Daily Devotional • August 31
A Reading from Psalm 150
1 Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty firmament!
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;
praise him according to his surpassing greatness!
3 Praise him with trumpet sound;
praise him with lute and harp!
4 Praise him with tambourine and dance;
praise him with strings and pipe!
5 Praise him with clanging cymbals;
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Meditation
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Hallelujah! (Psalm 150:6)
When you step into the Nave on Sunday mornings, do you imagine yourself joining the great throng of praise—saints, angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven?
There’s so much to negotiate in those first few minutes: the parking space, the greeter, the usher, the bulletin; the shock and awe of stained glass color; the sonic boom of the organist’s pedalboard; the much-too-heavy processional crucifix for the far-too-small acolyte; not to mention the chirp of texting from the pew ahead of you and the Cheerio crunching from the pew behind. And yet—do you imagine yourself joining the great throng of praise?
Though this is a great oversimplification, there was a time in the life and theology of the Church when those who thought and wrote about the Liturgy imagined that, once instituted—think: ‘written’ by God in Christ—the clergy performed the liturgical drama on behalf of the people. It would take the so-called Liturgical Movement of the late 19th and 20th centuries to foster a renewed understanding of the Church at prayer: clergy and laity alike, not merely the clergy, participate dynamically in the ‘performance’ of the liturgy each Sunday, a comprehensive celebration of all creation.
Praise—it’s what the Church does. It is what distinguishes the assembly of the baptized from a social club, from a community of lobbyists and social workers, or from a place of respite for the vulnerable and powerful alike. Praise is the charism that moves all creation, including you and me, into the orbit and the majesty of God, into the arms of the One who made us.
Because God acts, we praise.
Because God saves, we praise.
Because God holds the hope and beauty and destiny of all creation, we praise.
Because God is, we praise.
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Hallelujah! (Psalm 150:6)
The Very Rev. Timothy Kimbrough is the director of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies and the Jack and Barbara Bovender Professor of the Practice of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School. He was previously dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
Christ Church, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
The Diocese of Southern Ohio – The Episcopal Church
The Very Rev. Timothy E. Kimbrough, dean and rector of Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville, is a seven-time deputy to General Convention. This year he will serve as vice chair of the convention’s Constitution Committee.
