A Broken Hallelujah [Shrek Soundtrack]

A Broken Hallelujah
By Rev. Barbara Merritt
December 9, 2007

First Reading from Isaiah Chapter 9

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

For thou has broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor…

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Second Reading from "A Prayer of Praise" by C. S. Lewis

When I first began to draw near to belief in God (an even for some time after) I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should "praise" God: still more in the suggestion the God Himself demanded it. We all despise the person who demands continued assurance of his own virtue, intelligence, or delightfulness; we despise still more the crowd of people round every dictator, every millionaire, every celebrity, who gratify that demand. Worse still was the statement put into God's own mouth, "What I most want is to be told that I am good and great."

It is perhaps easiest to begin to understand praise with inanimate objects. What do we mean when we say that a picture is "admirable"? The sense in which the picture "deserves" or "demands" admiration is this: that admiration is the correct, adequate or appropriate response to it; that is if we do not admire, we shall be stupid, insensible, and great losers, we shall have missed something. Many objects both in Nature and in Art may be said to deserve, or merit, or demand admiration.

But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise. The world rings with praise—lovers praising their beloved, readers praising their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and spacious minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits, and malcontents praised least. The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad ones continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read.

Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be. Praise not merely expresses, but completes the enjoyment. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good she is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch. If you hear a good joke, you must find someone to share it with.

Sermon "A Broken Hallelujah"

A close friend gave me a CD of her son's a cappella group at Bowdoin College. On it there was one song I loved, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

It had vaguely religious words—hallelujah, King David and countless references to brokenness. But what I really loved was the haunting melody.

So last August through a choir member (because I didn't have the courage to ask Will Sherwood directly), I inquired whether the choir could perform this piece. Now Will, while not being a great fan of popular music, is still a "sport." And he agreed, and the choir agreed and we chose December 9th for its premier performance. I was a happy camper until I actually started looking at the lyrics last week. And the more I looked, the more nervous and bewildered I became.

To begin with: even though there are only a few verses, there is a lot of pain expressed—pain and failure and disappointment. And then I found some extra verses (apparently it took Cohen five years to write this song, and he wrote some 80 verses.) In one of them, he declares: "love is not a victory march. . .it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah…"

Well! What exactly are we praising in this little ditty? So I thought I had best read some of what others had written about Hallelujah. In the magazine Rolling Stone, the reviewer wrote: "The dark poetic music of Leonard Cohen should be listed on the table of periodic elements. . .when you discover it, it suddenly seems as necessary as oxygen…Hallelujah is concerned with the sanctity of real life and the dangers of real love." So far, so good.

Then in the online magazine Stylus, someone wrote: "In Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen explains Judeo-Christian theology, desperation and sex, as well as faith in times of crisis and in times of calm." Now I'm really getting nervous.

One blogger claims that Hallelujah is "the best song ever written."

Another calls it just pop music written by a melancholic composer.

Bob Dylan told Leonard Cohen that he especially liked the lines: "even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah!"

One blogger wrote "this song addresses the doubts and mistrusts of all relationships, from the supposed ultimate relationship between the creator and the created, all the way down to earthly relationships."

Another wrote at some length:

"No other story explores as deeply the relationship between romantic love, pain, music and spirituality. Romantic love is heralded as the widest gateway to pain. The song is an ode to the brokenness that comes through love, rejoicing in the beauty of this paradox."

He continues:

"The minor fall and the major lift—the fall produces a minor tone, distinguishable to the ear when it stands alone, but together with the major lift it completes the chord that pleases the Lord. And that ending lift would not be possible without a place from which to rise."

And he goes on:

"The betrayed, hurt, broken lover responds not with anger, helplessness or jaded indifference, but rather with a simple and honest declaration—'Glory to the Lord.'"

I had read just about enough! Praise in the midst of a broken world and a broken heart? Sing hallelujah in the darkest season of the year? I turned to my etymological dictionary. What exactly does "hallelujah" mean?

The word consists of two parts. The first, "hallelu" is the imperative commanding form of the word "to praise" and the last part, "jah" is an abbreviation for Yaweh. Hallelujah is the commandment to praise, not the invitation or the suggestion. It is the sacred obligation—the requirement to praise—it doesn't matter whether you understand your circumstances to be holy, or wholly broken—everyone of us is called to sing hallelujah, and it can be a loud and happy song in a major key, or it can be a quiet, persistent melody in a minor key.

In all human circumstances, we are commanded to appreciate. Isaiah described where we stand "in the darkness." And to people like us—imperfect, stumbling and lost—people who live in the land of the shadow of death—to such people comes a great light. And the yoke of our burdens will be broken. And unto us a child is given—someone wonderful—a Prince of Peace.

