psalms

Guidelines for Reading Scripture Effectively

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The public reading of Scripture is a skill that can be developed with experience and practice. Becoming sensitive to the nature of the scriptural text and the way in which listeners hear public reading is also an important aspect of this skill development. This chapter prescribes a series of helpful approaches to Scripture reading and gives several examples for how a given passage may be brought to life through public reading.

Stress Verb Action

To sense the movement in the reading, underline all the verbs: “May I never boast of anything but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! Through it, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. It means nothing whether one is circumcised or not. All that matters is that one is created anew. Peace and mercy on all who follow this rule of life, and on the Israel of God. Henceforth, let no man trouble me, for I bear the brand marks of Jesus in my body. Brothers, may the favor of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.”

Reread the entire passage aloud. As you do, push out the verbs which give a correct picture of what is going on. Sense the action and movement. Notice how the nouns, pronouns, and other words take their rightful secondary positions. Prepositions, which are the least important words (of, through, to, on, with, etc.), fall into the correct place as you catch the flow and movement in the reading.

Once you sense the movement, you are ready to interpret the emotions in the passage.

Express Emotions

Sunday worship becomes a shared belief when liturgical ministers openly express their feelings and emotions. But emotions scare some people who are still embarrassed by feelings displayed in a community setting.

The two writers of this handbook are convinced that Roman Catholics and other mainline Christian denominations are in no immediate danger of becoming overemotional in worship. If anything, we need to begin to express our honest feelings as a sign of our full relationships with God and with the community.

There is a legitimate variety of interpretations among lectors. What impresses one lector may not impress another. Taking that difference into consideration, how can lectors capture and express the emotions contained in the Scriptures? How do we proclaim with the intense feeling of a Jewish prophet? How do we convey the tenderness, anger, and worry often expressed in Paul’s letters?

In the previous section of this chapter, you learned how to emphasize verbs in order to convey the movement in Galatians 6:14–17. As you did, you may have also noticed Paul’s emotions, and, at the same time, how your own emotions were stirred.

Listen to what your feelings are telling you. Are you touched in some way? If so, stop and circle the emotion-filled words and phrases. Your task as a proclaimer is to unlock and express these emotions. Paul’s letters are quite a challenge for proclaimers who wish to capture his tenderness and concern for early Christian communities. Proclaim Paul’s letters as though it is as important for you to get the message across as it was for him to express it.

When you practice reading aloud, try to express the various emotions you feel. That is the way the Lord works through us. The way you are touched by a reading is the way you can proclaim it—if you give yourself permission to do so! Through you, the risen Jesus will touch others in the assembly.

During your proclamation, pause long enough to make certain you can shift gears emotionally. The proclaimer who takes the time to unlock the emotions in proclamation will do much to encourage the assembly to look up from their participation booklets and begin listening to God’s Word. Wouldn’t that be a nice change?

Become Sensitive to Hebrew Poetry

Read through Isaiah 66:10–14, the first reading for the fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C.

What difference do you detect in the way emotions are expressed by Paul and by Isaiah? Jesus, Isaiah, and all Jewish prophets expressed their emotions in a unique style found throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. The style is called Hebrew poetry.

The lines of Hebrew poetry are balanced. The same idea, mood, or emotion is repeated over and over again in concrete images.

Jewish poetry is probably different from the poetry familiar to you. The key to understanding this poetry is an appreciation of the parallel, balanced structure. Dom Celestin Charlier gives an excellent description:

Parallelism is the natural mold for an idea that can only be evoked by repetition and suggestion. Its purpose is not only to enrich the primary statement by giving it precision but also to create a gradual and insistent rhythm. The result can be compared to a succession of waves, ebbing and flowing over a rock, or to a series of concentric circles rising in a spiral around an axis. (The Christian Approach to the Bible [New York: Paulist Press, 1967], 138)

Look again at the reading from Isaiah. How many different moods are expressed in parallel fashion? Basically, one emotion is expressed, that of jubilant rejoicing. In the five verses of the reading, that emotion is expressed several times. How many parallel expressions do you find? We find at least twelve.

If you proclaim the Isaiah reading as prose or narrative, you will completely lose its meaning. To proclaim biblical poetry effectively, first recognize and study the parallel lines. Sense the main feeling in the passage. Experience the emotion rhythmically, like ocean waves hitting a beach. In your proclamation, convey this same feeling in a deliberate, unhurried manner. Your timing is essential. Pause briefly between parallel images. As you proclaim the rhythmic lines, paint concrete images.

Another example of Hebrew poetry is the responsorial psalm for each Sunday. The main emotion is expressed in the refrain. The refrain for Psalm 66, the psalm for the Fourteenth Sunday, Cycle C, is “Let all the earth cry out to God with Joy!” This sentiment is repeated in all 15 or 16 parallel lines.

Let all the earth cry out to God with joy
Shout joyfully to God, all you on earth
Sing praise to the glory of his name
Say to God, ‘How tremendous are your deeds!’

And so forth throughout the psalm.

This rhythmic, balanced style is found in the Psalms, the prophets, and the Old Testament wisdom literature, such as Proverbs, Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom. Soon you will easily recognize and enjoy proclaiming the poetic structure of Hebrew poetry.

Nervousness—Friend or Foe?

Getting rid of nervousness is uppermost in the minds of most lectors, especially those who are beginners in the ministry. Only two lectors out of more than 2,000 that we have worked with even claimed they do not feel nervous. It is normal to experience the jitters before doing something in public, whether acting in a play, giving a talk, or proclaiming the Word. Professionals who earn their livings in the public eye tell us nervousness actually aids in their effectiveness.

