Without A Song!

Text: Psalm 19
Theme: “Without A Song”
Third Sunday in Lent
March 11, 2012
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS

For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.
7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The decrees of the LORD are firm,
and all of them are righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb.
11 By them your servant is warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.
14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

FYI (for your information), today’s Old Testament Reading -- not listed in the bulletin -- is from the book of Exodus, chapter twenty, verses one through seventeen. It gives us the story of the delivery of the Ten Commandments, or, the law of God. Like varieties of Papa John’s pizzas, there are lots of laws in the Bible to be delivered, but these are the biggies. Together, they’re called the moral law. Jesus summed them up when he said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself.” So, how’s it going with all of that?

Then, in the New Testament Reading – which is listed in the bulletin (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)– we heard of Christ not as a new law-giver but as the crucified One. Do you want your laws or your wisdom? In Christ crucified you find the wisdom of God. So, if you want to bone up on the wisdom of God, then fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. That’s how the author of Hebrews puts it.

If that weren’t enough, things really pick up steam in today’s Holy Gospel from John, chapter two, where Jesus fashions a whip made of cords and drives the religious entrepreneurs plum out of the temple. His tactics, on that occasion, were rather brash. Interestingly, it’s called the “cleansing” of the temple. Things must have gotten dirty with institutional religion. So, what we have here is not an array of Scriptural hors’ d’oeuvre’s to sample, but a solid, nutritious meal. Beware! There is lots of spiritual “junk food” out there these days – filled with human additives. Bookstores and the internet are filled with it. Stay away from that.

Thus, for a Scriptural feast such as this, we need some good background music. What shall we choose? Today’s Psalm, Psalm 19, comes to the rescue. It is a psalm – which is to say, a song! Yes, the Bible is chock full of law and filled to the brim with wisdom, and bursting with stories. But let us not forget the music.
Julie Andrews, dancing in and around the Austrian alps, reminds us: “The hills are alive with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years.” On that horrible night which followed the horrible Friday when JFK was assassinated, American radio stations – all but in unison –- played classical music through the wee, small hours of the morning. The selections captured the shocked and grieving mood of the nation.

What would life be with only talk and no tune? What if existence was little more than awkwardness and no rhythm? What if human discourse was limited to lecture and no poetry? What if it were only law and no wisdom? What if it were only outlines and no stories? What if Ronnie Van Zant didn’t say “Turn it up!” before he and the Lynrd Skynrd band started singing “Sweet Home Alabama”? What if B.B. King didn’t have his guitar? What if the University of Nebraska didn’t have “Hail Varsity”? What if the University of Texas didn’t have “Texas Fight”? What if Oklahoma didn’t have “Boomer Sooner”? (Well, we might be better off without that!) But seriously, what if Denton didn’t have an arts and jazz festival? What if UNT didn’t have its One O’clock Lab band? What if Denton Christian Preschool didn’t have its annual visit from the Mariachi Singers and the Denton High brass? What if John Haynie didn’t have his trumpet? What if Clyde Miller didn’t have his French horn? What if Jean Mainous didn’t have her piano? What if Lejean Mitchell didn’t have her flute? What if Hyung Kyung didn’t have her organ? What if Skylar Padia and Beverly Hoch didn’t have their voices? What if Jeff Snider and Mike Linder didn’t have their choirs? What if someone like a Jim Nance didn’t come and warm a pastor’s heart by bringing a powerful example of the “Agincourt” tune? What if Mike Steinel didn’t have his talent to improvise Bob Dylan? Where would we be without our voices, and our radios, and our albums, and our CDs, and our playlists, and our earbuds? We would be so much the worse off.

