"Having a Heart for God: A Song in the Heart"
Making faith and obedience to God the theme song of our lives
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Text: Psalm 119:49-56
Theme songs can be very emotive. People sometimes find they have a passion for a particular song that reminds them of a certain person or moment. Sometimes these can be of a melancholy nature; rather sad and tearful.
A number of years ago, a young woman came to me in distress because her 85-year-old mother was very ill and about to die. She didn't know how she could deal with this, for she was part of the “sandwich generation.” On the one hand she had a dying mother, and on the other a new daughter. A song by Amy Sky was very popular at the time and it was played frequently on the radio. Many of you will remember it. I Will Take Care of You tells how the singer was cared for by her mother from birth, and how her mother promised, “I will take care of you.” Now, the roles are reversed. As she cares for her mother, she repeats those same words to her while also telling her own newborn child, “I will take care of you.”
The woman who had approached me said, “Reverend Stirling, whenever that song comes on the radio, it doesn't matter if I'm in my car or at work, it makes me well up with emotion. I just don't understand it and I would like to talk to you about this problem I'm having dealing with grief.”
For her, this became a theme song about her mother's love for her, and her love for both her mother and her own child. I must confess there are times when I hear it now and switch it off, not because I don't like it, but because it reminds me of the death of my own mother.
Theme songs can remain powerful and emotional for us throughout our whole lives. Sometimes we associate them with moments of extraordinary joy, passion and love. For instance, couples often have a theme song. I remember going to a wedding reception a number of years ago at which the bride and groom had requested to have Tchaikovsky's overture, The Year 1812 played. It's a wonderful piece and it meant everything to them because they had met at an American college on July 4th and that overture is often played on that date. She thought it was romantic, upbeat and representative of their relationship, and that it was probably about Canada and the United States and the War of 1812. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was about the massacre of Napoleon's Grand Armée by the Russians 75 miles west of Moscow many, many years ago. Canons to the right of them, canons to the left of them, bodies all over the ground - I didn't think it was a great theme song for a marriage, but that's just me! But they loved it and it meant the world to them, so I suppose that's all that matters.
We all have our theme songs and sometimes they are corny. I used to visit a friend in Bermuda whose front doorbell played a song by Dionne Warwick. The only problem was that all the clocks in the house chimed to exactly the same tune, so you got it on the hour, every hour, all day long. It was enough to send anyone over the edge.
Theme songs are powerful; they cause you to remember things. After you have forgotten a particular television show and its actors, you still recall its theme song. I remember almost no episode of Hawaii Five-0, but I remember the tune. Likewise with MASH, Friends, and Jeeves and Wooster, I don't often remember who the actors were but I certainly remember the theme songs.
Today's passage from the great Psalm 119 contains this incredible line: “Your decrees are the theme of my song.” The psalmist clearly faced a difficult time. Many scholars have agreed that this psalm was written after the exile, probably as late as the time of Greek rule and the empire of Alexander the Great. Many Jews were mocked because of their faithfulness to the Torah, the law, and were being co-opted by the culture in which they lived to look down on those who practised the law. The psalmist was probably looked down upon. He said:
The arrogant mock me without restraint, but I do not turn from your law. I remember your ancient laws, O Lord, and I find comfort in them. Indignation grips me because of the wicked, who have forsaken your law. Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge.
In other words, God's decrees are the theme song of the psalmist's life; he will always be faithful to them. The psalmist suggested that God was faithful to him even during his time of trouble, and that God kept his covenant love all the time and was completely trustworthy. He said that it was a beautiful thing to be obedient to God's law. For the psalmist, the fulfillment of the law was a response to God's grace and faithfulness. First he believed in God's covenant, and then he believed that he should be obedient. Obedience followed the faith. That is why one Old Testament scholar said that the Psalter, the book of the Psalms, is the other side of the law. The Psalms are a response to God's covenantal love and graciousness.
There is also clearly a shift in the psalmist's thinking, because on the one hand the law is a burden while on the other it is a blessing. On the one hand it demands something of people while on the other it brings with it a great sense of peace, joy and love.
Jesus understood this. He understood that the law could be a burden for people, since those who lived in an agrarian culture and worked seven days a week often couldn't obey all the laws of the Sabbath. Often the poor, the ptochoi, could not fulfill all of the established cleanliness laws. Those who were strangers or visitors, those who had come from other countries, or who were Samaritans or Gentiles often couldn't obey the law because they didn't know it, fully understand it or practice it in the same way. Many of them felt the law was a burden, because they were rejected for not fulfilling all of its commandments.
What Jesus did with the law was fascinating. He said, “I've come to fulfill the law.” But more than that, he wanted the law to be in people's hearts - not something external to them but something working within them. He wanted them to desire to be obedient to the will of the Father. Jesus summed up the law by saying that you should “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.” For Jesus, this was the theme song of the law. In no way did he say the law was not God's covenantal promise, that it was not based on God's will and purpose, but he said he had come to fulfill it, that the law might indeed be in our hearts.
