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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3eab6a43d32514739c6acfc1f0b7b882.mp3
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https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3cc9447ef09b915a2182a5cf3462fe6d.pdf
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A Song of Serenity
A Reflection on the Psalms
Text: Psalm 8:1
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 19, 1987
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Human experience is uneven.
It may seem that for some it is always Summer, and for others it is always Winter,
but it would be more accurate to recognize that for most of us human experience
is varied; it is dynamic, in flux, and it contains both light and shadow, good times
and difficult times.
The Psalms are a beautiful reflection of human experience as it is lived
consciously before the face of God and, if we are honest in letting the Psalms
speak to us in the full spectrum of these experiences, they will have a word for us
in every season of our lives. They will bring to expression the depths of our
experience, whether that be of joy or sorrow, of pain or pleasure.
Walter Brueggemann in his study of the Psalms suggests that the whole range of
human experience, which comes to expression throughout the whole Psalter, can
be diagrammed as a movement. There are three life situations which are easily
identified in many Psalms and those life situations are true to our common
human experience. There are Psalms of orientation which express confident trust
in the good order of Creation, reflecting the seasons of wellbeing; there are
Psalms of disorientation which reflect the struggle of the person in conflict and
confusion, the dark night of the soul; there are Psalms of new orientation which
give expression to the joy and gratitude felt because of the surprise of grace which
has effected healing and brought wholeness to life again.
Most of life is lived in movement from one state or condition to the other. Human
experience is uneven; we are always in process; life is fragile and we are
vulnerable to the slight tilting of the axis of the heart, which can move us from
settled confidence to disarray, and again, from disarray to the healing of grace.
Each condition of our human expression finds an echo in the songbook of Israel.
Psalm 8 is a song of serenity, singing the confident trust of one who is
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
experiencing reality, the world and life as well ordered, well structured, reliable
and harmonious. The Psalm ends as it begins with a paean of praise to the
majestic greatness of God, Who has created and Who sustains this well ordered
world.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth!
The psalmist stands in awe of creation, of the wisdom with which all has been
ordered. How great Thy name means how gloriously Thou art manifested in the
whole created order. Here is an expression of buoyant faith, of a sense of wonder,
of a joyful acknowledgement of God Who has brought about the harmonious
symmetry of all of reality. Here we have a confident, serene settlement of the
faith questions. The Psalmist has found a place to stand, a place to set his feet.
Since God is trustworthy and reliable, there are some things that are simply
settled. One can go on to other things because there is a kind of untouchable core
of trust that moves one beyond doubt and anxiety.
Life is good because God in His goodness has created a good and hospitable space
in which one can live and move and have one's being. There is an elemental
certitude that forms a solid foundation on which to rest one's life.
Such is the conviction of the poet who penned the eighth Psalm. Let us look at the
heart of faith's conviction as it comes to expression in this song of serenity.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth!
Exclamation point; so the Psalm begins, so it ends. Worship, praise and
adoration of the greatness of God form as it were the brackets, the boundaries
within which the psalmist contemplates the identity and dignity of the human
person. At its heart, the Psalm is an affirmation of human power and authority,
which is grounded in and bestowed by the eternal God. In this Psalm, doxology at
the beginning and end form the context in which the dominion accorded to the
human person is celebrated.
There is a proper order and a careful balance in the contemplation of our place in
the total scheme of things. And what is that place?
We are placed over creation, under God.
The prepositions are critically important.
We are placed over creation. The psalmist celebrates this fact.
In the beginning we find him feeling extremely small and insignificant as on a
clear night he contemplates the stars and the moon and the vastness of the deep,
dark reaches of outer space. Within him runs the question,
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
What is the human person that Thou shouldst remember him, mortal
humanity that Thou shouldst care for them?
The eternal God Who spoke and brought the worlds into place, Who spoke again
and hung the stars in place – that God behind and beyond the vast Creation must
be so majestic, so awesome that One can hardly believe that One so mighty and
magnificent would bother about the frail and fragile human creature who lives
beneath the stars, so vulnerable to the overwhelming might and mystery of the
natural world.