This week our Jewish brothers and sisters celebrate Hanukkah. Long ago in the midst of a broken and devastated temple, at a time of war and defeat and oppression, the light in the oil lamps kept going. Those who light candles in the darkness of December are saying: "You win your freedom by acts of praise, with persistent courage, always appreciating what is essential, what endures."

And the Christian tradition asks us to reflect on the ancient story of the birth of Jesus. But we are not asked to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem, or in a quiet monastery of purity and calm. We are invited to celebrate in shopping malls where, it turns out, a depressed and desperate teenager may decide (with an AK47) to end it all and take out a few random innocent victims as he goes.

But I don't have to tell you that this is a genuinely broken world. Here, and in Iraq, and in the Sudan, and in Los Angeles, and in Worcester, Massachusetts in hospitals and prisons and nursing homes and in the ordinary routine of going shopping. This is the world, the reality, where "love in not a victory march." Surely, you recognize this world we inhabit. Where no one (for very long) is a stranger to a broken heart. And we go back and forth between appreciation and disappointment, gratitude and complaint—things going smoothly and things falling apart. But what startles me, and I suspect startles many of you, is that in the midst of this realty we are called to appreciate, to celebrate and to sing with the angels: "Peace on earth, good will to all."

Leonard Cohen himself commented on what he was trying to accomplish in his song Hallelujah. He said, "It is a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way, but with enthusiasm, with emotion. It is a rather joyous song."

And it is this "rather joyous song" that tells us something true about what human existence is all about. Cohen begins with King David, one of the greatest poets of all time, the possessor of the secret chord that "pleased the Lord." This baffled King sang hallelujah, and at the very same time a woman broke his throne. Bathsheba revealed to King David his all-too human nature. It turns out that even a king who possesses the perfect pitch and deathless prose will have to come to terms with his own fallen nature.

Cohen then speaks to the believers and the skeptics, to those who accuse and to those who defend, and he proclaims: "It doesn't matter what you heard—whether you're singing a holy hallelujah or a broken song of praise—there is a blaze of light in every word." And he ends the song with a most humble admission:

I did my best, it wasn't much
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

He says when it's all said and done; I want only to appreciate what is. I want my eyes to see and my voice to sing out in praise:

Even when it all goes wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

That is, I believe, the task of human life. That is our prayer that we may be allowed to appreciate what is.

Galway Kinnel said it far fewer words than Leonard Cohen in a poem he called Prayer:
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is what
I want. Only that. But that.

"Whatever is, is what I want." No longer at war with reality. No longer hoping to get through this life with your heart or your mind intact. But always singing.

December is the right time to raise our voices in songs of praise. It hardly matters what you can find to praise—the sunlight or an evergreen, candlelight or a potato latke, the harmony of the choir or the loveliness of a Christmas carol.

Sing out—it is commanded of you.

Stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on your tongue but Hallelujah.

Why Does An Animal Speak?

Animals don't talk. Human's talk. Why?

Man was made in the image of God. Most often as a youngster I presumed that meant something about how we looked. In time I have come to see that it has much more to do with how we act.

We are in fact designed to be “image bearers.” Therefore our human vocation is image bearing which is also our primary task. As a creature we are also given voice. Our voice is unique among all the animal sound making equipment in creation, We alone are capable of giving voice to the praise of God. All creation and its creatures glorify God as almost all naturalists and certainly nature its self gives record it its own voiceless beauty.

Non human creatures do not have this voice; we do. But we fail to use it in harmony with Creation to praise God - to hallow be His Name then scripture reports that even the rocks might begin to speak.

This principle then may give us some insight into Jenny’s finding her voice. Balaam, ever the voice for hire, was not dedicated to God. Even as he set out on the road he appears more driven by his desire arising from greed than service to God. His gift of communication with God was a money-making device for him.

Nature rebelled in a sense when he left home that morning. Heaven was prepared to strike Balaam dead. His redemption that day came not from another word directly from God. And don’t we put a premium on being able to speak directly to and even more admiration is given to the concept of hearing directly from God. I am thought, myself, such a gift would be too wonderful. The confidence that I would retain in myself as to my relationship with God would inspire me to devotion that I can only imagine.

Yet Balaam has these gifts: he converses with God. Not quiet as directly as Adam and Eve had in the garden before the fall, but still oh, so wonderfully. Still, his heart is not given to God. His heart is hard like the money his soul craves. No man can serve two masters. Balaam is on trial in that regard.