The lyricists Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu were thinking about this way back in 1929. They wrote it all down – and folks like Nelson Eddy, and Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett, and Mario Lanza, and Mahalia Jackson, and Louis Armstrong; and even The Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder, and the Supremes brought it to our ears:

Without a song the day would never end
Without a song the road would never bend
When things go wrong a man ain’t got a friend
Without a song

That field of corn would never see a plow
That field of corn would be deserted now
A man is born but he’s no good no how
Without a song
I got my trouble and woe but, sure as I know, the Jordan will roll
And I’ll get along as long as a song is strong in my soul.
I’ll never know what makes the rain to fall
I’ll never know what makes the grass so tall
I only know there ain’t no love at all
Without a song!

Today’s song, straight from the pages of God’s Word, is Psalm 19. King David wrote it, and he wrote it for the choir director we are told. So we better give it to Jeff. Jeff, can you come down and finish the sermon?

We are prompted not to look down, not to look around, but to look up! “The heavens,” it says, “declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” “Heavens” refers to what we would call outer space. We’ve had astronauts up there. “Skies” refers to the upper atmosphere. That’s one of the things I’ve learned to love about Texas: it has a big sky. Texas fits well with Psalm 19. Your day isn’t quite as good as it could be without taking a look up there at that sky.

Speaking of the skies and outer space up there, did you hear the news this week? Just in time for Psalm 19, we were on the receiving end of a solar storm. What, pray tell, is that? Well, whatever it was it bumped me off the internet and dropped a couple of my cellphone calls this past Thursday. A news report said it was the biggest solar storm in five years and had the potential to upset airplane flights, GPS systems, and electric power grids. Joe Kunches, of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, said that the storm was expected to be a G3 on the G1 to G5 scale of what he called “geomagnetic storm intensity.” Oh, okay.

That’s all just a nice, scientific way of saying what our psalm is singing: “The heavens declare the glory of God… . Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.” Again, it’s a good idea to look up at the sky from time to time. A telescope from Brookstone could be more than just a tool for a hobby. It could be a means to a spiritual experience.

The next verses of the song tell how God has “pitched a tent” for the sun. The sun is going camping! When the sun comes up morning, it’s like a bridegroom coming forth to meet his bride. It’s like a champion running the course. “Nothing is hidden from its heat,” we are told – or its solar storms, for that matter.
You can’t gaze for too long at the sun, so King David shifts our attention to the law of God. As the sun does its thing every day (keeping us warm, giving us light, playing its part in growth and life), so the law of God revives the soul. That word can be trusted. It can make you wise. It gives you joy. Like the sun, the commands of the Lord are “radiant,” says our text.

On it goes. The psalm extols and praises the benefits of the Word of God and keeping it, holding it close, making it your own. It gives us warnings, it says – and great rewards.

Without God’s Word, we are, in effect, without a song. We can’t discern our errors. We would be in denial about our hidden faults. So, even in this song, we plead with the Lord to keep us from willful sins and ask that they not have control over us. “Then,” says the psalmist, we will be “blameless and innocent of great transgression.”

Lent tells us that the ultimate blame and the ultimate transgression ended up with Jesus. Where does your blame, my blame, our blame belong? Where does our transgression, my transgression, your transgression belong? With Jesus! Nowhere else! On the night before He died, He did and said many things. Lest we forget, He sang a hymn with His disciples. They couldn’t be without a song!

He is the One who bore in His own body our sins upon that cross; so that we, such as we are, might make a clean break with sin and live unto righteousness. And He rose again from the grave, on that first Easter Sunday, so that, to use the lyrics of our psalm, the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts might be pleasing in God’s sight. For God is our rock and our redeemer.

Yesterday, I was at the memorial service for a friend by the name of Ralph Culp. They did some singing. One selection was his favorite hymn – a Christmas hymn called “In the Bleak Midwinter.” The last verse goes like this:

What then shall I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.
If I were a wiseman, I would do my part.
But what I can I give Him,
Give to Him my heart.

Like Ralph Culp and so many others, we’ll all get along as long as a song is strong in our soul; for there ain’t no love at all without a song.

Amen.