River Road Church Baptist

November 20, 2005

Dr. Michael J. Clingenpeel

“Credo and Praise”

One of the most remarkable tools in the arsenal of modern technology is the remote control. It allows its holder, customarily male, to channel surf.

This is an activity at which I have developed some skill. I can surf channels while seated, standing, lying on my back, in the floor, on the sofa, sometimes behind my back. When it comes to channel surfing I am ambidextrous. For channel surfers, the beginning of a commercial is like waving the green flag at a NASCAR race; ESPN, ESPN2, Golf Channel, CNN, MSNBC, The Food Network, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, back to ESPN, whoops the commercial's still going they're still selling mufflers, now we go to the Travel Channel, to American Movie Classics, and finally to OLN, the Outdoor Life Network.

This presents no problem when I am in our den alone. But Vivian finds this practice annoying. At times that's the reason I do it. Yesterday, I was in a store here in Richmond and I saw a sign. It read, 'Husband for Sale, Television and Remote Control Included.' I thought I had been put on an auction block.

The remote control is an object of power. When I have the remote control in my hand, I am the governor, the CEO, the president and the king of my family room. When Vivian, on rare occasions, gets the remote control in her hand, I am a whimpering, quivering lump.

In her excellent book on worship under the provocative title, A Royal Waste of Time, Marva J. Dawn writes that "channel surfing with the remote control is the perfect illustration of our post-modern world.” We experience life from a distance. Life goes before us as a series of flickering, disconnected images that have no plot. It is a mishmash of feelings and impulses; a jumble of ideas and values.

I, like many of you, was born in a modern world, but like all of us, I now live in a post-modern world. In this generation, there has been a shift from the modern to the post-modern and, in the process, we have lost what is called our meta-narrative. The word 'meta-narrative,' is simply the overarching story that gives our lives focus, meaning and coherence. It is that common understanding of life and the world that connects us and gives to us our cultural consensus.

Therefore, life at the beginning of the 21 st century is like bones without ligaments or tendons, like a pile of puzzle pieces where there is no picture so we can know what we're trying to put together, like a night sky with no constellations where there are no fixed points or patterns by which a traveler can plot his course, no objective reference point, no north star, no moral compass to give our lives objective understanding. It is like a stream of flickering images across a screen when we sit and surf. We don't know who we are and we don't know where we are headed. We have forgotten our story, our meta-narrative.

The writer of the Psalms and the singers of the Psalter had not misplaced their meta-narrative, their story. Their story went something like this – in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and God said it was good. And God populated the earth with human beings and said it was very good. And these human beings marred this perfect creation by their desire to be their own gods and goddesses. Eventually, they became slaves in Egypt, but God delivered them from their slavery. Through the wilderness God guided them and into freedom in a land of promise. Every step along the way a gift and a miracle. God gave them a land-- Israel, a city-- Jerusalem, a building--the temple, a guide--the law, a ritual—worship, and all of this gave to this people of faith what our post-modern world is missing – meaning, focus, community, connection, a life that is coherent and has integrity. From this meta-narrative, this overarching story, they developed a credo; a set of beliefs or affirmations.

When I was a boy, being forced to memorize scripture, there were two Psalms I learned. The first was Psalm 23, and the second was Psalm 100. Psalm 100 is generally regarded as the second favorite Psalm or poem in the Psalter. Perhaps because of its simplicity, but mostly because of its wonderful affirmations.

Here they are – affirmation number one is that the Lord is God. The Psalmist said that the Lord to whom we make a joyful noise, to whom we sing our praise is not ‘a’ god, not one god among many equal gods, but is simply God. Christians take this one step further. We say that Jesus is Lord or God.

In his recent book on spiritual theology, Eugene Peterson writes that Jesus is “undiluted divinity and unadulterated humanity.” Jesus is fully God and fully human. It is the central affirmation of our credo.

Affirmation number two – God is Creator. The translation that was read for you this morning renders this “it is He that hath made us and we are His.” The one I learned and the one many of you learned is “it is He that hath made us and not we ourselves.” I rather like the older translation because too often we act as our own gods, believing that we possess the capacity to create without reference to the creative work of God. God is creator.

