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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
When we start from the assumption that love is the source of all that is, here is the root of all joy, and that hope gives way to a trust that you are valued, that you are loved. When I think about our work together as a community, it's staggering that we get to do it. It's such a gift. And I can say the same thing about this series that we've started a couple weeks ago where we're looking at the theme of joy and the theology of celebration. I mean, we don't get to do this very often where we get to think about how do we think and feel and move forward with an idea.
Speaker 1:And it, given how important it is, I wanted before I jump into what we're gonna do today, I wanna give you a bit of a recap. See, in week one, we looked at this playful story from the book of Genesis and in that story, God shows up and Abraham offers some leftovers and a brew and divine surprise is served. It's served right there in the shade, it's paired with laughter and conversation and we talked about how joy, it can show up right in the delightful ordinary of our lives. And then last week, we moved on to a bit of a heavier reflection. We jumped to the prophets, specifically this famous vision of a valley of dry bones that we see in the book of Ezekiel and we talked about loss and despair and metaphor in Jewish history and how scripture can be a source for our theology of joy because scripture doesn't shy away from the darkest places.
Speaker 1:The places that we can't avoid as readers of scripture. Because as Ezekiel shows, it's from the bleak and the bone dry that a gritty resolute joy can be born in us. And as Jeremy argued, this is a kind of joy that we foster when we practice soulful embodied awareness. It's joy that shapes a trajectory in us over time. It drives us forward into the future into a story that's gifted to us by the same spirit that animates us.
Speaker 1:And whether you are in a dark season or maybe you are fully leaning into spring and all that it's bringing with it, Ezekiel's imagination offers you some helpful tools on the road to joy and celebration. Today, we are going to move on to talk a little bit about the ancient Hebrew poets and how they can help inform our theology. We're gonna explore the familiar and the newly found. We're gonna talk about something shared. We're gonna look at an underlying assumption and then talk about practice.
Speaker 1:But first, let's pause. Join me now in a word of prayer. Oh God, of joy unspeakable, of joy full of glory, of the simple joys that come. Today, our hearts are open to you. We are seen.
Speaker 1:We are known as we are. So let us rest in that today, that there's no need for pretense here. And where there is anxiety in us, we ask that you would bring peace. Where there is fear, wherever it might be in us, would you come and bring relief? And as we turn to ancient words and thoughts, we ask that you would help us to be avid learners of how to live with your kindness and your presence as our guide.
Speaker 1:We pray in the name of Christ, our hope. Amen. Alright. Well, as we get going, I need you to remember something. That we are doing a bit of a survey in this series.
Speaker 1:We're taking different literary genres that we find in scripture and we're letting each of them contribute something to this project of identifying and constructing a theology of celebration. So today we take up the Psalms. This collection of poetry, lament, and hymnody that's in the center of your bible. This is part of the scripture that has shaped liturgy in Jewish and Christian communities more than any other and despite its ancient roots, it continues to play an active role in how Jews and Christians still think of God, how they speak of and imagine God. The Psalms are an overtly theological collection.
Speaker 1:Now, here's just a couple of thoughts about the Psalms as historical texts. First, music and hymns were composed in the ancient world. This was an avid practice. We see it across many different ancient societies. And in some cases, the psalms of the Hebrew bible appear to mirror similar songs that we find in other cultures in the archaeological record.
Speaker 1:This isn't surprising or it shouldn't be surprising to us. We actually think, can see that this kind of blending and borrowing and remixing is happening all the time in the Hebrew Bible. And if you look at the scriptures, you'll note, specifically the Psalms, you'll note that there are some headings throughout the books. Of those 150 psalms, they're divided into five books which is an homage of sorts to the five books of Torah, the first five books of the bible. And the writing in the collection of these 150 different segments happened over many centuries.
Speaker 1:You know, went all the way back to the late bronze age potentially with scholars identifying that by the time of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as the common area turns, the first three books, Psalm one to Psalm 89, those were more or less set but that the two final books, Psalm 90 to 150, these were still being played with, that their content and their order was shifting around a little bit. To put that kind of creative process into perspective, that would be like you going home and trying to make a playlist today and including some hits from the dark ages and the time of the Vikings. Siri and Alexa could not help you with this. Right? And I mention these historical notes because they hint at the rich dynamism and steady creativity that inform these texts and coincidentally, the theology they contain.
Speaker 1:And with this in mind, I wanna read a few lines from the poem or song, Psalm 33. Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous. It's fitting for the upright to praise the Lord. Praise the Lord with the harp. Make music to God on the 10 stringed lyre.
