Make a Joyful Noise--Psalm 100

This Sunday is Music Appreciation Sunday at WPPC. The choir will sing more than the usual one anthem, the congregation will have the opportunity to select the hymns and Christopher, of course, will be magnificent on the organ. I will diverge from my custom of reading from the Revised Common Lectionary readings for Sunday and read Psalm 100: "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord... Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing."

The Psalms have been called the hymnal of the second temple. These poems were put to music and sung during worship. Psalm 100 is one of the most beautiful of the songs of praise we find in the Psalms. Music was an important part of ancient Jewish worship, just as it is a vital part of our worship.

Sure, in the Christian churches, we can't agree on what kind of music God likes best. You can find churches that worship with loud, screeching guitars and drum solos. You can find churches that worship with quiet, meditative Taize music. You can find everything in between. And wherever you are on this spectrum, you wonder with dumbfounded amazement how those other people can worship, can connect with God, using that kind of music. But worship they do. Thanks be to God.

In the 1970s, hymn writer Fred Pratt Green wrote the following final stanza to his hymn "When in Our Music God is Glorified:"

Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always!
Alleluia!

Go make some noise...