In our proclamation workshops, we have heard many successful remedies for the proclaimer’s Sunday morning case of nerves. Here are some suggestions that have worked for others:

First of all, admit to being nervous. That admission will begin to take the edge off your nervousness. At least you are no longer in the denial stage.

It may also help you to know that your nervousness is largely undetected by the assembly. (By the way, it is sound advice not to make eye contact with your children when you are proclaiming.)

Thorough preparation is the best deterrent to run-away jitters. The better your preparation, the less nervous you become.

Arrive early. Coming to church just on time is unsettling for you and the other liturgical ministers.

Do you worry about difficult-to-pronounce proper names? During your preparation sessions, telephone someone who can help you with the correct pronunciation. You may prefer to check a Sunday Lectionary Pronunciation Guide. It is best not to wait until Sunday morning to settle on the pronunciation you will use.

Take some deep breaths before starting the proclamation—not through the microphone, of course!

Offer your proclamation as a gift of love to your assembled sisters and brothers. This prayer said silently right before the moment of proclamation has helped control the nervousness of several lectors: “Father, I proclaim your Word because I love you and I love your people.”

Another way to control the shakes is to hold the lectionary in your hands during the proclamation. As you hold the book, nervous energy is released without the notice of the assembly. When the lectionary lies flat on the stand, or when your hands are tightly gripping the side railing, you have no chance to relieve your nervous feeling. Try holding the lectionary. It will relax you.

Nervousness often indicates a preoccupation with self. What will happen if you make a mistake? Chances are you will survive, and so will the assembly.

What should you do when you make a mistake? If your mistake has not changed the meaning of the passage, relax. Continue the proclamation. If your mistake does change the meaning, relax. Without words of apology, simply go back and repeat the phrase or sentence.

No assembly has a right to expect perfection in the proclamation. In fact, a faith-filled proclaimer who occasionally makes mistakes is preferred over a perfect but lifeless lector.

Do you still feel nervous? That’s normal. Properly channeled, your nervousness will help you become a better proclaimer.

Your Body Speaks

Dress appropriately for the occasion. Your Sunday best will do. Choir robes or clerical vestments seem out of place for this ministry. The Word you proclaim is a Word that has become flesh in our world. Lay garb makes a statement to that effect.

In many parishes, the lector carries the lectionary in procession. Hold the book high enough to be seen, but not so high that you feel awkward. Be dignified. Walk with a purpose. Don’t rush. When carrying God’s Word, there is no need to bow or genuflect.

Proclaim from the large dignified lectionary, not from a flimsy paperback.

When you are at the podium, act natural. Be yourself. Stand with your two feet firmly planted on the floor or platform. Your parish liturgy committee may wish to provide a small stool at the podium so that shorter lectors can be easily seen.

Your body also speaks through eye contact and gestures, which will be treated later in this chapter.

Effective Breathing

Though our lungs have been taking in air all our lives, many of us do not know how to breathe deeply and correctly. The following exercises will help you breathe effectively.

Stand up. Place your hands on your sides, above your hips, just at the base of your rib cage. Breathe through your nostrils. Inhale deeply. As you inhale, your diaphragm expands, and you feel your hands being pushed away from your sides.

Exhale slowly and let the air completely out of your lungs. As your diaphragm contracts, you feel your hands sink into your sides.

Repeat several times, with your hands on your sides. Inhale deeply. Exhale deeply.

When you first attempt this deep breathing exercise, there is a good chance you may feel dizzy. If this happens, sit down and relax. The dizziness will pass. Through correct breathing, you have merely taken in more oxygen than you are accustomed to.

Continue the exercise. Inhale. Your diaphragm expands and your hands are pushed away from your sides. Exhale. Your diaphragm contracts and your hands sink into your sides. Inhale. Exhale.

In deep breathing, there is no reason why the sound of your breathing should be much louder than your normal breathing. When you are breathing correctly, you can take in a great deal of air without a whooshing sound picked up by the mike system.

When you breathe, your shoulders should remain level. Movement of the shoulders actually constricts breathing. In deep breathing, there is a great expansion of the diaphragm and some expansion of your chest.

Practice the breathing exercise until you have mastered it well enough to feel your diaphragm expand and contract without having your hands on your sides. Correct breathing will help you in volume and voice projection.

Volume and Voice Projection

Most new lectors have to learn to project their voices. Even the most excellent microphone system does not compensate for a lack of voice projection and poor volume.

Get familiar with the mike system in your church. Arrange to have a practice session with another lector. Turn off the microphone. Have one lector stand in the back of the church. That person asks the lector at the podium to repeat each line with greater voice projection until the lector can be easily heard by the person standing in the rear of the church. That is probably the level of projection needed with a live microphone when the church is full for Sunday liturgy.

Every word is important. Attack the first word: “A READING FROM.… ” When you project your voice adequately, the volume takes care of itself.

Voice projection is not the same as shouting. Projection is a skill everyone can learn, even people who are soft-spoken in normal conversation.

Be sure to ask someone for feedback after the liturgy. You will soon become aware of the progress you are making, and you will feel better about yourself as a proclaimer.

Clear Enunciation

Exaggeration is the key to good enunciation. Use your lips, your teeth, and the tip of your tongue. Guard against lazy lips and a lazy tongue. Your diction for ordinary conversation probably falls short of what is needed in your proclamation.

A tape recorder used during a practice session will reveal which sounds you tend to slur. Do you say “Peter and Paul,” or “Peter ’n’ Paul”? Do you habitually swallow final syllables? Try to distinguish between final “t” and final “d.” Is the word “lend” or “lent?”

Every lector needs to improve his or her diction to some degree. One lector who had had speech therapy received the following exercise to achieve clearer diction: Say “B D F L M P T V” as quickly and distinctly as possible.

Another diction exercise is to say quickly: “Use the lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue.”

