Scripture: Luke 11:33-36; Psalm 150
True praise is the whole-life response of thanksgiving to God’s saving action, shaped by worship’s liturgy and generosity, through which we reflect God’s light back and are sent to shine brighter into the world.
Illustrations: praise-music-vs-hymns, praising-newborn-or-dog, rescued-from-drowning, candle-burns-down, christmas-candlelight-service, parable-of-the-talents, bristol-fields-st-pauls-evensong, wesley-1784-prayer-book, lay-led-circuit-preaching, william-seymour-conversion, passover-seder-four-questions, chronos-vs-kairos, sunday-eighth-day, duty-of-constant-communion, zero-sum-giving
September 28, 2025
Praise
Psalm 150 Luke 11:33-36
Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his surpassing greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! - Psalm 150
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel basket; rather, one puts it on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but if it is unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. But if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.” - Luke 11:33-36
In the last 30 years, praise has become a genre of music. Praise music.
Most of us have an understanding of what I mean when I say praise music. Usually, it will be songs written recently, led by guitar. Whereas hymns are songs mostly written in the past, led by organ or piano. Hymns are also written for congregational harmony whereas praise songs are not. Neither of these terms have really hard definitions.
But when we hear the language of Psalm 150,
Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament!,
This psalm isn’t talking about what we would call praise music today. Something else is going on biblically with this language of praise.
Series Intro
My friends, we are continuing our series on the stained glass windows at Covenant United Methodist Church. Our next window is praise. If you’ve ever been around a newborn, you’ve probably given them praise. Oh, you’re such a good boy. Oh, you’re such a good boy. Most of us with dogs give our dogs praise, even when they don’t deserve it. Oh, look at you getting all so nice and muddy. You got so nice and muddy I’m cleaning out your paws. This is praise. Encouragement is usually going to be what you give someone before they act. You’re going to do a great job today, Wilson. The praise we give after the fact. Great job today, Wilson.
So when we come back to the plain language of the Psalms, the Psalmist says
praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!
We move the from people to God. We praise God for what God has done for us; because of what God has done for us.
If you’re drowning and someone saves you and resuscitates you, the thanks you’re going to give that person are different than the thanks you would give someone who you just met on the street. There’s a categorical difference going on. The praise we give God is like the praise we give the one who rescues us from drowning, but more so: It is deeper. As well, part of us understand that we can never praise the person saving us enough for what they did. There is an asymmetry between God’s salvific action in our lives and our response.
Which gets me to our gospel reading for today.
What is the light that Jesus is talking about? The light is God’s presence in your life. There are many ways of covering that up. Yes, we’ve got the bushel basket. We also have forgetfulness.
One of the ways to put out a candle is to leave it burning all night long so that the wick goes down all the way to the base and eventually putters out. At Christmas, when we have our candlelight service, you could hold that candle until it goes all the way out and then it’s gone. Wax might drip on your fingers and burn a little. It might drip on the carpet and be annoying to remove (though not impossible). Whatever the case, doing nothing puts the light out as much as covering the light or blowing it out.
When we share good news of Jesus, we offer new life through Jesus, we offer resurrection. But we can just as easily cling to it as offer it. We may think that we cherish the light, but we do not. It is like the parable of the talents, where one servant turned his one talent into five. But the other servant is afraid of the Master, so he buried his talent. We can bury the light of Christ in our life.
This is what praise is meant to avoid. This is what praise is meant to dispel. By praising God together, especially in worship, whether through hymns or praise songs or through the liturgy itself, we reflect back to God the light God has given us so that we can be sent into the world as light, shining brighter than we were before.
True praise comes after an encounter with God. It may be on a mountaintop. It may be on a retreat. It may be on a random Sunday morning. The encounter is that moment when you realize you are really forgiven for who you used to be and the mistakes you have made. That moment you realize that you are loved and that you can live for more than your own desire. This is the light of God. It is small before we are aware of it, but it is still there. Our encounter with God is the fuel that expands us, but each opportunity for praise is another chance to let the light grow in our life.
There is a structure to what we do here on Sunday morning in order to facilitate praise. Praise is not simply a form of music but offering our hearts to God in thanksgiving.
Praise is shaped differently in different traditions and cultures. We organize praise around what we call the liturgy, which means work of the people. Sometimes, I may talk about liturgical traditions. This doesn’t just refer to Catholic or mainline churches, but every worshipping congregation. Every church has a liturgy, whether they write it down or not. The spontaneous worship of some baptist or pentecostal churches follows a liturgical pattern.
Methodist worship began in the fields outside of Bristol, England, with a few basic hymns and a sermon, what we can call low church. It also began in the high church beauty of an Evensong Service at St. Paul’s in London. The tradition has space for the high church and the low church.