Speaker 1:Sing to God a new song. Play skillfully. Shout for joy. For the word of the Lord is right and true. God is faithful in all that God does.
Speaker 1:The Lord loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of God's unfailing love. Now, there are two things that might not be immediately apparent when we hear psalms like this one. First, this one like many others, it draws on the these formulaic language forms and commonly known idioms and repeated vocabulary to tell an intended audience to worship. Like, get to it everybody.
Speaker 1:All y'all worship. Sing, it says. Which makes sense given that the Hebrew word for psalm is mizmoir, referring to something that's sung. But then it goes on, it says praise, shout, be joyful, the poet says. And why?
Speaker 1:Because God is good. We're gonna come back to that. Because the second thing that's happening is that the ancient author does something that we see often in the whole collection of the Psalms. They include this command to sing a new song. And why?
Speaker 1:Well, as a kind of justification to create new content. They're not just telling a group of people to sing spontaneously, they're saying, here, sing this new song I just wrote, which hints at the creative medium that the Psalms were. That they were formulaic for sure, but they were also generative and they still are. See, both of these features lie at the heart of how the psalms teach us how to be creative and how we shape a theology of joy. The instructions are embedded in the form itself.
Speaker 1:There's this implication that the familiar and the newly found can inspire our sense of awe in the world. And I suspect that this resonates. Right? Because some of where joy comes from is regular and routine. It's there in the steam of a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1:It's there in the way that a friend greets you. It's in the simple act of getting a task done or maybe working on your hobbies. It's there in the favorite book or movie that you can't stop watching. Right? But then also, joy is found in the novel and the newly encountered, in new recipes, in the bliss of blossoming romance, in the new strategy that you find to make your work more efficient.
Speaker 1:Those are the best and then there's the changes of scenery and there's the new hikes we take, there's new prayer practices tried. And this is a good reminder because most of us probably seek joy from one of these more than the other. Some of us create joy by using security and rhythm. Others of us go out seeking for joy in the unfamiliar and the uncharted, and the Psalms as an art form invite us. Don't leave out any ingredients.
Speaker 1:Now that said, there's something embedded in the form here as well. Scholars of these texts have long debated whether some psalms were actually used in specific rituals or festivals in Jewish worship. And they identify that some of these psalms were composed with a bit of a singer songwriter vibe, where there's an individual voice and author. You've heard this probably. There's a great example in Psalm one twenty one that goes like this, where the poet says, I lift my eyes to the mountains.
Speaker 1:Where does my help come from? It comes from the Lord. Or Psalm 23, quite popular. The Lord is my shepherd, it says. And this contrasts with psalms like the one I've read to you, Psalm 33.
Speaker 1:Some argue that the psalm that I've read to you, it's opening lines that go, sing joyfully all you righteous. That would have been sung by a leader. And then a chorus of voices would have responded, the Lord loves righteousness, and so on. And what scholars unanimously recognize about this song and others like it is there's an assumed collective experience. And on the one hand, this conclusion is merely an expression of the literary form itself.
Speaker 1:Whereas author Rolf Jacobsen states, these verses address what shape praise is supposed to take. The Psalms are inherently communal. And we see this in the Hebrew grammar. All of the verbs are plural imperatives. Sing, all of you.
Speaker 1:Shout, be joyful together. It's designed as a group experience. And this clearly indicates the theological community that received this text in ancient history, but it also speaks directly to the communities that have used these texts since. And I wonder if the assumption of a theological community doesn't teach us something about the practice of theology itself and the theology of joy and celebration in particular. Let me explain it this way.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question. Have you ever made a list of the things that bring you joy? The incredible life giving experiences you've had? You can throw anything on there. It could be a transcendent meal, a glass of wine, an ecstatic spiritual moment you had, an amazing workout, a quiet afternoon to yourself, whatever.
Speaker 1:Throw whatever you want on that list. And despite the fact that many of the amazing experiences that you have had happened with other people, perhaps the more pressing notion is that even when they don't, do you keep those things to yourself? Don't you take a picture of that and send it to someone or post it? Or don't you tell your friends the next time you see them, you will not believe it? Don't you remember that and get better at telling the story about it?
Speaker 1:Isn't the point of joy that it's shared? See, I think this is part of why the Psalms inform our theology of celebration because they assume that joy will find us. They assume that we will get caught up in all that is beautiful and beyond and above and they remind us to share it. In fact, they don't just that, they command us to. And this this makes me think of something the author Ross Gay said one time.
