Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. – Psalm 100:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 15, 2019): Psalm 100

A decade ago, I conducted an experiment. For one Sunday evening service, I thought we could just sing the songs that meant something to us, the ones that we never seem to sing in church anymore. And so I gave the people of the church a chance to request a song, or an unlimited number of songs, that they wanted to sing on this summer evening. The requests began to pour in, which was a good sign. Some came from people who never made it to the evening form of worship service, and I doubted whether they would make it on this Sunday evening either. The votes began to mount. It quickly became apparent that there were some favorites, requested several times by different people, or maybe they were stuffing the ballot box or campaigning for their preferences. And I didn’t care. The evening worship service came, and we gathered to sing the songs of the people. For this evening, the only criteria were that a group of people wanted to sing the song. A Christmas carol was equal to an Easter hymn, or just an old Gaither chorus that had fallen by the wayside. I wasn’t going to preach. For a few of the songs, I would tell the story of the hymn writer, or maybe a memory that I had of the song and what it meant to me, but I didn’t pick any of them. All of the songs came on little slips of paper, requested by somebody else.

Late in the service, with only a couple of songs left, one older gentleman stood up with a question. Why had we packed one service with so many funeral songs? I looked down at the last two songs of the night that we were about to sing and recognized that they, too, could be considered funeral hymns. The simple answer was that we are singing these songs because they are the ones that you chose for this service. But there was also a more profound question. Why, in the middle of a beautiful Summer, had we chosen so many songs that could be sung at any funeral.

Maybe the most obvious answer is that often our songs focus on the next life instead of this one. “I Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary,” “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” “In the Garden,” and many others of our favorite songs focus on what comes after death. And sometimes the songs that deal with this life are put down as being too shallow theologically for the church.

Recently, I took part in a social media discussion around the merits of the Christian Hit “Good, Good Father” as a worship song. The song did not fare well in the debate, most feeling that theologically it did not measure up. And yet, it is a happy tune with a message that I believe that we need to hear. Consider the chorus of the song.

You're a good good father
It's who you are, it's who you are, it's who you are
And I'm loved by you
It's who I am, it's who I am, it's who I am 

Some in the discussion thought that the words of the song were decidedly selfish, centering more on us than on God. But I disagree. The message is not a complex one, but it is a necessary one and one that we need to hear. God is a Good Father; it is part of his essential character. And we are loved by him. We are the beloved, which again is a consequence of the nature of God. It is a joyful song that concentrates on our life here and now. And the Psalmist insists that joyful songs are always welcome in God’s presence.

Don’t throw away all of those beautiful songs that remind us that our death is not the end, but we also need to remember that God intends us to be joyful in this life, and that our joy begins here and continues there, and that our songs should reflect that fact. After all, we are the beloved of God. What more could we want?

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 102