Hallelujah: Singing Praise In A Troubled World
I’ve been reading a good book by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, titled Covenant and Conversation. He is deceased but was a great commentator on the Jewish Bible, which of course we share. I mentioned him in a sermon which got someone to send me a fascinating YouTube video of Rabbi Sacks talking about Leonard Cohen. Cohen was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet, playwright, and novelist, who had a fascinating life and was a devout Jew, albeit a little bit sacrilegious at times. He died in 2016, and Sacks did a video in tribute to him, talking about Cohen’s theology and faith. This led me to do a little bit of digging into Leonard Cohen, specifically his most famous song: Hallelujah.
I imagine all of you have heard this song. It has been covered thousands upon thousands of times, and used in movies and other soundtracks. The lyrics are a bit odd. Among them are:
“Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips, she drew the Hallelujah
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah”
Sacks points out that in this song and others, Cohen points out that even though life often “goes all wrong” he still stands before the Lord and sings hallelujah. He still praises God. He still sees God beside him.
I need to hear that nowadays. For me, and I know people whom I care about and consider dear friends disagree, things with our country seem to be going all wrong. There are those who think this is some sort of necessary evil, all the cuts to programs that care for the sick, poor, and desperate. They aren’t necessary at all. There are other ways to go about examining federal spending, making cuts to government waste and such. The Clinton administration made major cuts in the federal workforce but did it over 7 years. It also reduced the federal budget and the budget deficit. We are, or have been, a compassionate nation. The present administration is dismantling a program President Bush started to change the face of the AIDS crisis in Africa. This program has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and now it is stopped. We are called to care. Closer to home, Lutheran Services in the Carolinas has been forced to cut half of its workforce. We are desperately trying to care for the totally legal refugees who have waited years to come here. The struggle is real.
But…. But we still need to sing “hallelujah.” We need to sing out, about God’s presence, and God’s call to justice. We need to tell the truth and be open to the truth where we are found wrong. That is the reason I still stay engaged with and talk with dear friends who might disagree. When we refuse to do that, we are helping make things wrong, not right.
What do you think?
-Pastor John Trump