One lector recommended that as you drive to church make the “BBBRRR” sound that children use when they play with toy cars. That sound will get the blood flowing in your lips, thereby improving your diction.

Finally, we should mention that good diction is attainable only if you open your mouth sufficiently.

Try all these suggestions. Find out what works best for you.

Pace, Pauses and Eye Contact

Most lectors, regardless of experience in the ministry, are rapid public readers. Nervousness only compounds the speed problem. If your pace is too rapid, you will be unable to use pauses and eye contact effectively.

A tape recorder in a practice session will reveal your pace as rapid or slow. The best way to counteract rapid pace is to slow down deliberately, right from the first words of your proclamation: “A READING FROM.… ” Pauses and successful eye contact go hand in hand. Plan them during your practice session. Use a pause and eye contact at the conclusion of a thought so that your listeners have time to grasp the thought. You are familiar with the thought. The assembly has one chance to catch it.

Eye contact is also appropriate when a strong emotion is delivered. A few well-planned eye contracts are usually sufficient.

Some lectors avoid eye contact because they fear losing their place on the page. To keep your place, have one hand always on the lectionary page. Don’t run your finger back and forth across the page, but let your hand slide down the page as you go through the reading. Place your finger at the exact place where you will resume after making eye contact.

New lectors are generally at one of two extremes with regard to eye contact. Some try to use too much eye contact, which lessens its effectiveness. Others are wary of eye contact. All lectors can safely make deliberate eye contact in at least two places in each reading: Right after announcing the reading, “A Reading from the Prophet Isaiah,” and just before concluding with, “This is the Word of the Lord!”

Beware of too much eye contact. Some lectors look up too frequently and without reason. What results is the bobber effect? Meaningless eye contact distracts the assembly and causes the flow of thought to be lost. Pause briefly, with your head bowed, after each reading. No explanation is necessary for the assembly to understand the gesture. Your bowed head gently invites the assembly to reflect on the Word just proclaimed.

Any Other Gestures?

Occasionally, we hear of someone who argues in favor of free and extensive gestures for the lector. Only three gestures are appropriate: carrying the lectionary in procession; holding the lectionary during proclamation; and occasional well-planned eye contact.

Keep your eyes primarily on the lectionary page. You are proclaiming the Lord’s Word from the lectionary, not your own thoughts or ideas.

A completely memorized proclamation should also be avoided. Attention becomes focused on the performer.

Sharing Faith Convictions

From childhood, many of us have been discouraged from expressing negative feelings: Don’t be angry, fearful, or jealous. And so we are generally uncomfortable with negative reactions in ourselves and in others. The result is that when we turn off expressions of negative feelings, we also become unable to share positive feelings freely. Therefore, many of us have to learn how to share our faith with others.

Make the decision to share your faith as you proclaim the Word. Gradually you will improve in your ability to do so. If you become discouraged, keep trying.

How can you tell when you are making progress? Ask yourself the following questions: Am I expressing genuine enthusiasm when I proclaim the Word? Is my faith conviction transparent? Do I proclaim the readings as an urgent invitation to Eucharist?

Planning Psalms for Singing in Worship

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Building on centuries of tradition, churches in almost every worshiping tradition are rediscovering the value of singing the Psalms in worship. The following article describes several possibilities for the inclusion of the Psalms in worship. The article is especially concerned with planning worship in the Reformed tradition, which has always placed a high value on singing the Psalms, but the ideas it presents can be easily applied to worship in any tradition.

The Psalms have been used in numerous ways in Christian liturgy, at least three of which are familiar to congregations in the Reformed tradition. First, and perhaps most familiar to most of us, is the use of psalms as expressions of the congregation’s successive acts of praise, penitence, dedication, and thankfulness. For example, a congregation might begin a service by reciting the votum (“our help is in the name of the Lord”) from Psalm 124:8. The minister continues with the greeting and blessing, and the congregation responds by singing a psalm of praise, perhaps Psalm 95 or 150. The service of penitence includes a general confession of sin and/or a penitential psalm, possibly Psalm 51 or 130. Following the declaration of pardon comes the reading of the Law, which may be followed by a sung selection from Psalm 119. And so on throughout the service.

A second way of using the Psalms—linking psalms to Scripture text and sermon—is also familiar to Reformed Christians. Though not every text and sermon can be matched precisely with an appropriate psalm, often a minister can find a few verses that will echo something in the text. For example, a congregation might sing Psalm 82 in conjunction with a reading from Amos, where the common emphasis is on doing justice to the poor and weak. A third way is to choose both psalm and text to reflect a particular season or feast of the church year (e.g., Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost). This third way of using the Psalms is closely related to the second and is frequently practiced in our churches. Both of these can be grouped under the broad heading of a “psalm-of-the-day” approach.

A variation of this third way comes with the use of a lectionary oriented to the church year. In recent years many denominations have begun to use the three-year Common Lectionary or some variation thereof. This practice has had the effect not only of increasing the amount of Scripture heard and preached in such churches but also of reviving the liturgical use of psalmody.

Those churches who follow the lectionary read three biblical passages each Sunday, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament epistles (including the Acts or the Revelation), and one from the Gospels. Between the reading of the Old and New Testament lessons, a Psalm is appointed to be said or sung, one that generally relates in some way to one or more of the lectionary texts. For example, on Christmas Day the appointed Psalm will be either 96, 97, or 98 depending on whether it falls in year A, B, or C in the three-year cycle. On Ash Wednesday Psalm 51 is read every year, as is Psalm 22 on Good Friday. On the first Sunday in Lent Psalms 130, 6, and 91 are read during years A, B, and C respectively.

