St. Paul’s United
Church Good Friday, April 2,
2010
Song of Faith – Rev. David Mundy
Psalm 22 Matthew
27:45-50
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We have a good friend who is a whistler, which is unusual
these days because, as you may have noticed, very few people whistle anymore.
He is a farmer and he whistles away while he goes about his work in the shop
and the barnyard. He is a good whistler but we have learned not to listen too
closely because he never whistles through an entire tune. Out come a few bars from a hymn or a pop tune
and then he is on to something else. It’s good to hear him, but a little “crazy-making”
if you expect the entire song.
Have you had that experience of hearing just a portion of a
song, perhaps in an elevator, or as a car races by, or just having a line or
two pop into your head, only to have it run around your brain? Sometimes it is
stuck there, unbidden for what seems like forever.
This morning is Black Friday, God’s Friday, Good Friday – all
names for the sombre day of crucifixion we remember each year, sometimes
reluctantly, because it speaks to us of darkness and betrayal and death. None of us enjoys attending funerals, and
this is God’s funeral, the day we acknowledge that Jesus died on a cross and
was laid in a tomb.
This is a day when our Christian song, our Song of
Faith may be at its weakest and most mournful. We sing hymns that are not very
joyful, which suits the tone of the day. And we are reminded that even on the
cross Jesus sang his song of faith. That statement may puzzle you because we
aren’t told specifically that Jesus sang during those agonizing hours of his
execution. We did hear, though, that he uttered the opening words of a psalm,
psalm 22, which was our psalm selection today. What are those words? “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are only part of verse one, which goes
on to say “Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my
groaning?” Two soul-shaking questions and then the second verse “O my
God, I cry by day, but you do not answer: and by night, but find no rest.”
Until recently it simply hadn’t occurred to me that Jesus
might have sung those words from the cross rather than speak them, as a “crie de coeur,” a cry of the
heart. For the Jews of first-century Israel, the psalms were meant to be sung,
not just spoken. Nor did I stop to think
that perhaps in those few words Jesus was inviting those who loved him to
remember the rest of the psalm which moves from agony and abandonment and
distress, back to a glimmer of hope once again, as we heard a few moments
ago. For the women at the foot of the cross,
including Jesus’ mother, and for the eleven disciples who hovered around the
edges, there had to be a sense that their world was collapsing around
them. Certainly those opening words of
the psalm are heart-wrenching, but psalm 22 is a psalm of deliverance. What
words might have come to mind in bits and snatches?
I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters,
in the midst of the congregation I will
praise you . . .
So while I live my soul is yours . . .
One of the reasons this day resonates so strongly with us is
because we too experience our Good Fridays of the soul, often wondering whether
we can sing the song of life with any sense of hope and purpose. This can come
through the world-weariness of the years, but honestly we can feel rather
tuneless at any time of life.
When one of our daughters was quite young, she was having one
of those rather glum moments that only a four–year-old can have. You know how
it is; life just isn’t worth living for half an hour and then its time to play again. On this occasion though she was
inconsolable for a while, so I sat down next to her and began whistling and
then singing the words of a song that was a hit back then, Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t
Worry Be Happy. This was not the correct thing to do. She pointed her
little finger at me and said “don’t sing that song! I hate that song!”
It was just too cheerful for the mood she was in.
There are times when we too are less than open to happy
thoughts. We may learn how to mask our sadness and actually function reasonably
well from day to day. But inside we are unsettled and we may even be doing our
version of pointing a finger at God and saying “I hate that song!”
We may become so accustomed to this way of being that we are
no longer open to a song of joy which we all hope will be our gift in
Christ. People in grief will mention
that even though they love to sing, they can’t when they are so sad, and we
understand why. Yet none of us wants to stay in that place
Again we will sing our chorus and consider what song of life
we would like to sing again. One answer of course is that it is the song of
Easter, the literal hymns and choruses of that day of joy. I’m sure you
understand that this song can be figurative, the possibility of looking beyond
the sadness in our soul to experience fullness of life, Christ’s give of
salvation.
In the last century theologian Karl Barth visited a prison and
preached a sermon in which he reminded the inmates that on Good Friday there
were three convicts on death row. We often display one cross in our churches,
the cross of Christ, yet there were two more. He said that of those three men who were executed, one was good, two were bad, one
became good. He was offering them a
message of hope to those who might have felt hopeless.
The message of deliverance in psalm 22 and the message of
deliverance in Christ is that our God is a redeeming God who sees the castoffs
and the supposed undesirables of our world:
From you comes my praise in the great congregation . . .
The poor shall be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
May your hearts live forever!
We remember even today when we focus on the suffering of
Christ that our song of faith is a song of justice, as this psalm tells us, and
we have the joyful opportunity to give voice and action to this message.
Recently one of the ridiculous, mean-spirited conservative
commentators in the United States told his audience that if they heard the
words “social justice” in their churches they should run away and never
go back. He said that social justice was “code” for Nazism and Communism.
A wonderful thing happened as a result of this rant. Leaders
from conservative churches and liberal churches and the Mormon church of which he claims to be a member stated that we
cannot read the bible and we can’t follow Christ without a commitment to
justice.
Jesus came to save us, but this day and Easter are not just
about our individual souls. >From the
vantage point of the hill of Calvary Christ sings his song for all of humanity,
for all of creation.
Earlier in our worship we repeated together a portion of the Song
of Faith which is the latest faith statement of our United Church of
Canada. The name alone speaks of promise and joy which wells us from Christ our
saviour.
We place our hope in God.
We sing of a life beyond life
and a future good beyond imagining:
a new heaven and a new earth,
the end of sorrow, pain, and tears,
Christ’s return and life with God,
the making new of all things.
We yearn for the coming of that future,
even while participating in eternal life
now.
Divine creation does not cease
until all things have found wholeness,
union, and integration
with the common ground of all being.
As children of the Timeless One,
our time-bound lives will find completion
in the all-embracing Creator.
In the meantime, we embrace the present,
embodying hope, loving our enemies,
caring for the earth,
choosing life.
Grateful for God’s loving action,
we cannot keep from singing.
Creating and seeking relationship,
in awe and trust,
we witness to Holy Mystery who is Wholly
Love.