So, Jenny speaks out as God’s creation. Her life is linked to his just as the Apostle Paul remarks in passing that the whole creation awaits its redemption along with mankind (Rom. 8). Her remarks addressed to Balaam challenge him to be obedient to God.

So, all of God’s economy is entwined in linkage with him. Our mission as stewards of this world beginning in the garden of Eden was on limited merely to the first pair nor only with the garden. Ours is not a throw-a-way comos nor are any aspects of our lives, our world, our galaxy physical, spiritual or otherwise independent of the others. Shalom is a word that addresses the restoration of all these aspects to their rightful place. And peace is not merely the absence of war, and even our salvation is not to heaven away from a fallen world. We are in this together. Our job then as children of God, image bearers is to work toward that restoration of all things using our best tools and God’s guidance, just like in the garden before the fall.

O, Lord grant us wisdom to follow your lead and not our own fallen hearts and their willful misdirected plans. Amen

Jenny Keeps Boundaries

Balaam’s Ass had and has a job. She also kept in her place until she was called.

Her first job, before that historic day, was to safely convey Balaam, her owner and rider, the hired gun soothsayer and unwilling prophet, to his God ordained destination, in God’s time, under God’s discretion.

This beast of burden was loyally doing her previously God ordained job, largely directed by Balaam, his desire having always been her guide -- until God’s angel stepped into the road, sword drawn. That day her job description changed.

On the one hand, beaten for failing to continue as Balaam directed and on the other facing immanent danger then and only then did this lowly beast find her tongue.

God gave this little ass a new job. One she had never done before. One for which she was not otherwise equipped. She spoke out to save her master. This points up the life saving job that God in that instant ordained for this lowly ass.

So, four new things (boundaries/fences) seem true.

1. God can speak his will through any person, creature, device, or item he so wishes; even unexpected ones.
2. The timing for these unusual speakers to speak was strictly driven by God and was under his purview.
3. The intended audience addressed by these speakers was also ordained by God.
4. The ass, once it had done what God ordained, was, at least in this case, never to speak again. Therefore, any speaking done by such a creature, needs to be led by God.

Accordingly, I will attempt to be prayer lead, Spirit driven in what I write here.

Jenny

Prophets and God

Prophets were not God’s first choice.

God created the earth. Then he reached into the earth and formed man from the dust then he leaned in to breathe the spirit or breath of life into the still unfinished man from thence he took a rib and finished man with his complimentary component, woman.

God spent time daily walking and talking with man. Worship and communication were face-to-face. They were intimate and personal experiences. Both were informal and comfortable. God’s first choice was to deal directly with his people; i.e., face to face.

Sin brought the collateral damage of renewed chaos: disruption, destruction and decay as man was estranged from God.

Reconciliation was itself jagged with the broken, fallen man. Man’s fall has meant his relations ever since have been crippled. Man’s relationship with God became an arms-length-ritualized relational dance. Altar, sacrifice, accompanied by fire, death, and ego-defense mechanisms changes worship from a walk and talk to liturgy with confession and sound-bites of praise and worship and a stumbling, halting, gait replace an easy walk with God.

At one time God dealt directly with his people. He dealt directly with man. Then after the fall woman was subjected to man and God spoke to the primarily to the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but he also still occasionally spoke to the sons, like Joseph, and to women -- daughters and sisters like Miriam and Deborah.

But the people remained fearful of God as they had been at Sinai when they cried out and sent Moses to mediate between them and God.

Later they rejected God’s leadership saying that they wanted a king like the nations around them.

So God told Samuel, then his judge and prophet to the people, they have not rejected you, but me. He went on to tell Samuel to find and anoint Israel's first king, Saul.

Eventually Israel was plagued both with ungodly Kings and false prophets. However, it is the prophet that I wish to focus on herein.

In the beginning every man and woman were in relationship with God and there was no need for prophets. Each person heard directly from God. The fact that they walked and talked in the cool of the day might even suggest the latter practice of God continuing to speak to his people in their dreams and night closed in.

Cain killed able over issues involving their priestly service: sacrifice, worship, and hearing and heeding God’s voice. In one sense then Cain also represents or foreshadows the office of the false prophet; holding forth as God’s word his own will, and wrongly enforcing it. He distorted, at the very least or ,perhaps, misrepresented, God’s desires and he acted in an evil manner as a result.

Jumping down the track we might consider the sorcerers or magicians who supported Pharaoh, a God, himself, among a panoply of Gods and Balaam, an acknowledged soothsayer. These along with a variety of other socially acceptable spokesmen for God(s) seemed to have made a practice of speaking well and or guiding their patrons and in Balaam’s case acted on-demand to curse the enemies of their patron. God, himself, challenging Balaam to act contrary to his pocketbook.

