Make A Joyful Noise - April 3, 2016

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Psalm 100
Colossians 3: 12-17

Today is a day of great joy for this congregation as we install Andrew Crossler as our new Music Director. The baton has passed from father to son, as he succeeds his father, Tom, who served faithfully in this position for 27 years and retired last December. Andy has been our interim director for the last three months. We also interviewed another qualified candidate. In the end Andy was the clear choice, a slam dunk, just the right fit for our church.
Andy grew up in the music program of this church. He began playing bells as a little boy at the time the

hand bell program here began. Now his own son is playing in the Praise Ringers Hand Bell choir who began our worship today.
Music has been a strength of this congregation for decades. The chancel choir, bell choirs, and other instruments have enriched our worship. As poet Fred Pratt Green put it, "When in our music God is glorified and adoration leaves no room for pride, it is as though the whole creation cried, 'Alleluia!'" I have every confidence that music will continue to be a strength here and indeed that the program will grow under Andy's leadership.
Music has enhanced worship for millennia. "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth," Psalm 100 begins. That joyful noise may be the rich harmonies of the choir, the bright tones of the bells, or the many tones of the organ. It may be the voices of the congregation raised together in praise of God.
Sometimes people say to me, "You really don't want me to sing, even with a congregational hymn." It is true that not everyone is musical – and it is also true that the psalm says, "Make a joyful noise," not "sing in pitch and keep your eyes on the director." Some of the most joyful noise in the church comes from the babble of babies or the giggles of little children. I hear a joyful noise before worship even begins as I listen to folks talk together.
In all its many and varied forms, we find, in the poet's words, a new dimension in the world of sound.
Make a joyful noise. Psalm 100 was probably first used as a call to worship in the temple nearly a thousand years before Jesus was born. It then broadened to include general acts of praise and thanksgiving. The temple was in Jerusalem. Most people could not travel there more than once or twice in their lifetimes, if that. They could, however, worship God with gladness and come before God with singing in other places and throughout their lives. We worship together in this lovely sanctuary – and I suspect I'm not the only person who feels God's presence as I sing in the car or hum a favorite song as I walk to work.
Life itself is not always joyful. From the headlines in the morning paper to the phone call that comes in the middle of the night, we face misery and evil. The morning I started work on this sermon I woke up to the news that terrorists had attacked the airport and a metro station in Brussels. Last Sunday we heard that a suicide bomber detonated next to the swings in a park in Lahore, Pakistan. Paris, Bagdad, New York, Lahore, in every corner of the world the fear that it will hit us next persists. Lives are lost, people are wounded and in the face of such evil let us make a joyful noise, not to dismiss the horror of terrorism but to rejoice in God's goodness.
Several times the New Testament instructs people to "sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God." Their lives were not easy. Christians were persecuted for their faith, sometimes killed in gruesome ways. In the midst of the difficulty they were to sing, to make music, to make a joyful noise. Probably some of them couldn't stay on pitch – and they were to sing.
People trying to flee war in Syria find closed doors in Europe. Europe itself has been overwhelmed by the needs of the people landing on its shores. At first European nations welcomed the Syrian refugees, taking bottles of water and food out to them in the streets. Now it has become too much and I can hardly blame the European nations for saying, "No more." And still the horror of life in Syria persists and people just hope to find better lives by going somewhere else. There are no easy answers here.
In the face of such tragedy let us make a joyful noise. We dare not shrug off the crisis. Indeed, the news must call us to prayer and to deep reflection about how we can respond in compassion. Let us make a joyful noise that we may find our strength in God to be agents of grace and healing in this broken world of ours.
"So has the church in liturgy and song, in faith and love, through centuries of wrong, borne witness to the truth in every tongue, Alleluia!"
Though we've made a significant different through Imagine No Malaria, this disease continues to kill children in Africa. The Zika virus seems to be causing major birth defects in Latin America. Cancer hits too many whom we know and love.
Let us make a joyful noise. All these diseases are terrible – and we worship the God of life who gives wisdom and insight to doctors and research teams; who grants love and compassion to those who reach out to support and care; and who in the end promises us eternal life in which we are freed from the aches and pains of our bodies. Throughout this Easter season we celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the dead and the truth that death truly has lost its sting.
In singing praises to God in the face of human evil and natural disaster, we grab them by the neck and shout "Alleluia!"
"And did not Jesus sing a song that night when utmost evil strove against the light? Then let us sing, for whom he won the fight! Alleluia!"
Evil in its many forms is all too real. And music helps us to conquer it, to rise above the despair of the awful things that haunt the world, for music pulls us out of the pit into God's very presence.
Psalm 100 moves back and forth between the call to praise God and the reasons for that praise. "Make a joyful noise to the Lord," and "Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us." Make a joyful noise because you belong to God! You – with your bad back and your aching heart; You – with your sad face and a world of woe – you belong to God!
"Enter his gates with thanksgiving . . . for the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations." Palm 100 clarifies that God is the object of our worship. God – not your favorite athlete or actress; God, not the politician you think will solve our nation's troubles. God – not the love of your life or all the money in the world. And it is God's goodness, God's mercy, God's faithfulness of which we sing.
In a world of woe, worship is characterized by the deepest and most profound joy. We make a joyful noise to God to tap into God's goodness even as we recognize our own sinful natures. We make a joyful noise to God to connect with God's mercy so that we too can extend mercy to the very ones who have harmed us; we make a joyful noise to immerse ourselves in God's faithfulness that we too can be faithful.
Music is not only a strength of this congregation, it is a key component of our faith. Welcome Andy, as you lead us in singing and ringing. Truly "let all rejoice who have a voice to raise! And may God give us faith to sing always, Alleluia!"