In adopting the new lectionary, many churches that have historically been weak in the singing of psalms have now made the Psalter an integral part of their liturgies. The lectionary has transformed Roman, Anglican, Lutheran, and other churches into psalm-singing churches. It is becoming increasingly less probable that one can attend to the liturgy of these churches without hearing at least one psalm. The lectionary is not, of course, the only way to revive the liturgical use of psalmody, but it is a significant means to this end. Moreover, unlike the first way of using the Psalms, the “psalm-of-the-day” approach ensures a place for at least one psalm in the liturgy. Those congregations that are weak in psalm-singing would do well to consider the use of some variety of the three-year lectionary.

Which of these ways of using the Psalms is the best? The “psalm-of-the-day” approach? Or the approach whereby several psalms are used in the course of the liturgy? I would suggest that neither of these is any more Reformed than the other and that, furthermore, both are mutually compatible and ought to be put to use. One can easily envision an Easter Communion liturgy in which Psalm 118 is sung as the appointed psalm in accordance with the lectionary and Psalm 103 is sung after the reception of Communion. Both of these ways of using the Psalms work well together and have a long tradition within the Christian church as a whole.

Ways of Singing the Psalms in Worship

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The Psalms have been traditionally sung two ways in worship, to metrical paraphrases of the Psalms paired with hymn tunes and to the literal prosaic translations of the Psalms paired with plainchant melodies or psalm-tones. The following article explains these two approaches in more detail.

Psalm-singing Christians basically fall into two categories: those who chant the Psalms directly from the Bible and those who sing metrical paraphrases of the Psalms, in which the biblical text is reworked in poetic meter and (often) rhyme.

Metrical Psalmody

Churches with Reformed and Presbyterian roots traditionally are part of the second group, the tradition known as “metrical psalmody.” They have sung the Psalms almost exclusively in metered, paraphrased stanzas, and they have done so for obvious reasons. Congregations find metrical psalms easy to learn. And when a psalm is well translated into verse and set to an appropriate tune of regular rhythmic structure, it can be a joy to sing.

Yet there are some perils involved in the use of metrical psalms. First of all, a paraphrase is a paraphrase. The demands of meter and rhyme often necessitate changing a given text and even stretching its meaning somewhat. Worse yet, a rigid metrical pattern may require that such psalms be rendered in an extremely awkward form. In the Scottish Psalter of 1650, for example, the metrical paraphrase of Psalm 23 includes lines such as the following: “He leadeth me the quiet waters by.”

Fortunately, contemporary versifiers of metrical psalmody have felt free to depart from even such conventional patterns as rhyme and generally have been more successful in communicating a psalm’s original meaning in comprehensible form. A well-known collection of these “freer” metrical psalms is Psalm Praise (London: Church Pastoral Aid Society, 1973), a book that was published to popularize psalm-singing among Anglicans in the United Kingdom.

Second, singing the Psalms to conventional hymn tunes can cause confusion, especially if the hymn tunes are well known. Hearing the same tune sung to both a hymn text and a psalm text tends to reinforce the notion that psalms and hymns are largely interchangeable—a notion that may be responsible (at least in part) for the historical tendency of hymnody to replace psalmody in most Protestant communions. Recovery of the Genevan tunes, most of which have not been attached to other texts, may be one way to combat this confusion.

Third, rendering the Psalms in conventional Western meters usually means losing the Hebrew poetic forms. For example, the Psalms were written in accordance with what has come to be called “parallelism,” whereby a certain thought is repeated twice but in different words: Save me, O God, by thy name, and vindicate me by thy might. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. (RSV)

In these first two verses of Psalm 54 the second line echoes the first, and the fourth restates the third. This parallelism is easily retained in a standard translation such as the rsv or niv but is often difficult to manage in a metrical paraphrase.

Chanting the Psalms

Pointed Psalms. In contrast, chanting the Psalms permits the use of a standard translation that not only is more faithful to the Hebrew but also retains the Hebrew poetic patterns. The Lutheran Book of Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1978) offers one of the simplest patterns for chanting the Psalms (using the translation in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer); the pattern involves a limited number of chant tones that a congregation will find easy to master. Lutheran Worship (St. Louis: Concordia, 1982), the hymnal of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, offers a similar method of chanting the Psalms (as translated in the NIV), using chant tones that are more modal in flavor.

The prose psalm texts are “pointed” for congregational chanting. Each psalm verse is divided by an asterisk (*). The first note in each part of the verse is a reciting tone to which one or more syllables are sung. At the “point” (asterisk), singers move from the reciting tone to the black notes. A vertical mark (|) indicates one syllable per black note; a horizontal mark (–) indicates one syllable per two black notes.

Gelineau Chant. One of the more interesting ways of singing the Psalms was developed by Joseph Gelineau of France. Of all the methods of singing the Psalms, Gelineau’s chant best preserves the Hebrew poetic style, retaining both the parallelism and the metrical structure of the original. Ancient Hebrew meter is somewhat like early English meter (e.g., nursery rhymes) in that it focuses on the number of stresses within a line rather than on the number of syllables. Gelineau psalmody is often sung to the Grail translation, which was produced specifically for this purpose. Gelineau psalmody also takes into account the different number of lines within each stanza—something that is not possible with other methods of psalm-chanting.

Gelineau psalms are usually sung responsively. The soloist or choir begins by singing the refrain; then the congregation repeats it. The psalm then proceeds responsively with a soloist or choir chanting the verses and the congregation responding with the refrain. Many Roman Catholics, who have recently begun congregational singing, have found this “responsorial” style of psalm-singing very helpful. A refrain (or antiphon, an older term) is much easier to learn than the whole psalm. Among Protestants who are used to exclusive metrical psalmody, the responsorial style has the advantage of making a clear distinction between psalms and hymns. Rather than simply reading the psalm directly from the Bible or singing a paraphrased version of it metrically, the congregation can sing the actual words from Scripture.

