"A New Song" given Jan.15, 2017

 We sang a song you may not be familiar with this morning. “Help Us Accept Each Other” Are you familiar with it? Once or twice is not always a lot of times for a congregation to truly “know” and be comfortable with a piece of music. I find there’s often a bit of uncertainty when I’m planning a worship service. One of the things I worry about is that a congregation won’t know the songs I choose.

And when I do choose to introduce a new song to you, I have to make sure that the tune is “sing-able”. (Which isn’t always easy, since I can’t read music). It doesn’t matter how much I might like the message of the song. If folks can’t pick up in the tune after hearing it played through once, they’ll be so busy trying to mouth the words and silently asking themselves why I picked that turkey to sing, that the whole flow and mood of the service will get sidetracked.

That’s why for instance, even though we’re recalling his birth and ministry this weekend, I didn’t try to teach you one of Dr. King’s favorite songs-- “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. Look it up in the Hymnal sometime # 519—the words are gorgeous—written by the great African-American poet James Weldon Johnson. And the tune is majestic enough to be part of a symphony. But put them together—like “The Star-Spangled Banner” only a group of people raised singing it from childhood on up can do it justice. For all the rest of us it’s “La, la, la,”

Of course the opposite applies as well. I don’t want to pick something so often that it becomes “trite” to the congregation. One of my predecessors at a previous congregation (I won’t say which one) was ending a pretty rocky pastorate. They were a congregation with a tradition of lots of strong lay leadership and he had a very unique, fairly authoritarian style of leadership—let’s just say he was an ex-cop. The Church secretary told me that for the last six months of his pastorate he had the congregation sing the same song at every single worship service—“Trust and Obey”.

The truth is that Christians—and probably Jews and Muslims and Hindus for all that I know—on the whole like music that is familiar in their worship. Nothing wrong with that—few of us are musicians. And besides, most people are comfortable with the old and familiar—that’s why there are more “oldies” radio stations than “hip-hop”.

When I was a kid my parents and grandmother absolutely insisted on listening to Lawrence Welk on our family’s one Black and White TV every single Sunday night. It was like fingernails on a blackboard to me. It wasn’t until after I got married that Donna’s dad sat me down and made me listen to Benny Goodman that I discovered that not all thirties and forties music sounded like:.. pop! dumpta da da dump daddaladaa, dump, dump, da, da tat da.

We human beings like familiar sounding music. It makes us feel comfortable, and secure. It’s a kind of nostalgia—and for most of us that’s good. The new and the untried, the cutting edge can be scary to us. We like familiar looking architecture, and art that we can figure out, and ‘that old-time religion’ and mom’s home cooking, and playing Monopoly, and watching Casablanca for the umpteenth time. And apparently 49 % of us like conservative politics. We’re comfortable with what is familiar to us.

How strange that our God doesn’t necessarily always seem to share our enchantment with the familiar and the comfortable. In our Psalter Reading for this morning, the Psalmist says, “God has put a new song on my lips”

Not an old song or a familiar song—but a new song. The exact phrase is used in six different Psalms—as well as once in Deuteronomy, once in Isaiah and twice in Revelation. But, neither the phrase “an old song” nor “a familiar song” is used anywhere in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.

In Psalm 40, the writer describes an utterly human life experience. In a time of deep personal crisis, he or she has prayed to God for deliverance. We aren’t told what the crisis was—violence, death, poverty. Perhaps it was something we can’t even imagine in our day and age.

Whatever the dilemma was, no matter how hard she tried, it was something the Psalmist could not face alone. It was unmanageable. She described it as a slimy pit or a murky bog. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how to escape. But she didn’t give up. She kept trying and praying.

Then she had the experience described as being raised up out of the pit by God.

Now the Psalmist finds herself standing on firm ground—ground as solid as a rock—the path before her firm and safe. She celebrates that God heard her prayers and saved her.

Some of us here right now know what it’s like in the pit, don’t we? Some of us are yet to slide into one—but if we haven’t it’s pretty darned likely that we will. There are lots more pits we can fall into now than in the Psalmist’s time. We call them names like grief and depression, ill health and and bad life choices, addiction and inappropriate relationships. But they’re still just as deep—and the walls are still just as slippery.

We know how easy it is to find ourselves losing our footing and sliding down

the wet ground and into the pit, without even being aware of it at first. We know that slipping is always inadvertent. Sometimes blind fate or nature trips us. Sometimes we’re literally pushed into the pit by someone else. But a lot of the tine, it’s our own darn fault.

We know how easily we can find ourselves sliding down the slimy walls of the pit suddenly, unexpectedly. We know what a long, hard way it is back up to the surface, and how lost and helpless we feel lying down there in the bottom, covered with slime and shame.

Regardless of how we got there, how are you and I going to get out of that pit? How did the Psalmist get out? She says she prayed and waited patiently and that eventually God pulled her out—but gives us no details. Was it a miracle? May God sent her strength and inspiration sufficient to allow her to claw her way out. Personally, I think God sent her an angel. What kind of angel, Dan?

Glad you asked. There’s a story about a guy who was walking along one day, minding his own business, when he suddenly tripped and fell down into an enormous pot- hole, right smack dab in the middle of the street. It was too deep and the sides of the hole were too steep to climb. But he wasn’t going to give up. So he started yelling for help. Sure enough after a while his cries were heard and who should appear at the mouth of the pot hole, peering down but his attorney.

