a lot of the local companies relocated their employees after they landed here for a few years. The scene is much more stable. As a lot of us have aged together, we have also deepened what we do in worship.

And the music! Always a valued asset here, and a gift from God that attracts people to the church. The first major decision that we made after I arrived was to buy a new hymnal. Other churches talked about piping in a soundtrack or hiring a band they could watch. You said, “No, we make our own music here. Music is how we praise the Lord.” That understanding grew. When the organ died in the late’90’s, you dug deep to rebuild it. We pulled up the old harvest gold carpet and suddenly the songs could resonate. Then the arts series began. That was 25 years or ago, when a Celtic band was looking for a place to play on March 17. Now, this has become a friendly place for the creative arts. Regional choirs, blues bands, and chamber musicians want to play here.

Some of those friends are well-known. Steve Gilmore is a jazz bassist who played on three Grammy Award winning albums. He and his wife joined our congregation and now live in Florida. They tune in when they can and read our sermons online. Donny McCaslin is a Grammy-nominated saxophonist who played here for jazz vespers. He organized the band for David Bowie’s final album. And if you catch me downstairs during coffee hour, I can tell you about the night John Legend brought a gospel choir in our sanctuary. You have welcomed them all and so many others.

In the words of the psalm, “Come and hear what God has done for us.” The poet looks back as a way of engaging the present. Will there be challenges? There are always challenges. Yet if we sense that somehow God is present in the challenges, elusive as that may be, God will lead us through fire and water. That’s the promise, and God will keep it.

There are so many great moments in the photo gallery that we share. Over the next eight months, we will flip through the pages, remember some of the highlights, but perceive that God is always leading us to the place where we can flourish. Like the psalmist says, “You have brought us out to a spacious place.” Spacious, open, a wide landscape.

In 1991, some believed we should move out of the village, build a bigger facility, and provide a lot more parking. After a couple years of discernment, no, we weren’t going to do that – even though we could always use more parking. Rather, the spacious place for us became the tomato fields of Newton Township. Back then, our community had guests who picked vegetables for local farms. A few spoke Creole, most spoke Spanish. Over more than twenty years, we built friendships with these seasonal farm workers. We shared meals and sang Hank Williams songs with them on Sunday nights. It enlarged our hearts. Truly, a spacious place.

That initiative led to other wide-open adventures: mission trips to Appalachia, to Haiti, and to regions ravaged by hurricanes. Some of our folks spun off a new initiative called the Gathering Place, which provides creativity and community education for an otherwise sterile suburban town. That started here. When Met Life imported computer programmers from India for a few years, many of them joined up with us. They had visited other congregations who would not speak with them – but here, they were welcome. They were included. We ordained one young woman as a deacon – all because God had widened our hearts. A spacious place.

These days, we have leaders who are taking seriously the true hunger of our neighbors. In a town like this which has so much, basic needs are often hidden. Yet there are hungry people all around us. Over forty households come to our monthly food pantry. You volunteer and make that possible. We engage in this spacious work because our hearts cracked open by God.

“Come and see what God has done. Come and hear what God has done for us.” We worship an amazing God who desires that we flourish. He calls us to reach out to others. He leads us into open spaces where we can engage with others who will transform our lives. These are the invitations that are always set before us, and I am so proud that you continue to take them up.

We have so much to celebrate over the next eight months, yet we aren’t going to spend that time looking back. Forward is forward, and it’s the only direction there is. Together we will take the time to savor what we have, even as we begin to step into the separate futures that God has for us. For today, it’s enough to bless the Lord for God’s steadfast love. We thank God for all that has been, and for all that will be. And I will see you again next week.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.