Speaker 1:Side note, if you haven't already done so, go read Ross's little volume entitled, The Book of Delights. It pairs well with Eastertide. In an interview a few years ago, Ross Gay observed that, quote, joy is the in the moments when my alienation from people, from the whole thing, when that alienation goes away, end quote. And what I love about Gay's definition of joy is that the whole of human experience is included. Because there is a kind of deep resonant joy that can find us when we share our laughter and our tears.
Speaker 1:When we succeed together with others and when we fall short with others. When we lift our voices in chorus to praise divine goodness on a Sunday and when we lift our voices in chorus to confront injustice on a Monday. Gay calls such experiences adjoining and he says, joining if you get it. Where we are connected to the mystery of a divinely filled world and we're connected to the stories of those around us. Now, Psalm 33 is just one of many Psalms that use this imagery of a world infused with divine character.
Speaker 1:And there's reason for this. Across the whole collection, the themes of creation and history and God's covenant with the Hebrew people and the need for a human response to this covenant. These things show up again and again. And this is because the integration of those four themes, this is the heart of Jewish religion and faith. And these things, these themes, they have a very long backstory.
Speaker 1:The poets of the Hebrew bible, here in the Psalms, they pulled from that backstory all the time. Here in Psalm 33 that I read to you, we see it in some of these lines. The lines that are offered as the reasons why a community should sing and why they should shout, why they should express their joy together. For the word of the Lord is right and true. God is faithful in all that God does.
Speaker 1:The Lord loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of God's unfailing love. And if you are listening and if you can adopt a Jewish imagination for a moment, it's not hard to see how the poet here is drawing from the Jewish creation stories from the book of Genesis, where in those texts, divine spirit speaks a word and all that is flashes and becomes. Where all of history is cataloged and cited as a record of God's creative impulse and then God's faithful nourishing of all things. And for the faithful worshiper, this psalm invites a joyful response to creation where any and every new song creates again.
Speaker 1:In effect, calling back in chorus to the great song and source of all things. And in light of such worship, gratitude is only right because the listener is surrounded by a community that sings with them. And that listener, the person who receives this psalm, is encouraged to take a long look out into the world that is marked by divine affection. But I wanna suggest that for the creative practitioner of joy like you, that there's something more here and it's the underlying assumption. I wouldn't go so far to say that this is the ground of joy itself.
Speaker 1:Because for the poet, creation isn't some abstract idea or doctrine. Creation is the initiation of divine character itself. The idea that God speaks, that God breathes, that God forms, that God blesses, that everything is found and filled by God's unfailing love. And we might think that sounds benign or superficial or ineffectual, but the Hebrew poets didn't. That's why they kept writing songs about it.
Speaker 1:And I don't think we should overlook it either because something happens when we start from the assumption that love is the source of all that is. We talk about this lots at Commons. We do. That that God is love. That God in Christ displays that love, that when we follow Christ, we reveal that love.
Speaker 1:And we talk about this because we are more and more convinced that this is the good news, that vengeance and violence are our tools, they are not God's, that exclusion and rejection are our preferences, they are not God's. And something happens when in all of your living, you start from there. Here is the root of all joy. And there in that root, that root draws from a deep hope that's formed in and through your difficulties and your uncertainty and then that hope gives way to a trust that you are valued, that you are loved. And in this way, love is not some inane progressive, vapid fascination that has no meaning.
Speaker 1:No. It is at the heart of the ancient Hebrew imagination of God. It's at the center of the Christian imagination of Christ's bodily experience. It's at the center and from the center, it goes out until all is and will be filled. It's there in the swirling of DNA.
Speaker 1:It's in the universe that keeps expanding. It's the reflection of sky on still water, And it's there in the and the shiver of every human touch you've ever shared. And I think that's why there are psalms. It's why you can jump all the way to the end of the collection to Psalm one forty nine and read this. Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1:Sing to the Lord a new song. God's praise in the assembly of God's faithful people. Let Israel rejoice in their maker. Let the people of Zion be glad in their king. Let them praise God's name with dancing and make music to God with timbrel and harp for the Lord takes delight in all the people.
Speaker 1:God crowns the humble with victory. Let God's faithful people rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds. It's how you woke up this morning. Right? Can you see all of the elements that we saw in Psalm 33 here?
