A Word from Pastor Nathan

When looking at the Revised Common Lectionary for a text for Wednesday’s theAlternative, Psalm 100 drew my eye and ire. Whoever edited the psalms included this preface, “A Psalm of Thanksgiving.” This psalm is most fitting for celebrating the Reign of Christ and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Here are the words:

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come into God’s presence with singing. Know that the Lord is God. It is God that made us, and we are God’s; we are God’s people, and the sheep of God’s pasture. Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving, and God’s courts with praise. Give thanks to God’s, bless God’s name. For the Lord is good; God’s steadfast love endures forever, and God’s faithfulness to all generations.

The more time I spent time with this poem, the more it frustrated me. Making a joyful noise to the Holy One, worshipping with gladness, and coming into God’s presence with singing is a challenge right now. Each week, I sing and preach in an unoccupied sanctuary. Thank goodness the camera is there because it gives me a point of focus, but if my gaze breaks, the emotion of seeing an empty building overwhelms me. I imagine the experience is similar for you. We’re not able to gather in a place and with people we love. This psalm sounds like an oppressive captor jeering us to “sing one of the songs of Zion” when that ruler knows singing is dangerous and that we cannot enter into the presence of God we’ve often found inside a church building.

What do we make of this psalm in light of our present pandemic? Skip it? Snip it from our bibles like Thomas Jefferson did to parts of the New Testament? Maybe we let the psalm say for us that which we cannot say for ourselves. Or maybe we read the psalm again and again until its words remind us of who we are and whose we are and that God’s steadfast lovingkindness, compassion and faithfulness abides to ALL generations, even ours, even now, in this most troubling and turbulent year.

As we celebrate this season of Thanksgiving, may I suggest Psalm 100 as a prayer? Read it slowly, and let the words echo in all the unoccupied spaces that are usually filled. God is there, in the void, in the silence and the sound. And maybe …just maybe this psalm will help us give thanks.