The Psalms are poetry. Poetry is the words we sing when we put a poet’s words to music. Some of us are mystical enough to evoke the wonder and mystery in religious ideas by simply reading a text. But when you put those words to music, you often get into another realm. Music can touch us to excitement or tears, and for most of us, music can do this at a deeper level than can simply prose.

I have a cousin named Marshall Williamson. For years Marshall has been a teacher of music at Juilliard School of Music in New York. He is an accomplished pianist. If you go way back in my life and Marshall’s, you come to a grandmother who played a pump organ. Marshall often listened to “Bama” play the organ. When she was young, she played the organ at church (rural churches in Alabama). Bama lived to be very old, ninety-six to be exact. Marshall came from Alabama for her funeral; I came from North Carolina. Marshall’s tribute to Bama was to sit at the piano and play the old hymns. He did this for nearly an hour as the crowd gathered at the Tates Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas. I went to hear Marshall play. And as he played, the years fell off. The wonder of music made me remember what I had forgotten. Though it was a piano playing, I heard the old pump organ in Bama’s living room. Though I shed a tear, I wasn’t sad. It was a time of wonder and mystery. Music pulled out of me feelings and thoughts that never would have come by any other medium. Sometimes, just the right times, music touches us in our deepest parts when we worship. That is what this Psalm is trying to call out of us.

Now you know a little of the feeling and the intensity and the reverence the Psalmist is trying to call out of us.

I. Sing a New Song about the Singularity of God, 96:1-6.

It is hard for us to recreate the state of mind of the people who first heard this Psalm. They lived in a world filled with multiple gods. The Hittites had their gods. The Philistines had another. The Egyptians had still more gods. And the list could literally run to the bottom of the page. These are the gods we know, and there were many more lost to us. Keep this idea in mind as you read the text.

Second, the gods were competing. “My god is better than your god” was a challenge often spoken. This competition was the basis for the “god contest” Elijah had atop Mt. Carmel (see 1 Kgs 18:17-40). Israel had to speak up for Yahweh, the God we worship. That all those other gods were nothing was not plain for centuries.

Third, most people really did not want to share Yahweh. They were glad to shout that he was the true God. They were unwilling to go out and persuade others to renounce their false gods and come over and worship the true God. They wanted to stay in competition; they were not interested in missions. The state of mind is beautifully laid out for us in the story of the prophet Jonah. He was not willing to see his enemies become converted. He wanted to keep them enemies and keep his true God.

So, the first part of the “new song” is about the God who is real and true and universal. He is to be declared “among all the peoples” (Ps 96:3a NRSV). And then the poet goes on to say, “for all the gods of the peoples are idols…” (Ps 96:5 NRSV).

Idolatry is alive and well among us. The idols just have different names. Security is worshiped in our time. Power is sought after with the same devotion Ponce de Leon gave the quest for the fountain of youth. Money, raw money, ought to have an image/idol. Millions of people think if they had more money all their real problems would be solved. Science was worshiped more in an earlier time than now, but still there are devotees. These people believe Science (note the capital letter) will solve all our problems. Communism is a discredited religion; here and there people still worship a system of government that will fix all that is broken.

My observation is that Americans are like the Hebrews in the land of Canaan. We haven’t departed the God of our fathers, but we flirt with the gods of the Canaanites in whose land we dwell. So, we go to church on Sunday, and we give some service to God and the Church, but we also put a good bit of stock in Money and Power and Science. One small part of this Psalm is telling us to give a singular allegiance to God. There’s just one God. The rest will not save us.

II. Sing a New Song about the Wonder of God, 96:7-9.

Wonder does not come easy for us. That is why we can hardly escape the rationality that has been pumped into us by our parents and our educational process. We are taught to be critical, to think critically. This is not all bad. Since there is a lot of trash offered/pressed upon us by our society, unless we are prepared to think critically, we will be gulled into things that can hurt us. But right at this point, the way we think can become an enemy of good religion.

Sometimes it is right to let go of your feelings. Sometimes it is right to put aside the usual restraint that orders our lives. Sometimes extravagance is appropriate. Let me illustrate:

When I courted my wife, I did not count how much money I was spending on her. She was worth extravagance, and after forty years, I can tell you that was a good investment. All I spent to persuade Dot to marry me was good money.

