Psalm
47
Jazz
Communion
September
2, 2012
William G. Carter
Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout to God with loud songs of joy.
For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome, a great king over all the earth.
He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome, a great king over all the earth.
He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is the king of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm.
God is king over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.
The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted.
It was a hot summer night in
Saratoga Springs. It was thirty years ago this summer, but I will never forget
the event. The outdoor performing arts center was bustling, in anticipation of
the final act of the annual jazz festival. That’s a serious festival for hard
core jazz fans – twenty-four concerts in thirty-six hours. The tourists fizzle
out pretty early, and a few of my adventurous friends were sticking around with
me to the bitter end. I was their ride home.
We knew the final set was the
highlight of the whole weekend. That’s how those festivals are programmed.
Indeed it was an all-star cast: Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass,
Tony Williams on bass – that was the all-star rhythm section for Miles Davis.
On saxophone was the great Joe Henderson, and the trumpeter was a kid named
Wynton Marsalis, still young enough to have an Afro. And if that wasn’t a great
enough line-up, guitarist George Benson was scheduled to play and sing with the
band.
The
crowd was buzzing as the lights dimmed. It was going to be a great concert. To
our surprise, a scruffy looking man wandered on the stage. He looked like the
janitor. He wandered around for a minute. Maybe a stage hand. All of a sudden,
he slipped off his shoes. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and removed it. Picking
up a microphone from the piano, he started banging on his naked chest. He
cupped his hand, and it sounded he was clapping. The rhythm was intoxicating.
Then he let out a shout and started dancing around. He had a rhythm going. It
was amazing.
Then
he sang. He sang high like a trumpet. He sang low like a bass. Everybody
laughed. We never heard anything like this. Who was it? The warm-up act? He was
a one-man band, simultaneously singing all the parts, high and low, banging his
bare chest, making an extraordinary joyful noise. In fact, nobody seemed to
care when the rest of the band came on stage and began to play with him. The
music finished and Herbie Hancock said, “Say hello to Bobby McFerrin. We just
met a few days ago.”
 |
| Bobby McFerrin |
The
music started here. It moved to here. Ninety minutes later, as we left for the
three hour drive home, that was all we could talk about. Our jazz heroes were
great, but we had never heard anybody make music like Bobby McFerrin. People
have been talking about him ever since. As Newsweek magazine later said about
him, “He sounds, by turns, like a blackbird, a Martian, an operatic soprano, a
small child, and a bebop trumpet.” The guy could do it all – clap, shout, and
sing.
That memory brings me to the poet of
Psalm 47. Clap, shout sing: those are verbs of that Bible text. Verbs are the
muscles of Scripture. They do the heavy lifting. And when verbs jump into a room,
they invite us to do what they are doing. Clap, shout, sing! Each verb from the
Psalm uses human muscles to its work. Can we do them one at a time?
Clap!
It doesn’t say “applaud” It says “clap.” That’s different. “Applause” is what
you do for somebody who stands up front and does something for you. “Clap” is
how you participate in the rhythm with your own hands. In Hebrew, the verb is
“ta-KAW.” It also means “blast,” as in to play the trumpet.
Shout!
It works best with a fist in motion, as if we are fist-bumping the clouds. Let
me hear you do it: shout! Shout is not a whisper. It demands breath and force
and exuberance. When the Psalms say, “Make a joyful noise!” this is the verb
that the Bible uses.
Sing!
The verb comes with a tone – let me hear your tone: sing! There’s a lot of
individual expression in that verb. If two or more do this at once, we have
instant harmony. In the Psalm, there are five “sings” – sing, sing, sing, sing,
sing. To sing is to make melody with your voice or with a musical instrument.
The verb does not specify. Singing happens in a hundred different ways.
Do you have those verbs memorized?
Clap! Shout! Sing!
Psalm 47 offers with this visceral,
three-fold invitation. Clap – Shout – Sing! These three muscle words remind us
that Christianity is not a spectator religion. We don’t watch from the
bleachers – we participate. We don’t come to consume entertainment and decide
whether or not we like it. Oh no – we are the ones consumed. To use Paul’s
words, we present our bodies as living sacrifices. We come in worship,
presenting skin and bone and breath.
A
lot of us are Presbyterians, so the question is inevitable: why all the noise? The
Psalm is ready with an answer: because God is the ruler. God rules over the
earth, God rules over the nations on the earth. God rules over everybody and
everything, and then some. The poet invites the human race to join in a
celebration that takes place beyond this planet. God’s rule is a cosmic
reality. All the “fake gods” and minor league deities are exposed as shams; the
one God over all is proclaimed.[1]
It
is an exhilarating invitation. And it can be dangerous. The joyful praise of
God threatens the powers and principalities on this small planet. Just last week,
seventeen people were murdered in Afghanistan by the Taliban. What was their
supposed crime? They attended a dance party with loud music. The Taliban didn’t
like that and condemned them to death.[2]
Joyful noise can stir up trouble. It
reminds me of that scene from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the
Wardrobe. After an impossible winter, the land of Narnia begins to thaw. Aslan
the Lion, the Christ figure, is coming into the land, and the White Witch, the
commander of the winter, is losing her grip. She comes upon a group of animals
who are rejoicing at the change of seasons, and she explodes. She can’t handle
it! She doesn’t want Aslan to affect anybody so positively. She waves her magic
wand and turns the party into stone statues.[3]
I’ve known people like that. They
have an issue with joy. Especially around children! “Sit down and be quiet!”
they proclaim. “Stop laughing. Put a lid on it. Settle down.” In other words,
become as buttoned-down and repressed as the rest of us.
We have been doing this annual jazz
service for twenty-one years. Every year, I hear about somebody else who can’t
quite fathom what this is about. They say to somebody in the grocery store,
“You have jazz in your church? Really? How do you get away with that?”
One lady said, “Well, the minister
is a jazz pianist.”
“Oh, I’ve heard about him,” was the
reply. “And people put up with that?”
Well, I suppose if she would rather
go to a sedate, boring, stuffy congregation full of stone statues, I can
suggest a few. What interests me, though, is that joy is a fundamental quality
of life. We were created to enjoy God. We were created to enjoy what God gives
to all of us. We were created to enjoy each other. Clap – shout – sing – it’s
all an expression of this joy. And if anybody tries to shut this down, they are
not acting on behalf of God.
Jesus came walking into our world,
just as Aslan came into the land of deep winter. One of two things happened
when Jesus came to town. Either people got well, and began to flourish, and began
to rejoice – or somebody tried to shut him down. Now, tell me – which is the
work of God? Bringing people to the fullness of life, or trying to stifle the
joy of God’s kingdom?
If you put the question that way,
there are only three ways to respond. Remember? Clap! Shout! Sing!
Some of us make jazz. Others of us
make apple pies. Still others paint pictures or draw with chalk on sidewalks or
climb to the top of a mountain and sing when they get there. All of this is a
human response to the truth that God rules over heaven and earth. This is God’s
world. It is populated with God’s creatures. And all of them, in their evolving
complexity, are expressions of God’s joy.
Let’s wind it up one more time: clap
– shout – sing. Our joyful noise is an echo of God’s joy. Nothing less than
that!
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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