Week of August 6, 2001
Wesley S.

"O Lord, our Lord,
how exalted is your name in all the world."
Psalm 8:1

When we look at the Bible to find out who God is and what he is really all about, where we learn most about him in the praise of his people. "O Lord, our Lord, how exalted is your name in all the world!" Offering praise to God is just a little bit like admiring a painting or some other piece of art -- it's the only response possible to something so great. To praise God is simply to be awake, to have entered the real existence, to have entered the world where God performs his wonders.

If you ask, how do we enter that world where God dwells, the answer is, through the psalms of praise. Part of the way Israel worshiped, part of the way in which the psalms are written, is that they tell stories. Israel's hymns of praise are almost always stories and recitals of God's goodness. When Israel gathered in worship to praise God, it found its basis for praise in the stories of what God had done for his people.

When we worship and praise God, we are doing the same thing Israel of old did. We gather to tell stories of God's goodness, of who God is. Our whole liturgy is a compilation of stories that tell what God does for us. The Gloria that we sing as our hymn of praise comes from the story of Christ's birth when the angles filled the sky and sang their chorus of praise with the shepherds in the field. When we sing the Gloria we are joining the story of shepherds and angels giving praise to God for the birth of God's only son who redeemed us from sin. We also join the story of Christians who have sung the Gloria as part of their worship from the third century onward. For seventeen centuries Christians the world over have sung "Glory to God in the highest." And this is our story, too.

In a way, our worship is a bit like Garrison Keilor's Prairie Home Companion. Every week on his radio broadcast, after the various skits and music numbers are over, there comes a point where he says, "It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone." And instantly the audience breaks into applause because it knows that is has now reached the moment when Garrison Keilor is going to tell them a story. A story so real that the audience feels it already knows the characters, especially the Lutheran characters who thrive on potluck dinners. The audience waits with bated breath because it knows that they will hear a story that will make them laugh, that will touch their emotions, and will allow them to look inside their own lives for a few minutes.

That's what worship is like for us. Worship is a time to gather and sing praises to our God and tell stories of his goodness to us. "O Lord, our Lord, how exalted is your name in all the world!"

Gracious and loving God, draw us into a life of praise and thankfulness to you. May our words and actions be a witness to your great love, and may others know the stories of who you are. Amen.

Contributed by Westly S.
Published Monday August 6, 2001
Week 37 of Liturgical Year C