That is the psalmist's initial reaction as he lies on his back, staring into starry
space. But then he contemplates further; he goes on to realize,
Yet Thou hast made him little less than a god, crowning him with glory
and honour.
The psalmist was no doubt familiar with the beautiful first chapter of Genesis, the
Song of Creation. There, too, in poetic fashion the wonder of God's creative work
is celebrated and the crown of that work, the pinnacle of God's creative genius is
the creation of the human person in God's own image. God made us like Himself
– that is the daring biblical affirmation, and therein the greatness and the dignity
of the human person are proclaimed. The Bible will have nothing to do with the
denigrating or scorning of humanity. Rather, it proclaims loudly and clearly the
greatness of the human person.
God has committed to us rule and authority.
Thou makest him master over all Thy creatures; Thou hast put
everything under his feet.
Again the Creation chapter from Genesis comes to mind. The human person is
charged with responsibility for the good Creation; to be the steward of Creation,
to care for it, preserve it and make it fruitful.
And so, as God is to the whole created cosmos, the human creature is to the good
earth. The vastness of cosmic space, which the psalmist could only guess at but
we know to be beyond our contemplation, which in the beginning seemed to
dwarf him and his sense of significance, is now brought into perspective. Now the
very wonder of Creation points to the pinnacle of Creation itself, the human
person who, godlike, contemplates the whole and takes responsibility for it.
That is what the Psalm celebrates: human dignity, power and authority bounded
by the eternal God Who willed it thus and Who grounds the whole structured
reality.
The human person – over creation, under God, finds thus his dignity, her destiny.
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Professor James Cook of Western Theological Seminary preached on this psalm
here some months ago and entitled the message, "The Poem That Puts Us In Our
Place," a fine title for the psalm. That is precisely what we have here – a poem
that puts us in our place, over creation, under God. We learn who we are and we
learn what we are called to do. Identity and destiny are terribly important issues
to get settled. To know who I am (and Whose I am) and what I am called to do is
to find my place, to get my bearings, to gain a sense of orientation.
In the psalms of orientation there are some matters of critical importance that
are settled. One can get on with life because the large questions of human
existence are settled. The God Who in grace has embraced us is the God Who
upholds the world He has created and preserves it in its course and will finally
realize His purposes of love, bringing all things to consummation.
Is it important, thus, to believe and to live? Yes, without question.
You will remember the opening scene of "Fiddler On The Roof." Tevye tells us
that life is precarious; it is a delicate balancing act, like playing a fiddle on a peak
of a sharply sloped roof. And, he asks, how do we keep our balance? He answers
his own question - Tradition.
And a great foundation stone of that Tradition would be Psalm 8 with its praise of
God's majesty which grounds reality and gives meaning and dignity to human
existence, holding out the promise of a final redemption.
The story goes on to portray the three daughters who successively test the limits
to greater and greater extent – finally to the breaking point. Yet, even the
breaking of the traditions gives a definition of human existence because there was
a settled order, a tradition against which one struggled.
Three years ago I returned from the Netherlands where I had spent much time
with my mentor, Professor Berkhof, who spoke of the near impossibility of
communicating with the youth of the Netherlands who seemed so lost, so much
adrift without any fixed and settled points on the compass of their lives. His
comment was that one could not offer answers to their disorientation because
they themselves did not even know the Question.
And then he said something that struck me and I have shared with you. "The
youth of this generation are not the prodigals; they are the children of the
prodigals who left home but never returned." The prodigal had a memory of
home. The prodigal knew somewhere there was a father, somewhere there was
something called home. But those born and raised in the faithless wasteland of
the Far Country do not even have a meaning of home.
We are told of today's youth as being without orientation in our own country, as
well. The reason often cited is the nuclear threat that hangs over our world. The
scourge of drug trafficking is attributed to the meaningless malaise that seems to
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
characterize the lives of so many. Our culture has in large measure lost its
orientation. There are no longer those certainties that can simply be trusted. Life
is without definition.