When we reared our daughter, we were into good work. She was expensive, and sometimes I complained. But that was some of the best money I’ve ever spent. That girl has my heart; therefore, she has passage to my time and my money.

When the churches I’ve served decided to make a run at serious giving and real investment in the future, all the money Dot and I put into those churches was good investment. We stopped counting; we started New Testament lifestyle.

The text moves into the way we are to act when we do worship in wonder. “Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength…. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name: (Ps 96:7-8a NRSV). Glory is a word we are to use sparingly. I give respect to the president of the United States. I will sometimes obey him. But glory? No! Glory is reserved for God alone. I am trying to create the steps that move toward reverence. Some words are to be kept. They are too sacred to be used except in those rarest times. We give glory to God. Glory is unstinting, unreserved, unqualified praise. With the God who is worthy of glory comes the gift. So, “bring an offering, and come into his courts” (Ps 96:8b NRSV).

Then the text moves into a state of mind that is hard to evoke. In fact, I doubt there are many times in a reasonable, normal person when this condition will come forth. “Worship the Lord in holy splendor, tremble before him, all the earth” (Ps 96: 9 NRSV).

Most of our worship is poor substitute for the real thing. This is not because we want it to be so. Rather, worship is powerful stuff. Worship is the attempt to bring the human into the Presence. When Moses got close to God, he could not look straight at him (see Ex 33:17-23). When Isaiah came into one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences with God, it changed his life (see Isa 6). When Peter, James and John were in the presence of the transfigured Christ, they “did not know what to say, for they were terrified” (Mk 9:6 NRSV). When Paul was overtaken by the resurrected Christ on the Damascus Road, Paul was made speechless for days (see Acts 9:1-9). These are some of the powerful images of worship and God confrontation in the Bible. To expect each Sunday to have some experience such as these is wrong and sure to lead to disillusionment.

But the Church helps us. Particularly, around Christmas and Easter, the music is grand and the songs are strong and the preacher rises to his/her best. Then there are moments when “holy splendor” and “tremble before him” come within range. We think those thoughts. We come close. And that’s good.

III. Sing a New Song about the Fairness of God, 96:10-13.

The Psalm closes with a verse (a little like the verses we sing in the songs in the hymnbook) about the God who is going to come and judge us. Judgment is a strong and sometimes frightening idea. Judgment was defined for me in my childhood.

• When Daddy comes home, he will discipline you for what you have done. Usually this judgment was not as severe as I feared it would be.

• The end of term is coming. Final exam is out there. And then all who have really studied will be rewarded. Those who have not will be found out…and punished with a poor grade.

• The end of life is coming. Then God is going to ask you to give account. Even “every idle word” must be reviewed. Out of the medieval state of mind I still fear the God who is going to come and get me.

That is not the state of mind of this poet. He does not fear judgment; he welcomes it. Why? Because in this coming judgment there is going to be fairness. Twice this is made plain:

• “He will judge the peoples with equity” (Ps 96:10c NRSV).

• He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth” (Ps 96:13b NRSV).

Maybe the ancient world was as crooked as ours. Justice and fairness were and are hard to come by. A lawyer in Asheville, North Carolina, told me, “Don’t go to court; you never know what will happen there.” That did not reassure me that justice was sure and prompt. But God’s judgment is just the other way around. Bad will be punished and good will be rewarded. This is true because God is true.

Underneath this text and woven into all the parts of it is an idea that must not be left unspoken. We worship a God who calls all of us to account. The reason I want to pull this idea to the surface right at the end of the lesson is that we live in a society that is making every excuse for bad conduct. We are not holding ourselves accountable. Everyone from the geneticist to the behaviorist is helping our society to escape the responsibility for our actions. This is wrong because it is different from what the Bible teaches. This accountability idea is deep throughout the Bible. The Old Testament is only reinforced by the New. Jesus told of talents given. Then at the end of the story the One who gave the talents came back to ask what we did with what we were given. This idea is in this text. God is coming. God is coming to judge. The judgment will be fair. We ought to be glad. To fall into the hands of a just and loving and fair God…that’s about the best we could hope for in this world and the next. Don’t fear judgment. What if there were none? Then bad would go unpunished and good would go unrewarded, unnoticed.

Catching the spirit of the Psalms is hard. But catching the sense of the Psalms is more predictable. I hope this will help you organize the poem and encourage your people.