Singing the Blues, Finding Hope
Singing the Blues, Finding Hope
Psalm 40
March 2, 2025 Mardi Gras Jazz Sunday
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
1 I put all my hope in God. The Holy One leaned down to me and listened to my cry for help.
2 The Beloved lifted me out of the pit of death, out of the mud and filth,
set my feet on solid rock and steadied my legs.
3 God put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise.
Many people will learn of this and be amazed; they will trust God.
4 Those who put their trust in the LORD, who pay no attention to the proud or
to those who follow lies, are truly happy!
…11 So now you, O God — don't hold back any of your compassion from me.
Let your loyal love and faithfulness always protect me,
12 because countless evils surround me. My wrongdoings have caught up with me….
13 Favor me, and deliver me! come quickly and help me!
…17 … You are my help and my rescuer. Source of Love, don't wait any longer!
Common English Bible
Opening
Jazz in worship. Maybe we should do this a little more often. I am one pastor who loves music and who has felt God’s presence and the strength to walk the journey of faith through a wide range of music. When my soul and mind are restless, I often turn to music to draw me close to God, the Holy and to other people.
How does God call us to life, to deeper life? First, we must hear a melody from the Holy One. We are loved. We are created in God’s image. All people have the Divine spark, Imago Dei. As we live, following the ways of Jesus can give us a purpose. We could say this gives us a basic melody.
When we listen to music and learn more, we learn there is music in major keys and minor keys. In Western culture, minor keys have a more somber tone. During Lent we often sing hymns and songs in minor keys – time to reflect on what grieves us, where there is pain or hurt in our lives and the world. We hear notes of sadness – the incredible acts of war, violence, destruction and death. We worry about our country. We worry about our health. We feel the weight of grief and loss. We worry about money, worries about kids or parents or grandparents. We begin to improvise on that melody in minor keys, in somber notes.
We may not know what to do. Feels like there are 2 options. We can watch the news and feel totally overwhelmed, angry, powerless. The other option we’re given is to go numb and limp, to shut it all off and block it all out and take in nothing but our own lives.
But there is a third way. And I think the Psalms give it to us. It starts with lament.
Psalms of Lament
Psalms of lament through the 150 ancient songs and poems in the book of Psalms.
When the tears feel close and sorrow claws up the throat, and anger and rage are right here next to us, people aim all of that right at God. We moderns are pretty scared of lament in church, but lament is in integral part of our faith. Many of the Psalms of lament were communal – we are hopeless and in despair. Others are individual.
Psalm 40
David uses the image of being in the pit and calling out to God of help. The psalmist cries out to God from “the depths” (verse 1), from the darkest abyss of human suffering. That abyss takes different shapes in individual and communal human life.
Grief, depression, illness, poverty, abuse—any of these experiences, and so many more, can plunge us into a darkness so deep that it can feel almost like death. That the abyss, the pit, the deep is so universally a part of human life is reflected in the many Psalms.
Psalm 40 can be called the Mud Psalm
God drew me up from the pit of tumult, out of the muddy bog
and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure
God put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God
David remembered that bog his whole life long when enemies encircled, when stress threatened to overwhelm.
Another Psalm of lament is Psalm 22. When Jesus is arrested, tried and hung on a cross for treason and heresy, he cries out from the cross words of the Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The psalmist knew how it felt to be alone, and Jesus takes those ancient words to speak what lies within his broken heart.
In the church, we do not rush toward Easter. We don’t want to cheapen the burdens we carry and the injustice that remains in our world. But we do not remain in the shadows of Good Friday. We can trust God who invites us into this deep love every day.
Psalm 4
Psalm 4 is another Psalm of Lament. There is a mystery Hebrew word that shows up in it and a total of 71 times in the psalms, Selah. Because it’s very close to the word for “pause” and also the word for “praise,” it has come to be seen as a kind of mix of both - pause and praise God. Take a beat, and turn your attention back to God.
Here is a modern paraphrase of Psalm 4,
O God who knows me, answer me when I call!
When I have been confined in anxious misery before,
you opened up expansive space for me to breathe,
please hear me now, give me your grace again.
How long will our humanity be torn down?
How long will lies be elevated,
and people spread vitriol, delusion and exploitation?
Selah
Stop.
Take a beat.
Turn your attention to God.