Other Methods of Singing the Psalms. Other ways of singing the Psalms include the Anglican chant, which involves a choir (though not necessarily) singing in harmony to speech rhythms, and the Gregorian chant, which is the more ancient method of psalm-chanting, simple enough to be used by either cantor or congregation. Examples of these can be found in the service music section of many denominational hymnals.

The Theological Significance of the Psalms in Worship

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The biblical Psalter is the most important prayer book in both Jewish and Christian worship. The Psalms have shaped both the language used in Christian worship and the very idea of what worship is. This article describes the conception of worship implied in the Psalms. The Psalter can help a Christian community realize its full potential for worship in Jesus’ name.

Christ, the Sacrifice of Praise, the Reign of God

In quoting from Psalm 110, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews demonstrates that this ancient, messianic psalm has been fulfilled in Jesus. At the same time, we are given here a “liturgical theology” that provides a threefold framework for understanding the place of the Psalms, the liturgy, and all Christian prayer in the economy of salvation. The framework consists of (1) a Christology (who is this Christ?), (2) a doxology (what does it mean to offer praise?), and (3) an eschatology (where is all this leading?): All Christian prayer is offered through the Messiah who has taken his seat at God’s right hand. Although his offering has already perfected those who are being sanctified, we continue to offer the sacrifice of praise while he waits until his enemies are placed beneath his feet. Until that time, all acceptable worship, including the liturgical praying of psalms, is a sacrifice of praise offered through Christ.

Psalms in Israel’s Worship. This liturgical theology may have roots in the worship of Israel where the Psalter originated. Walter Brueggemann, in summarizing the work of Sigmund Mowinckel, notes that in the early period of the Jerusalem temple, the king supervised an annual festival in which “Yahweh was once again enthroned as sovereign for the coming year.” The Davidic king “played the role of Yahweh and was enthroned on his behalf,” legitimizing the Davidic monarchy “which was also liturgically renewed in the festival.” Eschatology, as “a projection of hope into the future out of a cultic enactment that never fully met expectations,” was also manifest in this liturgy:

The cultic act, which is an act of liturgic imagination in and of itself, opens to a future that is in tension with “business as usual.” … Cult and eschatology together mediate an alternative that critiques the present world and invites liberation from it. (Israel’s Praise: Doxology against Idolatry and Ideology [Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress Press, 1988], 4-5)

Brueggemann suggests that Mowinckel’s insight here is of paramount importance: worship is “world-making”; liturgy is “constitutive and not merely responsive” (Ibid., 6–7). This has immediate relevance for the use of the Psalms in the Christian liturgy: “If the subject of the liturgy is kingship—of Yahweh, of David, or derivatively of Jesus—then the liturgy serves to authorize, recognize, acknowledge, coronate, legitimate the ruler and the order that belongs to that ruler.” While the world may look upon this as “subjective self-deception,” nevertheless “the assembly … knows that the reality of God is not a reality unless it is visibly done in, with, and by the community” (Ibid., 10).

Fulfilled in the Paschal Mystery. Since for Israel the Psalms derived from liturgical acts in which the praise of God, Davidic (Messianic) sovereignty, and eschatological expectation all converge, it was only natural that the earliest Christian communities should see in Jesus the fulfillment of all these things of which the psalms speak: he is the Messiah who sits at God’s right hand.

In Matthew 22:41–46, Jesus himself fulfills the messianic interpretation of Psalm 110:1 that was common in his day when he asks, “If the Messiah is David’s Son, why does David call him ‘Lord’?” Hebrews 10 goes further: Jesus is not only Messiah (David’s son and Lord); he is also the fulfillment and perfection of all worship in the old dispensation—its sacrifices, its priesthood, its singing of the Psalms. Christ himself is the new liturgy. In the perspective of the Letter to the Hebrews, we can now comprehend all the Psalms—indeed the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures and worship—within their “truest” setting, that of the paschal mystery. When the Christian community prays the psalms, Christ is in our midst glorifying the Father and sanctifying us who have already been perfected. All prayer in Christ is the praise of God, which transforms us and the whole world.

The Psalms and Liturgical Prayer

Thus far, only a single verse of a single psalm has been considered, but the whole Psalter can be understood from the Christological, doxological, and eschatological perspective that we have seen in the Letter to the Hebrews. The Psalms concretize for us what it means to pray through, with, and in Christ; to offer praise to God; to acknowledge and be transformed by the order of God’s reign. Worship, as Brueggemann noted, is both responsive and constitutive, a reply to God’s self-revelation and a “world-making” event. In prayer, we respond to God and in so doing are transformed—whole and entire—into the image of Christ.

Through, with, and in Christ. The Psalms, as part of sacred Scripture, are the Word of God, God’s revelation to us. Responsorial psalmody—“receiving” the refrain and giving it back—gives sacramental form to this theological dynamic. We can only return what God has first given to us as an utter gift: “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me? The cup of salvation I will take up, and I will call upon the name of the Lord” (Ps. 116:12–13, nab). The recognition that God is the prior, original mover of all prayer is the essence of every act of praise and thanksgiving: “O Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall declare your praise” (Ps. 51:17, nab). In the words of the General Instructions on the Roman Missal and on the Liturgy of the Hours, “Through the chants, the people make God’s word their own” (General Instructions on the Roman Missal, 33 hereafter referred to as GIRM). “Our sanctification is accomplished and worship is offered to God in the liturgy of the hours in such a way that an exchange or dialogue is set up between God and us, so that ‘God is speaking to his people … and the people are responding to him both by song and prayer’ ” (General Instructions on the Liturgy of Hours, 14, hereafter referred to as GILH; cf. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 33, hereafter referred to as SC). But Christ himself—God’s perfect word to humanity and the perfect human response to God—is the incarnation of this divine-human dialogue who “introduced into this land of exile the hymn of praise which reechoes eternally through the halls of heaven” (Paul VI, Laudis Canticum). Our participation in the Psalms is nothing short of our participation in the eternal, divine-human dialogue of Christ and the Father. We pray through him as the one high priest, the only mediator; we pray with him as head of the body whose members we are; we pray in him since his offering alone is acceptable once and for all.

