Two Songs

Dr. D. William McIvor

February 11, 2007 — Ministry of Music Sunday

Presbyterian Church in Sudbury

Psalm 1.1-6 (NRSV)

Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;

but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees
planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Introduction

Most of you know that last November I went on retreat at the Campion Renewal Center, a Jesuit monastery in Weston. Except for eucharist each day with other retreatants and an evening discussion with my spiritual director, those eight days were spent in silence — reading the scriptures and other writings, praying, writing in my journal, and meditating. It was a profoundly moving week the impact of which continues to influence and bless me.

Ten or twelve years ago I also retreated at another monastery, a Trappist monastery just outside Atlanta. My week in November with the Jesuits was very different than my week with the Trappists. Many of the Jesuits at Campion, at least those who were not yet retired, had outside ministry responsibilities and didn’t necessarily follow the patterns of fixed-hour prayers. But the Trappists were for the most part cloistered. Much of a Trappist monk’s day is spent in silence, not an empty silence but a quiet filled with contemplation of and prayer to God. And much of the time not spent in silence is spent in worship. Their worship begins at four o’clock in the morning and the rhythm of each day is measured by the cadence of worship and the daily hours of prayer.

I’m a morning person, often out of bed by four-thirty or so, and when I arise I frequently think of those Trappist monks. They are already at prayer when I awake, already at worship. They recite the psalms. In fact, they sing the psalms antiphonally, chanting through the book of psalms every two weeks.

So the monks are very familiar with the psalm we just read. Psalm 1 is not only the first psalm in the psalter but was written to introduce all the rest. As an introduction, Psalm 1 states one of the major themes of the psalter: there are two ways in life taken by two different kinds of people. There is the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous. One way is blessed by God and the other way is not. There are two and only two ways in life, says Psalm 1, and the implied question is, which way are we going? Let’s think about these two ways.

Are there still two ways?

I’m not sure that most of us really believe very much anymore in this biblical idea of the two ways. Officially we believe in it — Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to God except through him — but practically speaking we’re not sure.[1] We all have friends and relatives and coworkers who are not Christians or who do not pay much attention to being Christian and they seem to be fine. So we wonder about this idea that there are only two ways, the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked.

Sometimes groups will more precisely define what the two ways look like in order to distinguish between them. This is what the Pharisees did, for example. They defined the minutiae of the law so precisely and carefully — 613 laws were “found” in the Torah — so that only the only people who could obey the law were those who spent literally all of their time worrying about it.

When I was growing up, I was taught, as were many of you, that Christians didn’t do certain kinds of things. We didn’t dance or play cards. Going to the movies was suspect in some circles and smoking or drinking were absolutely forbidden. In my home church women were discouraged from wearing makeup or jewelry, except wedding rings and perhaps a watch. Although the lists of forbiddens may vary, some churches still insist on behavioral distinctions. I was talking not long ago with a friend who is attending for the first time a Free Methodist church. Even though he enjoys the worship and the congregational life, he told me he could not join this church because their membership requirements include a repudiation of alcohol and tobacco. He is not ready to do that.

The problem is not that we no longer believe in a righteous way. We know there is a godly way and I think most of us want to live a godly way. But we also know people who seem to be godly in many ways but don’t fit all the right categories. It gets confusing.

The problem is not that there are two ways. There are righteous and unrighteous ways of living. There are good and evil ways of being. There are right and wrong ways of acting. No one argues with that. The problem is not that. The problem is using the two ways to describe ourselves. Because no one reads Psalm 1 and says, “Oh, no! I’m wicked, a sinner, and a scoffer.” No. We read Psalm 1 and think I’m glad I’m righteous and not like those bad people and for bad people we insert whoever we think is most evil.

In other words, the way Psalm 1 actually works is that the way of the righteous becomes the way of the self-righteous. We use the two ways to distinguish us good people from them bad people. When the way of the righteous becomes the way of the self-righteous, we have missed what the scriptures want to say to us. I believe there are two ways. I also believe it is mortally dangerous identifying who is on one way and who is on another. That’s why Jesus said, “How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7.4) There are two ways but we need to worry most about the logs in our own eyes that blind us to which way we are walking.

Conclusion

So where does this leave us? I think it leaves us back with monks in the monastery and that is actually a good place to be for awhile. Monks, especially ones who are cloistered, often get asked if what they do does any good. The only answer is that if we believe in the power of prayer, then, yes, what they do is good. For their lives are a constant prayer. They are called by vocation to pray. That is their sole purpose. They are praying everyday. They are praying for us today, not by name but by intention, as they pray for the world. And I believe that in some special way we can never explain, the presence of God comes into the world through those monks who pray and touches the world because of them.

So perhaps we ought to learn at least this much from the monastery. The monks I spent time with twelve years ago and countless others got up this morning and sang the psalms. Maybe that’s the best thing we can do, certainly every Lord’s day and perhaps everyday. We can in our worship and in our living raise a song of praise to God. That’s why we are celebrating our ministry of music today and all who share their gifts to help us sing. For not only are there two ways of life, but there are two songs of life. There is the song which is finally just the noise of those who live for nothing but themselves. And there is the song in all its sweet and sad tonalities that says consciously and unconsciously, “Lord, let me be like a tree planted by streams of living water.”

Does the song of praise do any good? I can’t prove it but I believe it does. In fact it may be the most good that we can do. To rise up and sing God’s praises, to join with keyboard and guitar and organ and singers to offer our songs to God, not only gives honor to God but it seats us in the seat of the righteous, not because of how good we are but because of how good God is. We sing today and everyday because God is good.

So the two songs are not for judgment. I don’t want to judge others and I don’t want us to be judgmental people. I want to lift my voice in a righteous song. That may be the very best thing we can ever do, to glorify God not only in our music but in our living.

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