“Hey am I glad to see you!” called out the guy. “I fell down this pot hole. Can you go find a rope and toss it down to me?”

“I’ll do better than that.” Said the lawyer. You and I are going to sue the city for a million buck. Here, I’ll toss you down my card. Call me when you get out.” And he walked away. But the guy at the bottom of the pit wasn’t going to give up. So the guy started yelling for help again. Sure enough after a while his cries were heard and who should appear at the mouth of the pot hole, peering down but his psychiatrist.

“Hey am I glad to see you!” called out the guy. “I fell down this pot hole. Can you go find a rope and toss it down to me?”

“I’ll do better than that.” Said the doc. How do you feel about the pit. Did your mother ever push you into a pit? You look really stressed. Here I’ll toss you down a prescription for Prozac. Get this filled and take two a day until you get out.” And he walked away. But the guy at the bottom of the pit wasn’t going to give up. So the guy started yelling for help again. Sure enough after a while his cries were heard and who should appear at the mouth of the pot hole, peering down but his minister.

“Hey am I glad to see you!” called out the guy. “I fell down this pot hole. Can you go find a rope and toss it down to me?”

“I’ll do better than that.” Said the Rev. And he knelt right down there next to the hole and prayed for the guy. And he walked away. But the guy at the bottom of the pit wasn’t going to give up. So the guy started yelling for help again. Sure enough after a while his cries were heard and who should appear at the mouth of the pot hole, peering down but his best friend.

“Hey am I glad to see you!” called out the guy. “I fell down this pot hole. My lawyer gave me his card, my shrink psychoanalyzed me and wrote a prescription for Prozac, and my minister prayed for me. But what I really need right now is to get out of this pot hole. Can you go find a rope and toss it down to me?”

“I’ll do better than that.” Said his pal. And he promptly jumped into the pit and landed next to the guy.

“Why’d you do that you jerk? Now we’re both stuck down here!”

“Ah, but I’ve been down here before. And I know the way out.” That’s an angel.

However it happened though, once the Psalmist was free of the pit, she tells us that

her heart was so touched that God put a new song in her mouth. It was a song of gratitude, a song of joy, a song of excitement. None of her old songs to God would do—because she had discovered something new and wonderful about her Creator. There are always lessons for us to learn down in the pit— lessons about our selves and lessons about our God. And once we learn them, we are lifted out of the pit stronger and wiser and more humble people. If we can’t learn, we’ll just fall in some other pit sooner or later.

She learned about being dependant on God, and about the strength can be found when we admit our helplessness and reach out to our Maker. She learned that God can be trusted—that God answers prayers—that God saves—that the surest way out of the pit was to keep trying, keep praying, and ultimately put it in God’s hands.

Maybe she’d heard all that before in worship—maybe someone had witnessed to her about God’s deliverance—but now she knew it—in her very bones. It had to be a new song. It was a song of gratitude and joy.

A young preacher, the son of a preacher, a pampered rich kid with brains and charm and good looks and talent was serving his first big church. It was an important church in the community, full of influential folks. He had a pretty wife and four beautiful children. This young man was standing on the verge of a long and prestigious career.

But then one day a long time activist from his community performed an act of civil disobedience. And all heck broke loose in the larger community. The next thing he knew, the young preacher was opening up his church for meetings. The next thing he knew, there was a city-wide protest going on, and he was on the steering committee.

The next thing he knew—the steering committee elected this good-looking articulate young preacher as their spokesman. The next thing he knew, this young man who’d spent his whole ministry and possibly his whole life up till then sliding by on talent and charm found himself sitting in a cell in the Birmingham city jail. I can’t imagine a worse pit for an educated black man in that era than the Birmingham jail.

But he learned some lessons there. He sat down on paper his thoughts and beliefs and hopes for his people. He learned about humility and compassion and about trusting God to lead him and his people out of the pit of Jim Crow. He learned that God had given him his gifts to be put to use for God’s purposes. And in return, he learned that God was asking for everything he had to give in the cause of bringing forth justice in God’s name.

God put a new song into Martin Luther King Jr.’s mouth. None of his old songs to God would do anymore. He’d discovered something new and wonderful about his Maker—that God can be trusted—that whatever the Spirit calls us to, the Spirit will empower us for—and that Jesus can and will use us for great purposes—greater than we can possibly imagine—if we allow Him.

Oh, he’d heard it all time and time again every Sunday at his daddy’s church. He’d preached it himself time and time again. But now Martin knew it—in his very bones. It had to be a new song. It was a song of justice, a song of praise, a song of hope, a song of protest. It was a song that challenged and changed his community, his people, his faith, his country, and changed Martin as well—and made them all—made us all better.

God’s got lessons for you to learn and a new song for you to sing, as well. I pray you don’t have to fall into the pit in order to hear it. But if you do—pray patiently and keep calling for help—learn your lessons, no matter how long it takes. One way or another, God will answer. Maybe God will send you the strength to climb out on your own. Maybe someone here this morning will be the angel who jumps in to show you the way out.

And when you do get out, and when you start singing your new song, come teach it to the rest of us—we’ll do our best to sing it with you. Amen.