Oh God, let your love and truth shine on all of us!
You have filled me with deep joy,
Selah. Stop. Take a Beat. Return to God…. Pause and Praise…. Lament…Pause…
This earth is heavy with sorrow and need. And yet…while one hemisphere nestles down in winter hibernation, here the green shoots push up through the soil, and trees are awakening. And all over the planet new babies are born, and broken relationships are mended, and people are tending to each other, and there is laughter and joy, and tears of deep connection, and healing, and hope, and love remains the most powerful force in the universe, always at work.
We are meant to stand with one another and for each other, to hold each other and fight for life for each other and us all, for this whole beautiful and broken world. We are made for love. God calls us into God’s purposes; we are drawn into God’s own being. We get to share in the love God is already, always bringing.
With whatever joyful noise we can muster, we announce to the world that we do not belong to the powers of destruction and death. We belong to the God of life, to the God who gives new life. God is wherever people are completely alive. You can tell it by the music they make. Songs of praise and joy. And songs of lament.
Lament is not a word we use often enough. It means to feel or express sorrow or regret, to mourn. The act of lament is an ancient Christian practice that we inherited from Judaism. But I think the 21th century American church forgot about Lament, in favor of the power of positive thinking.
Lament is not worry or anxiety. It is a public claiming that things are not as you wish they were and a cry out to God that you’ve noticed and you’re not happy about it. That means psalms and songs of lament. And it means the blues.
The Blues
One writer said - All jazz is blues. That is, pain and suffering and longing are the native soil of jazz. A jazz-shaped faith, is a blues-shaped faith. We may feel joy and hope alongside our lament. We gather as a congregation and community to hold those together.
A jazz shaped faith that includes the blues is played by a group of musicians. Ensemble. You can't play jazz alone. Like jazz musicians, we need community. We need connections. Playing jazz and being part of a congregation means listening to others, needing others, becoming who we are because of others. We find our own voice, but that means playing in concert.
The early disciples were like jazz musicians – they heard a sacred melody and responded so they could play together, improvise and make grace filled music in Galilee, on the road to Jericho, on boats in a storm, and on the road to Jerusalem. As we begin our journey through the season of Lent on the way to the empty tomb, that is our invitation.
Ending
I am feeling so much sadness and lament these days. Day by day the current Administration is acting in ways that reflect authoritarian government. The press is muzzled; government employees have been dramatically and wrongfully fired. Openly racist comments are promoted. There is more on my list……
Then the events on Friday when the President and VP showed Ukrainian President Zelensky incredible condescension and demanded he and others believe the lies. We know Russian invaded Ukraine. So much suffering and death. Dictators are on the wrong side. I am horrified, disgusted and ashamed at the abandonment of European and other allies.
So what do we do?
First, we see reality. Pay attention. We take in enough facts and reliable sources of news that keep us aware of what is happening. Truth-telling is our foundation.
Next is to grieve. We're losing a lot. Let yourself mourn. We lament. We sing the blues. We can turn our sorrow into power, but only if we first grieve. Sorrow is a form of love.
Then take care of yourself. Root yourself in love and beauty. Connect with what sustains you. Build community. Strengthen friendships. Be in worship as much as possible and participate in the life of the congregation. Root yourself more deeply in your spiritual life.
Take some action. Speak out. Call your Senators and Representatives. Give money to the church and organizations. If we are rooted in love, we can have courage and hope.
Create. Take what's inside you and put it out there. Create art, poetry, music, food, stories, conversation. Commit acts of kindness.
Pray. Meditate. Pray for ourselves, our country, for the world. Take time to focus on being in the presence of Divine love and mystery.
None of this will change the world, but it will change you. The transformations within you are part of the movements of the Spirit, which is the power and grace that heals the world.
When you change the note you sing, you change the whole chord. We can join the mending of the world and creating new harmonies with the gift to make your place in the world more beautiful, more loving, more just. Amen.
Resources
Steve Garnaas-Holmes, post on Facebook, March 2, 2025
Kara Root, “Lament. Return. Remember. Rest.” April 18, 2021, inthehereandnow
https://kara-root.blogspot.com/2021/04/lament-return-remember-rest.html
Conversations, “Psalm 40 – The Mud Psalm”
https://www.conversations.net.nz/psalm-40-the-mud-psalm.html