The Apostle Paul also realized that the law could be a burden. In fact, he quoted Deuteronomy 27, which says, "Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out." In Galatians and Romans, Paul addressed the issue of the Christian relationship with the law. Paul, as a good Jew, understood that the law was a powerful thing decreed by God, but he made the point that “The law leads us to Christ.” Why? Because the law reveals to us our sin, and once we have an understanding of our sin we can then understand the power of Christ's grace, which forgives sin. Did Paul say the law was not important? No, but he understood that Christ had fulfilled the law. For Paul, then, the law took on a whole new meaning and purpose because of what Christ had done. Christ's rule in our hearts by the Spirit enables us to live according to the law, not in its minutiae but in its expression of love for God.
Therefore I ask this question: Did Paul and Jesus disagree with the psalmist that the law was the theme song of his life? No, not at all. The psalmist, just like Paul and Jesus, understood that obedience to God is a response to God's covenantal love for us. We obey the law; we seek to be faithful, just and righteous precisely because we know that God first loves us. This is what I think it's like: Charles V who was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire more than 400 years ago, became frustrated because the six clocks in his castle were not synchronized. They would strike at different intervals, often off by a few minutes, and there was no standard time to which he could set them. He said, “If I can't get these six clocks to work in sync, how can I get the six nations of the Holy Roman Empire to work together?”
This need for synchronicity later prompted astronomer John Flamsteed to establish Greenwich Mean Time. It wasn't just an artificial, human creation. Looking at the heavens, Flamsteed used the point at which the sun crossed the Greenwich meridian as a point of reference and developed a standard for time here on earth. I actually went to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and saw it for myself. The law is like that meridian. Often, like Charles' clocks, we are discordant. Our clocks aren't synchronized, and we don't do the right thing or obey the law in its fullness. We are often fallen creatures, but the law is there like a meridian that serves as a standard, a point of reference whereby we can organize our lives. Therefore, the law is not a burden but a blessing. It is there for us to know what God requires of us in order that we can respond faithfully to the God we love.
We move from a sense of obligation to do God's will to a sense of great freedom and privilege in following it. The law was given in order that human behaviour might be brought into line with God's will and intention. Human beings will always have their excuses, ideas and philosophies; they will try to get rid of mean time and create their own standard. But the standard is there for us to follow. That is why the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, are really at the centre of the Torah. They are there to help us live just, righteous and orderly lives.
Hosea in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament both spoke of wanting that law to be not just engraved in stone and separate from us, but to be in our hearts - to be part of the theme song of our lives. When that law, that desire to love and please God, is the centre or meridian of your life, then you see what a great privilege it is to fulfill it.
I love a story I read about a minister who was approached by a man in his congregation who said, “Reverend, I don't like any of the hymns that you have chosen for us to sing.”
The minister replied, “That's not a problem; there is no need to worry. We aren't singing them for you - we are singing them for God.”
The theme song is praise, glory and honour - not to ourselves, or to make ourselves look more righteous or holy than anyone else - but as our response to the love of God. This theme song is in our hearts and lives, and we desire to serve God first.
Recently, I've received a number of phone calls and e-mails regarding the current debate about saying the Lord's Prayer in the legislature and whether we should continue the practice or end it. I've had a lot of time to think about it and I conclude that first of all, all governments, courts, churches, people and institutions, whether they know it or not, are accountable to God first. I know there are those who don't believe that and I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised that there are some who question the whole notion of the existence of God, and they have the right not to believe in God. But if you're asking for my opinion, a Christian opinion, we understand that all things are ultimately accountable to the Lord, God. If you honour the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then all other things are added unto you. But the Lord your God comes first. That's what Jesus said is the cornerstone of the law.
Secondly, it is so easy to sing a song that, while it may be good musically, is not necessarily praise or worship. You can repeat a tune, but that doesn't mean it is the tune of your heart; it doesn't mean that you believe it to be true. So often I have heard prayers recited without any thought to their meaning or call on one's life. They go from the book on which they are written to the lips on which they are spoken without passing through the heart or mind of the person saying them. I saw this when I lived in Ottawa and visited the House of Commons. Many of the prayers that were said were just ritualistic prayers with no meaning, simply because the people saying them didn't believe them.
It's very easy for words to be said. This is what I am more concerned about: Not whether some words are spoken, as wonderful and embracing as the Lord's Prayer is, but that those who say it believe it! It matters that those who say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” actually seek to carry that out; that those who say, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name” actually hallow his name. It's important that the prayer is not said as a matter of ritual or rite, but as a matter of the heart, faith and obedience. That is why I say to those who really do believe it, just get up together and say it anyway. If this is what you believe, stand up five minutes before it all begins and say together: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That is far, far more important than having it said officially in the legislature. One caveat: Everything and everyone is still accountable to God, whether they realize it or not. That is the word of the Lord.
Just like great music, public prayer can have a healing effect; it can have a tremendous effect on justice, truth and righteousness. It's like the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, which has been playing in North Korea. They have been in Pyongyang, a place where there is tension, there has been debate about nuclear war and there have been problems for many, many years. I think it's great that they had the audacity to play The Star Spangled Banner - God bless them for doing that. All I want them to do now is play O, Canada and we're really there! The song of the heart can transcend people's differences. So, too, can the song of faith; so, too, can obedience to God; so, too, can our faithfulness to our Lord and Maker. This is the real question we have to ask ourselves today: Is this the theme song of our lives? Are God's decrees, as the psalmist said, really the cornerstone of our existence - our meridian, our passion, our song? If so, then our song is a love song to the God who first loved us. Amen.