Psalm 100
November 26, 2023
Christ the King
William G. Carter
Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence
with singing.
Know 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.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with
praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name.
For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures
forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
This psalm is a favorite for many of us. And it’s famous, too, so famous that it was quoted by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. You may remember the scene. Tom, Huckleberry Finn, and their friend Joe Harper were hiding on an island and pretending they were pirates. The whole town fears they had drowned in the Mississippi. As the boys sneak back into town, they discover their funeral is about to happen in the local Presbyterian Church.
They hide up in the balcony as the mourners arrive in black. Nobody could ever remember the church so full. The preacher stands up in the pulpit and starts lying about them. He talks about what wonderful children they were, spreading platitude upon platitude as if he is icing a cake. Oh, it seemed like they were such rascals, he said, but they were sweet and generous, so noble and beautiful in their youth. The whole congregation breaks down into anguished sobs, and even the preacher gives way to his feelings and begins to cry in the pulpit.
Just then there’s a rustle. The back door creaked, and one pair of eyes after another looked up to see the lost boys walking down the aisle of their own funeral. They are smothered with kisses and poured-out thanksgivings. Suddenly the minister shouts at the top of his voice: “Praise God from who all blessings flow — Sing! — and put your hearts into it.” And they did. Twain says,
Old Hundred swelled up with a triumphant burst, and while it shook the rafters Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that was the proudest moment of his whole life. As the congregation trooped out, they said they would almost be willing to be made ridiculous again to hear Old Hundred sung like that once more.[1]
“Old Hundred,” of course, is the One Hundredth Psalm, the same psalm that we dwell with today. The Genevan setting became a tune we frequently sing. And we know how good it feels to burst into song. A few of us are even wired to sing joyfully at any moment. The rest of us need to be beckoned to join in. Old Psalm 100 is about as good a song to sing.
- The
invitation to praise God.
- The
affirmation of covenant love: we are God’s people, and the sheep of his hand.
- There is the
call to joy. Like the line in that old version, we sang: “him serve with
mirth.” I love that! Just imagine those grumpy old Presbyterians singing
about mirth.
- Then there is
the continuing invitation: “give thanks to God. Enter God’s gates with
thanksgiving.”
In that small town next to the Mississippi River, it wasn’t long before Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Polly discovered the truth. While she was mourning his death, he was off smoking tobacco, covering himself in mud, and swapping lies with his friends. But in the moment when everybody sang in church, she was glad that he and his friends were alive. There isn’t a better sermon on the text than that.
Is there anybody here who feels glad to be alive? This is the psalm for you. It is a profound reminder that life is a gift from the God who made us. It reminds that we belong to God, as one large flock guarded by one shepherd. This is the primal memory that stirs up gratitude.
It’s a memory that recurs throughout the Bible. Old Moses knew about that. His people were on the edge of the Promised Land. They were so close that they could see the fruit dangling in the trees. They could smell the honey. And he says, “Now, wait a second. Let me give you the Book of Deuteronomy.” In one long speech after another, Moses reminded them how much God has done for them. He knew that when people end up with a lot of the good stuff of life, they start thinking they have earned it, or they deserve it, or they are worthy of it. The truth is far simpler. They have received it.
So, Moses says, “Don’t forget about God. God has given us everything: food, freedom, protection, abundance, and most of all, steadfast love. Don’t forget about God — lest God forget about you.” Sometimes a whiff of obligation when somebody says, “You ought to be grateful.” Well, there’s no “ought” to it. Gratitude is funded by our memory. It is our memory of God - what God has done, how God has carried us through our troubles, how God connects us to people who love us — it is our memory of these things that stirs up our thankfulness.
It is painful to see people forget. Those who have the most are often the ones who are least grateful. The children with the most toys in the closet are the ones who throw the biggest tantrums in the shopping mall. Spiritually speaking, the problem is amnesia. We forget where everything comes from. In that lapse, we start hustling to make sure we have more stuff than everybody else. Or push to the front of the line. That may be the greatest spiritual problem, both in this town and in this nation: too much milk and honey can lead to memory loss.
The pandemic has been over for a while, but we can still remember how it felt. Isolation, anxiety, silence, and fear. And then, as the plague subsided, we began to gather again to share our meals. More than one mother said, “We take so much for granted and forget how close we came to losing even more.” She paused and said, “Thursday was a real Thanksgiving.”
All of us have the capacity to remember. The baby who was sick, but now is strong — thanks be to God. The teenager that got through a tormented season – thanks be to God. The lost job that eventually led to a new open door — thanks be to God. The relationship that blew apart but taught us new insights about ourselves – thanks be to God. The precious one we lost, who instructed us how to love and trust more deeply — thanks be to God.
One of the gifts of scripture is that it reminds us of how many things God has done for us. There are, of course, the big moments, always spoken in first-person plural. We were saved from Pharoah by walking through the sea. We walked through the desert and received food and Torah. Lost in sin, we were saved by the cross of Jesus. When we worried how to live without Jesus in a hostile world, God blew the Holy Spirit upon us, and inspired the Torah to be written down and shared — thanks be to God.
This is the pattern of a God who gives freely, who gives regularly, who gives abundantly. When we remember the large, saving events that the scriptures narrate, it conditions us to start seeing the quieter salvations that happen every day. As we remember, we say thank you.
Psalm 100 was the first Bible passage that I ever learned. Who would have thought my first memorized text began, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord”? Or that whenever I got too big for my britches, the reminder came, “The Lord God made us, and we are his”? Or that the continuing invitation of the spiritual life is to discern the baptismal promise that we claim again today, namely that the Lord’s “steadfast love endures forever’?
At the heart of it all is the line stenciled over the organ pipes in the church where I grew up. I saw it every week. Still see it whenever I return. In large letters, lest anybody forget, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving.” It’s the code word for accessing the grace of God like the way Eugene Peterson re-translates the verse: “Enter with the password: Thank You!”[2]
I don’t know how you might live this out, but I’ll tell what a friend does. She keeps a gratitude journal. She went to a local bookstore and picked up a blank journal. Every time something good happens, she writes it down and whispers, “thank you.” First thing in the morning, last thing before she shuts her eyes, she scans her life for traces of grace.
“It’s done wonders for my spirit,” she says. “If I am inclined to rush on to another distraction, the gratitude journal slows me down. If I’m feeling grouchy, the journal expands my point of view. And on those days when the world seems out of control and I’m not so sure there’s a God, I flip through the pages and reconsider. That simple practice has rewired my soul. I’m a different person. I pay attention a whole lot more.”
On the festival day of Christ the King, we remember Somebody else is running the world. Life can be hard, and often is, but every day we are showered with uncounted gifts. It is good to open our hands, to receive well, to stop believing we must do it all as if we could save or sustain ourselves. But to pause, count the blessings, and to thank the God who gives them.
Remember. Pay
attention. Don’t forget. And once in a while, at least once every day, why not
break into song? In fact, this would be a pretty good time.
[1] Mark Twain (AKA Samuel Clemens), The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, chapter 17. Accessed online at Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/74/74-h/74-h.htm#c17
[2] Psalm 100:4, Eugene Peterson, The
Message (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2005)
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