“Sing to the Lord a new song.”
“Praise the Lord with the harp; play to him upon the psaltery and lyre. Sing for him a new song; sound a fanfare with all your skill upon the trumpet.”
“Sing to the Lord a new song.”
The book of Ecclesiastes says that “there is nothing new under the sun.” Maybe that’s right. But the rest of scripture tells again and again of new things, of new work God is doing, of new songs to be sung, of new wine, and of a new Jerusalem to come.
Again and again, God does new things. Again and again, we sing new songs.
We heard one of those new songs this morning in Abram’s story. “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house,” God says, “to the land that I will show you.”
When this happens, Abram is seventy-five years old.
We have a pretty wide range of ages at St. Paul’s. Some of you probably think of seventy-five as impossibly old. Some of you may remember seventy-five as a time a decade or two in the past when starting something new seemed perfectly sensible. But we can probably all agree that seventy-five isn’t young.
Abram has already lived a pretty full life. He has a wife, a household, possessions, responsibilities, and a whole set of assumptions about how the rest of his life will go. But God says, “Go.”
God’s call doesn’t undo the past. It doesn’t turn Abram into a young man. It also doesn’t promise a perfect future. But God calls Abram to something new, to a new land, to new joys and new sorrows, even to a new name. To a blessing that will extend to all the families of the earth.
Today’s Gospel shows us other new songs.
There’s the story of Matthew, who Jesus calls from his work as a tax collector into a new life as disciple and apostle. Jesus’s call doesn’t undo Matthew’s past. It doesn’t remove the judgment of those who despise him for who he once was. But it truly is a new beginning, a new song to sing. Matthew began a new life in the same place he’d always lived, but the change was no less dramatic than Abram’s journey to a new country.
And then there’s the story of the hemorrhaging woman, bleeding for twelve years, desperate, probably weak from anemia, probably ostracized by a world that saw blood as something unclean. She doesn’t set out for a new country or leave an old way of life behind. She simply reaches out her hand in hope. “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” And Jesus turns. Sees her. Calls her daughter. “Take heart; your faith has made you well.”
She doesn’t get those twelve years back. She doesn’t go back to being the person she was before. But she’s granted a new beginning, a new song to sing.
And there’s the little girl. Her father comes to Jesus in unbearable sorrow, and with an impossible prayer. His daughter has died. And Jesus goes to the house and gives her back her life. In the years to come, she might not even remember her illness, or what Jesus did for her. But I’m sure her parents never forgot. The girl and her parents probably sang different songs, but they each had good reason to sing.
These are four very different new songs. And not one of them pretends that life will ever be easy or come without struggle and pain. Some doors really do close. Some chances pass. Some years are lost. And some griefs never leave us. We’ve all prayed prayers that didn’t end the way we wanted them to. And some of the songs we’ve sung over the years have been laments.
Christian hope doesn’t ask us to pretend otherwise. A new song never denies that old sorrow is real. But the witness of scripture is that God isn’t finished with us — and that the future will be, more often than not, different from what we imagine in our darkest moments.
So sing to the Lord a new song. Sing in faith, with hope that hopes against hope. If you can’t find the words yourself, look for the songs others are singing.
There’s a hymn that you might know. It’s slightly ridiculous. But if you need some inspiration in just how varied new songs can be, take a look at it. It’s number 412.
“Earth and all stars, loud rushing planets, sing to the Lord a new song!... Hail, wind, and rain, loud blowing snowstorms, sing to the Lord a new song!... Flowers and trees, loud rustling dry leaves, sing to the Lord a new song!... Engines and steel, loud pounding hammers, sing to the Lord a new song!... Classrooms and labs, loud boiling test-tubes, sing to the Lord a new song!...”
If I’m completely honest, the line about “loud boiling test-tubes” is the real reason I don’t usually ask that we sing this hymn. I’m no chemist, but I’ve spent enough time in labs to be wary of “loud boiling test-tubes.”
But if earth and stars and trees and even test tubes can sing a new song, maybe we can too. Whatever our age, whatever our situation, God can do a new thing. And we can sing, “He has done marvelous things. I too will praise him with a new song!”
“Sing for him a new song.”