Affirmation number three – we are God's people; “the sheep of God's pasture” the text says. The world in which you and I graze on a daily basis with all of its abundance is God's world. God is the original environmentalist. Just as you and I care about the property that belongs to us, so God cares about the property that belongs to God, which is the world in which we graze. You and I are God's flock. Like sheep we need feeding and tending and protecting and nudging and occasionally God needs to grab us by the nape of our necks and jerk us back in the proper direction.

Affirmation number four – God is good. This is one of the first attributes of God I learned as a child when my mother and father taught me to pray “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food.” People are not always good. Circumstances are not always good, but God always wills the best for you and me.

Affirmation number five – God's mercy never, ever fails. God's mercy is like a great river. You and I can ride the river of mercy every day for the remainder of our lives and we will never navigate its length or its width or its depth. God's mercy is a never-failing, never-ending river that washes us along.

Ordinarily, you don't speak when I am speaking on the pulpit, but I'm going to ask you to speak just now. I'm going to ask you to repeat after me. The Lord is God, The Lord is God, God is Creator, God is Creator, We are God's People, We are God's People, God is good, God is good, God's mercy never fails, God's mercy never fails.

This is credo. These are affirmations of faith. These are the words that form the foundation of our lives. This is the story, the meta-narrative, that gives our lives their meaning, that gives us our community, that forms coherence.

And this credo becomes the foundation of all of our praise as people of faith. Interpreters, interestingly, do not agree with the setting of Psalm 100. All of them tend to agree that it was a Psalm used in the community. All of the imperative verbs are plural. But they disagree in the way it is used. Some interpreters say it functioned much in the same way that we sing the Doxology on Sunday mornings. As the offering is received and as we lift it up to God before the altar, so in those days when they received a thank offering to God they recited the Psalm as they presented it to God in the temple.

Other interpreters suggest that it functioned like we sing our processional hymn. A procession of worshippers entered into the temple and as they entered into the temple gates they recited this Psalm. Either way it is a psalm of praise to God.

It is clear that our praise to God takes many forms, not just one form. “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands, serve the Lord with gladness and come before His presence with singing. I have been in hundreds of Baptist churches around Virginia when I was editor of the Religious Herald. In Baptist churches around Virginia there is singing. There is also noise. I prefer the singing to the noise. Either way, however, either one can be worthy praise to God depending upon the hearts of the worshippers who render it.

Often we praise God verbally in a way that is cognitive, we understand it, but sometimes we praise God in more expressive ways; ways that we cannot understand, but that we feel with our hearts.

This Psalm does not exhaust the ways that human beings can render our praise to God. I remember worshipping one night in the midst of a banana plantation in Costa Rica with the workers in the banana plantation. Their worship was loud, expressive. There were drums and guitars and tambourines and clapped hands and raised hands, but it was praise to God, genuine praise to God.

It suggests to me the final truth of this Psalm and that is praise is not confined to one people.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.” In that day, a procession of worshippers came from across the Mediterranean world to the temple to render their praises unto God. Praise is for all of the earth.

Here is the way, interestingly, that this Psalm becomes an act of prophecy. The ultimate purpose of God is that one day all creation will recognize God's dominion over all things, every person, every creature, every part of God's creation will bow down to God. Paul expressed it so lyrically in his letter to the Philippians, "At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

Fifty-one Sundays ago, we began Advent. We began with waiting and longing and preparing for the coming of a Savior. Today is the final Sunday of our Christian year. Today we have come all the way through the cycle to where we are lifting our praises to God that Jesus is Lord. We are praising God that Jesus is Sovereign over creation. This is our credo. This is what we believe. This is what gives our life its coherence and its meaning and gives us our community. Ultimately, this is why we render our praise to God.

May we pray? God, we ask that you would not give us something easy to believe, but something great to believe and once we believe it, once it forms the foundation of our faith, we ask in the midst of the flickering images of this world that lack coherence and purpose that this credo would give us cause to praise you to the end of our days. Through Christ we pray, Amen.



MC; lmk, mt