Breath of Praise

Psalm 150

“Breath of Praise”

23 July 2017 St. Andrew’s Military Chapel

Who even knows what a lute is? The Psalmist describes a wide range of instruments and ways to praise the Lord. Not just the lute, but the ram’s horn or shofar, the harp, tambourine, dancing, stringed instruments, the flute, pleasing cymbals as well as shouting cymbals.

There are a wide variety of gifts present here today just as there are a wide variety of instruments in the Psalm that are used to praise the Lord. When we look at the instruments listed by the Psalmist individually, there may be one or two in there that we don’t particularly care for, but together they can make beautiful music. So too, while the different gifts we bring to the world through God’s gift may not find their full potential alone, together as the Body of Christ, our gifts provide a symphony of service and love that makes the world take notice.

All of these different types of instruments provide a different form of praise to God. Each one pleasing to God, especially when given in the knowledge that life is a gift and praise and thanks is the natural response to such a priceless gift.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. What a beautiful way to end the Psalms.

We began Psalm 1 with “Blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.” Here we end this book of emotional prayers with a Psalm of praise to God from every breathing thing. “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”

And we should praise the Lord for the gift that is given us through life.

Breath is a powerful word in the Hebrew scripture and tradition. There are two words that deal with breath in their sound or meaning that I hope will open up the meaning of this Psalm.

It is noteworthy that the Psalmist ends this Psalm with a shortened version of the tetragrammaton, or the four letter way of naming God in Hebrew. It’s from the tetragrammaton that we derive the word Jehovah. When you attempt to speak those four letters together, you don’t get a word that is pronounceable. And in many traditions that name is so holy it is not to be pronounced.

If you do try to pronounce the tetragrammaton it sounds like a breath. In this manner, when we breathe we are speaking the name of God. We are literally proclaiming God with each breath we take. So that makes a few other things in our lives interesting. The first thing a baby does when it is born is take a breath, or can we say that life begins when we first utter the name of God. Similarly, death occurs when we take our last breath, or perhaps when we are no longer able to say the name of God.

Life is God breathed and we should treat not only our lives but those of the others we meet along the way as holy and worthy of respect and praise. Each of us has been given life through the breath of God and through our breathing every living thing is pronouncing the name of God continuously. Because of this we are all holy and we should treat every encounter with a living creature as an encounter with the divine. Just imagine the world if everyone treated every moment with another as an encounter with the divine.

Next is the phrase we find in verse 6, Kol Neshema which translates as everything that has breath. It comes from a root word Neshema that can translate as the blowing of God’s breath. This means that everything into which God as blown breath is to praise the Lord. Just think about that for a minute. Every living thing is called to praise the Lord. Everything.

Each of us here today has received the breath of God or we wouldn’t be alive and here this morning. A gift received for which we did nothing. We didn’t ask for it, we didn’t realize it was a gift at first. As we grow in faith and the knowledge of our surroundings and the world around us, we are able to understand the fragility of life and appreciate life as a gift. So the Psalmist is calling us to live our lives as a praise of thanks for the gift we have received.

Calling on everything that has breath to praise the Lord is the Psalmist recognizing the responsibility for each of us to praise the Lord. Let’s just look a moment at other living things in nature praise the Lord, or at least how those of the Christian faith can interpret actions of other living creatures in light of our faith.

Think of the song birds we hear every morning. Their beautiful song is a pleasing and beautiful song that lets the world know that another day has begun. Granted, on those rare mornings I have the opportunity to sleep in past sunrise, my opinion of that music transforms into one of annoyance and questioning why those beautiful creatures of God have to sit outside my window.

We have the opportunity to live in a city in the middle of a garden and can see how flowers and the beauty they provide throughout Singapore are praising their gift of living. The beautiful flowers we see as we walk through the neighborhood or ride around the different areas of Singapore also inspire thanks and praise from us for being able to live among such natural beauty.

So too are we to live lives of such praise that others take notice of the song and physical beauty of our actions. We should all strive for lives that recognize our lives are God breathed gifts. Lives that understand every breath we take is a gift from God where that breath is us continuing to breathe in God’s gift as well as speaking a word of praise to the one whom allowed that breath.

Not only are we called to recognize that each breath we take is breathed into us by God, we are also called to recognize that regardless of another’s beliefs they too are given the same gift of God’s breath and we should treat everyone and everything we encounter as coming face to face with the divine. For if God’s breath is in each of us, each of us is worthy of the same level of respect.

Let us go forth not just thankful of the breath of God that was provided each of us, but also for the breath of God that is present in all of those around us. It will change the way we approach everything, especially how we interact with other people in our day to day lives.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

 You can listen to sermons from St. Andrew's Military Chapel here.