Psalm Sing
Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm we gather around the piano and sign the book of Psalms. This is a time of joy as we sing the words of God and pray together. All are welcome to join us.
Why Sing the Psalms?
For several months now we have been gathering on Wednesday nights to learn to sing the Psalms. In this brief primer I want to answer why we should learn to sing the Psalms.
Because we're commanded to.
In Ephesians 5:17, Paul commands us to not get inebriated but to be filled with or controlled by the Holy Spirit. Then, as is his habit, he follows that statement with an -ing phrase, which is always his way of telling us how we do what he just commanded:
… addressing one another in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
Now, where o where would Christians have heard such songs in Paul’s day? On Christian radio? Spotify? No, in Lord’s Day worship. You’ve surely had this happen to you: you’re going about your chores on Tuesday and spontaneously start singing a song from Sunday worship. That’s how it works. You’re doing your work “filled with the Spirit.” And your kids or whoever hears it.
Or you’re giving counsel to a friend, and you spontaneously say, “You know, it’s like that song we sang – ‘His mercy is mO – O – Ore.'” Same principle. You hum a few bars, and you both instantly recall the rest of the psalms, hymn or spiritual song.
So why did Paul mention all three? Why wasn’t he a modern evangelical and just said, “Traditional and contemporary songs”?
Because psalms give expression to the full range of human experience - and God's.
We biblical pastors insist on preaching through the whole of a book. This keeps us from cowardly avoiding difficult passages. For instance, if you preach 1 Corinthians, you gotta teach on women and headcoverings.
In the same way the Psalms give expression to all kinds of human emotions and experiences. This is important, because, let’s be honest, K-LOVE doesn’t. That’s not a criticism, just a reality. They have bills to pay and an audience to cater to (during the day, it’s Christian housewives and retired folks). You’re not going to hear a song on K-LOVE about seeking God’s justice for the murder of your child (Psalm 137) or rarely a song about God’s favorite Bible verse (Psalm 110) or asking God to smash the teeth of the wicked (Psalm 58:6) or King Jesus laughing in heaven at the schemes of men (Psalm 2).
When we sing the Psalms, we don’t get to leave out the stuff we don’t like or find difficult to square. This smashing teeth business brings us to the next reason.
Because the psalms both go above the fray and drop down into our battles.
I think it’s best to think of the Psalms with two stories and a basement. The “basement” is where you have those “I’m a worm” moments – like 53 and 32 – where David and you realize what a big sinner he/we are, and we cry out for forgiveness.
Then – sometimes in the same Psalm – there is the second story psalms, where God is praise and exalted on high, and the words and music rightfully soar to the hearts. You’re simply on your tippy toes spending your voice box like there’s no tomorrow, as befits God.
But there is also the first story, where the Psalms meet us in real life, putting words to our emotions when we face very real threats and enemies. While the Psalms soar to the heights in the second story, God did not forget to build a staircase to the ground level.
So if, in our song selections, we play to the safe “middle space” represented by Christian radio and our own intuition and preferences, we must leave out much of the Psalms, and when we do, we leave out a lot. We leave out lament, righteous scorn, and the advance of Christ against rebellion in the world. In short, our worship becomes inert and neutered. We fail to do battle in the fray, because we sing only to make ourselves feel better while floating placidly above the fray.
But when we incorporate all the psalms, worship becomes a form of holy, sanctified warfare. The darkness gets pushed back by our voices.
Because singing the psalms restores gendered singing.
For most of the church history, church music has been sung in gendered manners – women sang higher octaves, and men sang – track with me here – lower octaves. The result, when they come together, is something strikingly beautiful. Neither one is drowned out by the other, and the distinctive features of each can be heard. And yet together, well, God makes 1+1=237.
Yet it is no coincidence that as the church has become more genderless, so has its music. We sing to a concert-style middle, and most popular singers have the higher, Chris Tomlin-grade voice.
But this shaves off the striking, soaring beauty of the female voice as well as the warlike, martial spirit of the male voice, in favor of the androgynous middle. We have lost a lot.
Because singing the psalms is fun.
As we have worked to sing the psalms, I myself have learned a lot about music, singing with others, and how music itself can contribute to the praise of God. I have seen a song come together beautifully when I didn’t think it was possible. It has brought in the foreign and made the ancient quite new. And as we have all learned together, it’s just been plain fun.
Will you join us? Wednesday night, 6:30 pm.