Offering the Sacrifice of Praise. The many psalms of praise and adoration are what Thomas Merton calls “psalms par excellence.… They are more truly psalms than all the others, for the real purpose of a psalm is to praise God” (Bread in the Wilderness [New York: New Direction, 1953], 27). “I will praise your name forever, my king and my God” (Ps. 145:1). “My soul give praise to the Lord and bless his holy name” (103:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you” (67:4). “Alleluia! Praise God in the holy dwelling-place! Praise God with timbrel and dance, strings and pipes! Let everything that lives and that breathes give praise to the Lord. Alleluia!” (Ps. 150). The doxological character of all the Psalms—even the laments—must have been uppermost in the minds of the ancient temple liturgists who collected them into the Psalter which in Hebrew is tehellim, “songs of praise” and in Greek, πσαλμοι, “songs to be sung to the psaltery (lute or harp)” (see GILH, 103). Doxology—the praise and glorification of God and acknowledgment of God’s reign—is the origin and the fulfillment, the “primary theology” of all Christian life and prayer. In singing the Psalms with Christ, we articulate explicitly that sacrifice of praise that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

The Transformation of Ourselves and the World. While “we wait in joyful hope” for all things to be subjected to him, put under his feet, (i.e., to acknowledge and be transformed by the order of God’s reign) the Psalms give us the words with which we subject or surrender ourselves—mind, heart, body—to God, that we may participate ever more fully in the dialogue of Christ and his Father, the praise which is sung forever.

Our minds—our cognitive powers—our intellects are freely submitted to Christ in the many psalms which focus on the law, the “way of life”: “O search me, God, and know my heart, O test me and know my thoughts; See that I follow not the wrong path and lead me in the way of life eternal” (Ps. 139:23–24); “Lord, make me know your ways, teach me your paths; Make me walk in your truth and teach me for you are God my savior” (Ps. 25:4–5); “I will ponder all your precepts and consider your paths; teach me the demands of your statutes and I will keep them to the end” (Ps. 119:15, 33). But Christ is the Way and the fulfillment of the law. Pondering the precepts of his Gospel means training our minds to think as Christ thinks.

Our hearts and feelings, too, must come under his rule. The great variety of psalms permit us first to admit the entire array of emotions that are ours as human beings and then express them before God: “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy” (Ps. 126:3); “Be merciful, O Lord, for I have sinned” (Ps. 51:3); “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Ps. 22:2); “Like a deer that longs for running streams, my soul thirsts for you” (Ps. 42:2); “I am afflicted and in pain; let your saving help, O God, protect me” (Ps. 69:30); “O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor are my eyes haughty” (Ps. 131:1); “How great is your name, O Lord, our God, through all the earth!” (Ps. 8:1). Jesus, who shared fully in our humanity, shared likewise all our emotions. Yet his feelings and the expression of them were free from sin—that is, they were kept within the sphere of his loving, obedient relationship to God. It is precisely our expressing of these emotions in prayer that transforms them into Christian affections. Our surrender of anger, frustration, sinfulness, fear, hope, joy, or wonder to God is itself an act of faith. I can pray, “I hate them with a perfect hate and they are foes to me” (Ps. 139:22), and I can pray, “May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life! May you see your children’s children in a happy Jerusalem!” (Ps. 128:5–6) with equal honesty because, in prayer, my desire for either revenge or blessing is surrendered to God; in prayer, it is transformed into praise. This holds true even for the liturgical psalms that do not happen to match our personal feelings at any particular time; for in the liturgy, we pray the prayer of Christ whose heart embraces the affections of the entire human race: “Those who pray the psalms in the liturgy of the hours do so not so much in their own name as in the name of the entire Body of Christ” (GILH, 108). With him, we articulate the frustrations, hopes, sorrows, and joys of everyone, and we offer this “world-transforming” sacrifice “for the life of the world.”

Our bodies and senses are not excluded; they are caught up together with mind and heart in the surrender of praise: “Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices, even my body shall rest in safety” (Ps. 16:9); “Let my prayer arise before you like incense, the raising of my hands like an evening oblation” (Ps. 141:2); “All peoples, clap your hands … ” (Ps. 47:1); “Come in, let us bow and bend low, let us bend the knee before him” (Ps. 95:6); “Let them praise his name with dancing and make music with timbrel and harp” (Ps. 149:3); “Look towards him and be radiant, let your faces not be abashed” (Ps. 34:6); “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord” (Ps. 34:9); “Your robes are fragrant with aloes and myrrh” (Ps. 45:9); “O that today you would hear his voice!” (Ps. 95:7).

Even our ability to pray must be handed over. The Psalms dispose us to move beyond cognitive, affective, and physical activity to contemplation: the absolute stillness of being, awaiting God’s self-manifestation. Merton writes:

The psalms are theology. That means that they place us in direct contact with God, through the assent of faith to His Revelation. It is because of this theological and dynamic effect that the psalms are steps to contemplation. This theological effect depends ultimately on a free gift of God.… If we chant the psalms with faith, God will manifest himself to us; and that is contemplation (Bread in the Wilderness, 14–15).

