Grateful | Storytelling
I spent the better part of this week (quality not quantity) in Nashville, TN. I did what one does when their spouse is a featured speaker at a conference in on of your favorite cities - I tagged along, carried a suitcase from the Uber to the Airbnb, made dinner reservations, and was prepared to be arm candy when called upon. I was able to see the statue dedicated to a (very) distant relative who was credited with helping to found the city of Nashville and eat food we only dream about in the DMV.
Nashville is truly known as the home of country music. It is impossible to move through Nashville without hearing the twang and bending of guitar strings, no matter what time of day. On Friday, while Allison was sitting in a business conference, I had a chance to tour the Country Music Hall of Fame. Country music is central to the story of Nashville’s economic revival after the Civil War.
I grew up listening to country music, especially the classic artists of the genre - Hank, Willie, and Johnny. Later, as my mom began to trust me with the car radio (and because our 1994 Dodge Spirit had a CD player) I began to hear Garth, Faith and Shania, and George. Living in the shadows of DC country music sounds more poppy than the country-y tunes I remember from my childhood. Regardless of how you feel about country music, or which category you prefer within the genre (team Taylor or team Kacey), you have to admit that the stories buried within the Southern draws and lyrics of country music draws the listener in.
Storytelling is central to country music’s longevity. All music, at the end of the day, is about telling a story. Songs celebrating triumph, lamenting over heartbreak, commemorating the singer’s favorite dog or broken down truck, as I moved from exhibit to exhibit or honky-tonk to honky-tonk the stories drew me in. An artist’s ability to connect with the listener through a story is what keeps us toe-tapping or causes us to move down Broadway to find a storyteller we better connect with. A good storyteller can make lyrics dance off the page, drawing us in because can’t help but want more.
The glory days of Israel were long behind them. The great kingdom of David had fallen and now Israel found itself, again, in exile. Aliens in a foreign land, Israel found itself immersed in someone else’s story. A people who worshiped a sovereign G-d now found itself in a society where multiple gods were worshipped. As aliens in a distant land, Israel’s story of covenant seemed as lost as their homeland. Israel’s story of blessing seemed more distant and covenant faded as the pains of exile became more real.
Away from home, separated from family and friends, the loss of what was known - the song practically writes itself.
This would be a song that even if you have not experienced deep loss in your life you would still be drawn into the life and lament of those who had lost it all.
It was in the midst of exile - loss of home, family, friends, and the familiar - that this Psalm was the call to worship as the community entered the synagogue:
“Come, let’s sing out loud to the Lord! Let’s raise a joyful shout to the rock of our salvation! Let’s come before him with thanks! Let’s shout songs of joy to him! Come, let’s worship and bow down! Let’s kneel before the Lord, our maker!”
The picture was bleak. Lament would not be unreasonable. Hope, it may seem, is lost but “The Lord is a great God, the great king over all other gods.”
You may have lost hope because of your current circumstance but remember, “The earth’s depths are in God’’s hands; the mountain heights belong to him; the sea, which he made, is his along with the dry ground, which his own hands formed.”
Our Psalm this morning is a call to Israel to remember that the G-d who created the cosmos, the G-d of Abraham, Moses, and David is sovereign and while many may doubt, having lost in G-d’s promise, the covenant where they found their identity, the people of G-d are called to give praise because of G-d’s mighty acts. This Psalm is a reminder that while our circumstance may change, G-d created and sustains us and because of G-d’s mighty acts and sovereignty is still worthy to be praised.
Our circumstances may give us pause, distracting us from the larger story we are a part of, but the Psalmist is reminding us that our response to G-d’s mighty acts is a posture of worship - praise and thanksgiving - aka a posture of gratitude. Gratitude because today, regardless of the affairs in your life, the moment your feet hit the ground and you took a deep breath of a new day it was the divine breath of life that filled your lungs. While chaos may be swirling around us and the melodies we find ourselves singing sound anything but grateful, the sound of praise and gratitude, worship, is our default, because G-d is in the business of creating order out of the chaos of this world. We are grateful for what G-d has done because what G-d has done and what G-d continues to do is bigger than anything we can imagine or do on our own.
Diana Butler bass, who will be here next Sunday (sidebar - next week is one of those Sundays to invite someone, you’ll want to bring a friend), mentions in her book that this Psalm is part of what is known today as the “Daily Office.” The “Daily Office,” found in the Book of Common Prayer, is a practice within the Episcopal tradition where three times in the day are marked by a call to worship and prayer. The Daily Office for the morning opens with this call to worship, “Come, let’s sing out loud to the Lord! Let’s raise a joyful shout to the rock of our salvation! Let’s come before him with thanks! Let’s shout songs of joy to him!” DBB points out that when our day begins with not what we need or want but instead with gratitude for what G-d has done the story we tell changes. We move from telling a story of despair to a story of joy, even when hope seems to be gone.
This practice - grateful worship - requires that we change the posture with which we approach G-d altogether. Rather than using the sound of bells or gongs to draw us into a posture of worship, we use words of thanksgiving. The sounds of worship can center us but it is the words we approach G-d with that change our posture. When we approach G-d with thanksgiving, knowing that what was needed has been done by Christ, and all left to do is to be a part of the Kingdom Christ inaugurated when he left the grave empty, we realize the story we’ve been trying to write has been written. It is through G-d’s grace that we gave been incorporated into G-d’s great story regardless of the lyrics (or instruments) we have been trying to perfect so that we might be worthy of the grace we have already received. Worship begins not with the list of what we want or need but instead gratitude. We are called to lives of worship, meaning that we are called to lives to gratitude for the mighty acts of God, the work Christ has accomplished on our behalf.