In 1784, when the Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in the newly formed United States of America, John Wesley sent over his own personal edit of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, to guide the movement suddenly disconnected from the Church of England through war. This wasn’t the only pattern, for the Methodist movement spread across the United State rapidly, becoming the largest denomination early in the 19th century thanks to its lay-centric ministries. That is, the preacher wasn’t the most important figure. Preacher’s led communion and organized communities, but they might have 60 churches under their supervision. When they served communion, the service would be highly structured. When the preacher wasn’t there, it was lay-led, focused on hymn-singing and bible reading.
19th century Methodism was a laboratory for liturgical experimentation. Most charismatic and Pentecostal traditions were heavily influenced by the Methodist Movement. It was at Simpson Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church in Indianapolis in 1895 that William Seymour, the key figure of the Azusa Street Revival, gave his life to Jesus.
Methodist worship continued in a similar pattern until World War II, when the end of the war brought an expansion of ecumenical efforts among different denominations, as well as desires to pattern worship off of the early church. This led to changes in the liturgy which culminated in the 1989 UMC hymnal and the pattern of worship offered there.
It is on Page 2 of the hymnal if you want to pull it out.
There is an entrance; a manner of coming together and signifying that this time is different from other times. The candle is lit here. The light is shining.
In the Passover Seder, the youngest child who can speak asks the same question four times and receives four different answers. The question is: why is this night different from other nights?
We should ask that question of every moment of worship: why is this morning different from other mornings?
In Greek, there are two words for time. One is chronos, this is linear time. This is clock-time. The other word is kairos. Kairos marks what I call event time. It transcends simply linear time. Kairos marks those moments when you lose track of time. When you no longer think about how long you have to stay in a place before you can leave and go home. Worship doesn’t always succeed with this, but that is always the goal and the hope.
We worship on a Sunday morning because Jesus rose on a Sunday morning. This is intentional and important. Every Sunday is a little Easter in a Kairos sense. Every Sunday marks the 1st day of the week, but also the 8th day. It marks the start of the New Creation, the new kingdom inaugurated by Jesus.
This time is different from other times. It doesn’t just start. We enter in.
Next is the Proclamation and Response. This is the reading of Scripture and the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ, as well as our congregational response to this proclamation. Now, we respond with the Apostle’s Creed, the historic baptismal Creed of the early church
Next is thanksgiving or communion, which we don’t serve every week, but maybe we should. There is nothing against. John Wesley has a great sermon called the Duty of Constant Communion, where he talks about how we should go to communion as often as we can because Jesus tells us to (do this in remembrance of me, not do this once a month). and because we meet God there and we should try to meet God as often as we can.
Finally, there is a sending forth. As I like to say, you don’t leave Church, you are sent. The sending marks the end of this special time.
Now, there are two elements found throughout basic pattern: music and offering.
Like I said before, praise is not a genre of music, but a response we make to God for what God has done and what God will do, as well as who God is. Our time surrounds this action. Music is a way to connect with God and each other. There is no perfect worship music. We all bring our own histories with us here. Some folks like to only sing songs they already know. Others love up beat music. Others like to plumb the depths of spiritual experience. Others crave to go back to the mountaintop again and again. This goes for congregational song as well as for when our choir or bells present to us. They don’t perform, for no one can perform in worship. They present and witness of another sort. A musical witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Light offered.
The offering originally was the moment in the service when the elements for communion were brought forward. It was only later that it became a time to pass the plate. In Europe historically, giving to the church was like a tax and taken from your pay or paid from him, so there wasn’t a lot of plate giving. Plate giving was only for specific calls.
Giving now is one of the more participatory aspects of worship. Some traditions have a lot of standing and kneeling throughout the worship service. Some stand and dance and have call and response throughout the service. Giving is a way to participate.
You aren’t purchasing anything with your gift on Sunday morning. You don’t get extra points for heaven. It is a response to the action of God in your life and to the reality of the church in the world. It is a way to worship. It is a way to let your light shine.
Our light shines in our generosity when it is an act of faith and not duty. Duty is great. I love people who were raised by their parents to tithe and give. God bless them. For most of us, our gift to the church is a sacrifice. Anytime we change our giving level, we are choosing one less meal out during the week, or a few less days of vacation, or a little longer with the car we have.
Our gifts are zero-sum. It takes faith to give that extra step and to desire to support God’s presence more than our own comfort. Our gifts are zero-sum. God’s gifts are not. This is the act of faith. We believe more in God’s action in this world than in controlling every aspect of our life. We believe more in the mission of making disciples of all nations than in controlling every aspect of our life. This is how giving is worshipful. It honors God and is as much a step of faith as coming to the table for communion.
Next week, we are starting a stewardship campaign for the month of October. You will have a chance to pledge your support of the church
We praise God in song. We praise God in our presence. We praise God by receiving the Word of God. We praise God with our gifts. We praise God as we are sent. We are sent not to do the same thing we have always done. We are sent to reflect the light of God’s presence to others and shine brighter than we were before. This is why we praise. This is why we give thanks.
When you come into this sanctuary and see this window, may you remember the light of God in your life. May you praise God and give thanks for the Holy Spirit in this place.
In the name of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.