The Psalms “rehearse” us in the attitude of absolute faith, openness to God’s will, total surrender to God’s presence: “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want … he leads me near restful waters to revive my drooping spirit” (Ps. 23:1–2); “I have set my soul in silence and peace; a weaned child on its mother’s breast” (Ps. 131:2); “Lord, you search me and you know me, you know my resting and my rising, you discern my purpose from afar” (Ps. 139:1–2); “What else have I in heaven but you? Apart from you I want nothing on earth” (Ps. 73:25); “You do not ask for sacrifice and offering, but an open ear … not holocaust and victim, instead here am I” (Ps. 40:7–8). God gives us the ability to pray; we respond in prayer. God enables us to surrender even our response; we find God waiting there for us.

The whole of creation, the tangible, physical world is also involved with us in being transformed, placed under his feet. In the praying of the Psalms, we are “tuned in” to the silent song in which “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows forth the work of God’s hands … no speech no word, no voice is heard yet their span extends through all the earth, their message reaches the utmost bounds of the world” (Ps. 19:2–5). We hear too, “The Lord’s voice resounding on the waters … the Lord’s voice shattering the cedars of Lebanon … shaking the wilderness … rending the oak tree and stripping the forest bare … the God of glory thunders, in his temple they all cry ‘Glory!’ ” (Ps. 29:3–10). In return, we lend our voices to the praise of “sea creatures and all oceans, fire, and hail, snow, and mist, stormy winds that obey his word; all mountains and hills, all fruit trees and cedars, beasts wild and tame, reptiles and birds on the wing” (Ps. 148:7–8) and articulate creation’s wordless groaning for the fulfillment of all that has been promised.

For the Sake of the World. Our surrender of self and our voicing of the praise of creation is not without repercussions for the rest of humanity. We celebrate the liturgy and “make music to our God Most High” (Ps. 92:1) in order that all peoples may come to acknowledge the glory of God: “O sing to the Lord, bless his name. Proclaim God’s help day by day, tell among the nations his glory, and his wonders among all the peoples” (Ps. 96:2–3); that “the gentiles themselves should say, ‘What marvels the Lord worked for them!’ ” (Ps. 126:2) and “all nations learn your saving help” (Ps. 67:3). Our sacrifice of praise is accepted as one with the sacrifice of Christ.

These ancient, inspired, liturgical songs thus concretize the deepest truths of Christian prayer. Like the liturgy itself, the Psalms invite and enable us and the world in which we live to “authorize, recognize, acknowledge, coronate, legitimate the ruler” of the universe “and the order that belongs to that ruler.” When all peoples and all creation join us together with all the angels and saints in that hymn of endless praise which Christ introduced and sings forever, then all opposition to his rule will be placed under his feet.

In the meantime, we would do well to follow the advice of St. Benedict: “Let us consider how we ought to behave in the presence of God and his angels and let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices (Regula 19.6–7).

We can paraphrase the words of Benedict in light of the Christological, doxological, and eschatological perspective with which we have examined the liturgical use of the Psalms: “Let us consider who we are in the midst of those who praise God unceasingly; we should conform all our gestures, words, and actions to the voice of the liturgy—its psalms in particular—so that ours may be the mind, heart, and body of Christ.”

A Paradigm for the Church Music of the Future

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All of us have personal preferences. Some prefer blue over green. Some prefer a trip to the beach over a trip to the mountains. Some favor grits over hash browns, country music over rock. And almost everyone favors the home team over the visitors.

But while we smile at some of our preferences, our religious preferences are often quite a different matter. For some reason, our own particular religious traditions and experiences tend to color our ideas of what God’s preferences are and aren’t. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of worship styles. How quickly our preferences become biases. And how easily our biases become walls that keep us from the larger body of Christ and from fuller expressions of worship.

The sum total of these distinctives and preferences is termed culture. Every individual and group is part of a culture. Worship and culture are closely related. It is interesting that the root word for culture is cult, which is, in its simplest definition, a system of worship or devotion. You could say our culture reflects our worship. We should neither despise nor deny our culture, for it helps to give us the initial parameters for personal identity, but we must thoughtfully evaluate all our ways in light of God’s ways. When God says that His ways are higher than our ways (Isa. 55:9) he is saying that his divine culture is higher than our human culture. The Lausanne Covenant of 1974 appeals for churches to be “deeply rooted in Christ and closely related to their culture.”

Culture must always be tested and judged by Scripture.… The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria of truth and righteousness.… Churches have sometimes been in bondage to culture rather than to the Scripture.”

Denominations within the church are typically cultural divisions before they are theological. They have to do with conflicting folkways. A Presbyterian pastor made this observation: “Part of the problem in coming into unity is that we have recruited people into personality distinctives of our own congregations and traditions, rather than into Christ. As a result, their loyalties are more to these distinctives than to Christ’s Kingdom.” In the spirit of Lausanne, we need to evaluate our traditions of worship—whether historic traditions or more recent renewal traditions—in light of Scripture to see if we are adherents of an approach to Christ or of Christ himself.

Toward Understanding Divine Preferences

Music powerfully communicates culture. That’s why the church’s music is so vital in communicating its life. Even the effects of a vibrant sermon can be canceled out by lifeless music. Some would observe that the music more accurately reflects the life of the congregation than do the words spoken.

What are we communicating culturally? What kinds of songs should we be singing? What are the parameters of biblical worship? Do our biases keep us from a fuller expression of worship? The easy answer to these kinds of questions goes something like this: “God is only concerned with the attitude of our hearts, not the forms of our expressions.” Granted, the heart’s disposition is primary, but should we not allow God to transform and enlarge our forms as well as our hearts? It’s not that our worship traditions are intrinsically wrong … just incomplete.