Speaker 1:There's a community brought together in awe. There's celebration of creation and God's fidelity to creation. There's delight. There's music. And there's dancing.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, dancing is where we're going to end today and I'm gonna tell you why. Is it because in second Samuel chapter six, King David, one of the ancient characters to whom many psalms are attributed, In this story, king removes his robe and danced with all of his might when the ark of God is brought into Jerusalem. Is that why we're gonna talk about dancing? I mean, that's a great story, but no. Is it because Kevin Bacon quotes the psalms and dances with all of his might in the movie Footloose?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Some of us who are around in the eighties know that movie, but we also know that this is not why we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna end with dancing because I don't always know how to pull joy off. Maybe you're like me, you tend to live in your head. I know that I am stiflingly serious sometimes.
Speaker 1:I don't always know how to pay attention to the ways that my life is saturated with divine delight and human connection. But dancing has become one of my teachers as I've learned to form and experience a theology of celebration. And I need to tell you two quick stories to prove it. First, a few years ago, my wife and I were attending the wedding of some good friends. The whole thing was in this winery, South Of Montreal, up on this terrace.
Speaker 1:The sun was out. It was ridiculous. We were thrilled for Mark and Rachel. And the dancing got started at the end of the night and I remember that Darlene and I were sitting off to the side. It was probably my seriousness, let's be honest, but it also it could have been the 50 k bike ride we did earlier in the day.
Speaker 1:Anyways, whatever the case, at some point, my colleague, Amar, with a glass he was holding his wine like this and he sorta gently came over to us and he invited us. He says, come dance. And I declined with some lame excuse, but he persisted. In fact, didn't move anywhere. He just stayed there.
Speaker 1:And when it became clear that he was gonna dance in my personal space, we relented and we joined in. And here's a picture of Imar late in the night. He spent the whole night in the center of that circle of friends. And it's a circle that Darlene and I joined and stayed into the bitter, sweaty end because someone because someone said, let's dance. Second, it's another wedding.
Speaker 1:This time, it was my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was here in Calgary many years later and arguably, was one of the most beautiful joyful days I've ever been able to live because our family was there together and so many of our friends from Commons were part of that friend group and there was dancing and as the party started, there was this amazing moment where they got all the kids to go into this center and I am proud to say that I had grown up so I got in there right away too. But one of my favorite moments is of seeing our youngest daughter command the dance floor. She gathered this circle of adults around her and she led us all and she let me dance with her. And then there came this moment where Darlene's grandma, who's in her eighties, she stepped out onto the dance floor.
Speaker 1:You know, grandma Betty cut a rug when she was a young woman in post war Holland. You know she did. And we stood and we just watched them dance, the old and the young. Both of them so strong, both of them so alive. That is joy.
Speaker 1:And it's moments like that that have taught me to stand in awe of the familiar and the newly found things in life. It's moments like that that have and will continue to remind me that joy is something that we share. It's something that happens when our bodies and our voices and our stories come together. And sometimes I have needed someone to model it for me or invite me onto the floor. Sometimes I've been able to just stand and watch joy arrive.
Speaker 1:It's moments like this that have taught me to trust that the whole earth is full of a love we can't outrun. It's a love that fills our hearts and then sometimes it sets our feet to dancing. And of course, let me say this, I get it. We all find joy. We all embody joy in different ways.
Speaker 1:You might be sitting there with two left feet and that's okay. You also might be facing difficulty or sorrow or shame or separation that you wish would pass. And this isn't an easy sermon for that kind of season, but that said, the invitation is still extended to you as it is to everyone. Come dance with us. You might just find that grace and peace show up as your hand keeps rhythm on the steering wheel or when you use it to wave to your neighbors or when you use it to help a friend.
Speaker 1:It'll show up as you stir a dish of spice and cream. It'll show up as you hold someone close so they'll fall asleep or so they'll slow dance with you. Whatever the case may you stay open to all the joy that comes with practice. Let's pray. God of all our joy.
Speaker 1:From the psalmists, today, we learned something of the joy filled life. And one of the things that we can see is that our worship isn't bound to our sanctuaries or our sacred texts or to our liturgies. It's something that emerges as we make our way out in the world. And is it it's a world that's full of your unfailing love. It's a love that resounds and resounds.
Speaker 1:As we create, as we share, as we discover in the familiar and all that might be new, we find that you are source and gift. So let us stand now in the place from where all joy springs from, your goodness and your embrace. And where hearts are heavy, where our feet might feel stuck, in every place of our struggle, our longing, our searching, let us be found and let us find each other in the practice of bringing joy to life. We pray in the name of Christ, our hope. Amen.
Speaker 2:Hey. Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website, commons.church, for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community.
Speaker 2:You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.church/discord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.
Speaker 2:We'll talk to you soon.