How thankful we can be if we have been given the gift of trust in the good and
gracious God Who created and Who preserves and Who will bring all things to
consummation. That is an affirmation of faith. It cannot be proved by methods of
scientific demonstration. It is gift.
To have received such a gift is to cry out with the psalmist,
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all the earth!
To have received such a gift is to have a place to stand, to sense a solid foundation
from which one can get on with life. To have received such a gift is to have some
matters settled, some issues put to rest. To have received such a gift is to be
moved beyond anxiety, beyond fear.
Let me underscore the blessing of such a gift: it speaks of the givenness of life,
the world, the order of reality. There is no sense of peace about achieving the
world or securing the world; no sense of super importance as though one is
responsible for the survival of the world. As Bishop Quail heard God say in the
midst of a sleepless, restless night: "You can go to sleep now, Bishop; I will stay
up."
What a wonderful gift it is so to trust.
But, let me point to a serious error to avoid: That does not mean presumptive
trust, nor irresponsibility as though we can simply "leave it all to God." He has
given us dominion over the works of His hand. He has crowned us with glory and
honor and called us to the responsible stewardship of nature and responsible
engagement with the course of history.
But with trust intact, we are free from paralyzing fear, free to plunge into life
exercising our best gifts to further God's purpose in the assurance that finally all
things are in His gracious hand.
Finally, we must recognize that the Psalm is a song of serenity; it is the
expression of calm and confident trust in the great tradition that is ours. But,
tradition must never be allowed to degenerate into traditionalism. Jaroslav
Pelikan has said that tradition is the living faith of the dead; but traditionalism is
the dead faith of the living. And if the Church has in its tradition a very great gift,
it has often sinned by allowing that tradition to harden and to die. Failing to
recognize that tradition is living and growing and needs always to be translated
into contemporary idiom as it is brought into engagement with the present
horizon, the Church has too often acted as though its faith were recorded in
timeless statements that can never be interpreted anew. Then in a world like
© Grand Valley State University
�A Song of Serenity
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
ours, with the explosion of knowledge, there is no light shed from the tradition on
the new discoveries and insights of the present, and to believe becomes
adherence to an anachronistic belief system, which no longer illumines human
experience.
We have too often offended here; we have lost the best and brightest.
It is not only those who are offended intellectually. There are also those whose
lives are not precisely marked by serenity, but rather by severity, whose lives are
in disarray. There are those for whom there seems to be no symmetry, no
harmony, no well-ordered cosmos.
They, too, have a true insight. For many, there can be no easy orientation. The
writer to the Hebrews knew that. Citing Psalm 8, "What is man ...," he concludes
the citation with these words:
Thou didst put all things in subjection beneath his feet. (2:8)
But then goes on quickly to add,
But in fact we do not yet see all things in subjection to man.
And then he goes on,
But we see Jesus…
That author knew what some of you know. In this our Father's world there are
still many things out of sync. There is yet much to be put in subjection before we
exercise our royal rule in the created order of God.
But we see Jesus - he lived, died, experienced the darkness of hell from which
God raised him up, giving him a Name above every name!
Therefore, even when I cannot find the light, I cling to Jesus; I live by hope; I
appropriate already that which is promised but is not yet. And thus even in life's
confusion I begin to hear the melody of a greater harmony and I know one day all
Creation will resound with the song of serenity when all God's purposes are
realized in heaven and on earth and He is everything to everyone.
Reference:
Walter Brueggemann. The Message of the Psalms. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost VI
Scripture Text
Psalm 8:1
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
References
Walter Brueggeman. The Message of the Psalms, 1984.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19870719
Date
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1987-07-19
Title
A name given to the resource
A Song of Serenity
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 19, 1987 entitled "A Song of Serenity", on the occasion of Pentecost VI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 8:1.
Divine Intention
Psalms
Stewardship
Tradition
Trust