Consider these three statements as beginning points in this discussion of biblical patterns of worship:

  1. True worship is both spiritual and intellectual. “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
  2. Heavenly worshipers worship the God of the past, present, and future. “Day and night they never stop saying: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” (Rev. 4:8, see also Rev. 1:4, 8).
  3. In the New Testament, God endorses three primary song forms: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you … sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16, see also Eph. 5:19–20).

Spirit and Truth

Today some segments of the church specialize primarily in spirit. Favorite teaching topics in the churches would likely include “Hearing God” and “Being Led by the Spirit.” Leaders encourage followers to develop intuitive skills. Worship is generally spontaneous and Spirit-led.

Other segments of the church specialize primarily in truth. Among these groups, biblical scholarship and critical thinking are held in high esteem. Here worship is more orderly and structured.

Each tradition is suspicious of the other and often reinforces its own uniqueness to justify its existence. Facing these tendencies is very difficult but very necessary. But Jesus said that true worshipers must worship in spirit and truth … not one or the other. If we love to “flow in the Spirit” but are impatient with the process of making careful observations, we are not yet the kind of worshipers God is looking for. If we are diligent students and yet we can’t make room for someone to base a claim on revelation, we are not yet the worshipers that please God.

If the worship in our congregation only attracts critical thinkers, it’s time to do some critical thinking about our own cultural preferences. If our congregation is attracting only the intuitive or feeling types, it’s time to ask the Spirit to lead us into all truth. Biblical worship is to be spiritual and thoughtful. These two components are implied in Romans 12:1 in the phrase logikos latreia, which is translated in the NIV as either “spiritual act of worship” or “reasonable act of worship.”

Past, Present, and Future

Some of us are more familiar with what God is saying than what God has said, to the point that we disdain any reference to history. I have heard this referred to as “the cult of contemporaneity.” Others are well versed in what has gone on before us and yet out of touch with what is going on now. One pastor confidently told me that nothing of any significance has happened in the church in the last 250 years. Most likely the church he pastors will be populated with those who are friendly to that point of view.

Still others of us are so future-oriented that we fail to worship the God of the past and the present. We must not try to confine God’s kingdom exclusively to past, present, or future reality. Each is only partial reflections of God’s glory.

Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

Some charismatic churches tend to sing choruses to the exclusion of hymns. Some traditional churches sing hymns to the exclusion of choruses. And a very small percentage of churches have any significant experience with spiritual songs. In contrast, God’s Word invites us all to express our gratitude through all three song forms.

To sing a psalm is not necessarily the equivalent of singing from the book of Psalms. A psalm is a song. The term psalm, like song, can be used in a general or a specific sense. In general usage, it would include a hymn, just as there are hymns included in the book of Psalms.

In the specific sense, however, a psalm would contrast with a hymn. Similar to what we today call choruses, a psalm, or song, is generally simpler, shorter, more testimonial, and less theological than a hymn. A hymn would usually carry a greater sense of reverence; a song would be more personal. The psalm is more contemporary and has a shorter life span.

The spiritual song is even more of a song-of-the-moment. The spiritual song that consists of spontaneous melodies around a chord or a slowly moving chord progression, has been referred to as the “song of angels” because of its mystical, otherworldly quality. Even as the Spirit is the believer’s down payment on the future age, the spiritual song must be a foretaste of heavenly worship itself.

The genius of these three song forms is that each is uniquely appropriate to express a dimension of God’s nature and each will speak for a different kind of personality, as well as the different facets of the individual. The hymn corresponds to the God who was—the God of history; the psalm corresponds to the God who is—the God of the now, and the spiritual song corresponds to the God who is to come—the God of the future. The hymn will satisfy our hunger for truth and depth of understanding; the psalm will speak to our need for encounter and experience, and the spiritual song will stimulate the prophet and visionary in us.

The command to employ psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs requires greater cultural flexibility than we have had in order to enjoy the variety of worship expressions. For instance, the youth of the church will probably prefer a more contemporary style of worship than the older members. The common solution to this cultural problem is to segregate the youth church from the adult church. But the psalms-hymns-and-spiritual-songs paradigm begs for a different solution: diversity within unity. This new paradigm allows the contemporary and the historic to stand side by side and challenges our hearts to greater love. It means being both reverent and celebrative, objective and subjective, structured and spontaneous, testimonial and theological.

Instead of affirming our own strengths and acknowledging the limitations of other traditions, we must begin to recognize the limitations of our own traditions and affirm the strengths of others. The result will be that our own preferences will be enjoyed by others, as well as enlarged by others. Like an onion in the stew, we will both flavor the other ingredients and be flavored by them—all the while, remaining an onion.

Paradigm for the Future

The church of the future must become transcultural. The evangelical church must learn to sing spiritual songs; the charismatic church must rediscover the hymns, and the traditional church must begin to sing a new psalm. The young church must respect the older church and vise versa. Bridges of cooperation and counsel must be built between black and white churches. The stagnating pools of our cultural prejudices must be flooded by the river of God’s divine purposes. Accepting and practicing God’s standard of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in our worship is a simple but challenging exercise designed to break us loose from our idols of ethnocentrism.

Where will all of this lead us? To the most exciting celebration imaginable: the international, interdenominational, multilingual, multiethnic celebration of Christ Jesus, the Son of God! After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. (Rev. 7:9)

Dare we look upon what John saw: representatives from every culture, nation, tribe, people, and language, declaring their praises together with a loud voice, overwhelmed with gratitude for this majestic King who has made them into one people (Rev. 5:9–10)? If we can see that, we can see our destination. The heavenly vision is that of worshipers of many different stripes who are more conscious of the greatness of Jesus Christ than of their cultural distinctions.

If worship styles have been the source of divisions among us, let’s turn the tables and allow God’s design for worship to be a source of unity among us. Let’s pray that heaven’s worship will overtake earth as we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.