Additionally, it is of serious interest to me that Balaam on the one hand seems entirely comfortable with his communication with God. The point on contention between Balaam and God which the New Testament will further acknowledge is that Balaam was profit motivated.

In the story of the leprosy of Naaman, a military commander, who came from a powerful, neighboring enemy state to seek healing from the prophet Elisha is informative (II Kgs. 5). Naaman presumes that he should offer considerable wealth to the prophet in order to secure this blessing. But the prophet of God waved that off. However, within his ministry staff was Gehazi who saw the opportunity to profit from the man’s willingness to pay and as a result was cursed by the prophet and as a reward was, himself, leprosy stricken. This certainly instructs us that the true prophet of God is not a hireling and does not speak or act from a profit motive.

Meanwhile Balaam is nonetheless in a clear communication loop with God. Our God who can and has used a star to guide wise men to the crib of the messiah, and who has used an ass to correct a profit driven soothsayer to speak truly as God directs can also use the fallen perverted soothsayer to do his bidding when he so desires.

God did not in the beginning chose intermediaries through which to speak to mankind. In the last days the prophet Joel foresaw the coming of a return to God dealing directly with his people as he had in the garden.

Therefore we who are his children need to learn to listen for his voice. Even an ass can hear it!

When Caring Becomes Dysfunctional

Caring behavior which acts to enable an addiction is also commonly known as codependency.

In fact this sick form of caring is not truly for the benefit of the “needy.”

It is actually done so as to make the caregiver feel better, more noble, or even loved. In this way caring can be used to create an indebtedness of good feeling toward the caregiver. It is a form of gaining power and control over the needy.

From Thence did Codependency Come?

Although the behavior is ancient the term, "co-dependent", is a term which was originally associated with co-alcoholic behavior. It was documented in the late 1970s in order to help families and spouses of individuals with alcohol and drug problems. It was thought that one of the partners, often times a non-user, was co-addicted in some inorganic way. Over time the addiction was found not to be directly related to alcohol at all.

The concept was initially directed at family members, especially wives, who often "interfered" with the alcoholic’s recovery thus enabling their addiction. It was suggested that this partner’s behavior made it easier for the addict to continue their unacceptable behavior.

Codependency seems to arise from the co-addicted (but dry) partner’s impaired self-esteem. On the one-hand, the co-addicted partner is not personally under the influence of the substance, but they are addicted to their partner’s need for a rescuer. He or she needs to be needed. This is paramount. Therefore they manipulate everyone and especially the addicted “loved one” so that the codependent partner can go on “caring” for them. In this way the co-addicted (but dry) partners can gain/maintain their own sense of self worth which arises from meeting their addict partner’s perverse needs.

The codependent partner is manipulative because they are typically unable to ask directly for love. Instead they seek to obtain it by ingratiating their partner to them. They care for their partner in ways that more assertive persons would not. Their passive-aggressive manipulation passes seductively for caring. In a type of quid-pro-quo arrangement their partner having been the recipient of extreme/sacrificial/heroic care will now owe love and care back to them.

Accountability for our own happiness can be a scary thing. Codependency allows one to relinquish responsibility for our frustrating lifestyles.

Codependency applied to church life

In the church world codependents are often disciple-makers (helpers or rescuers). They act as the guru or teacher does who leads their younger disciples into the way. They are always teaching. What they teach does not truly free their disciples from their enslavement. For instance proverbial legalism keeps a high standard before the disciple and condemns them thoroughly when they fall short, but they never offer the freedom that grace does. Legalism is just one way which this captivity is continued. All the while the co-dependent person tries to appear that they have the inside information and have accomplished the lifestyle and therefore are a suitable teacher and guide. The New Testament describes both Pharisee and Sadducee in terms that mean both we unworthy leaders and failed to guide Israel into real truth and relationship with God.

Balaam's Ass: is a Jenny.

Let me begin with a little background.

Talking animals:

It is common for animals to talk to humans in folklore. The bible, however, does not typically portray talking animals. In fact only two do so. The first was the serpent that tempted the woman in the Garden of Eden. The second was Balaam’s ass.

What kind of animal:

While older translations referred to Balaam’s animal as an ass modern speech translations seem to prefer the term donkey. The modern scientific name for this latter critter is: Equus asinus.

Jack or Jenny?

Scripture refers to Balaam’s donkey in the feminine gender: making his donkey a Jenny and not a Jack. So it was female.

Animal Traits:

Students of animal behavior have noted that certain animals like cattle are without depth perception and are therefore extremely nervous about ledges which also accounts for their unwillingness to cross a cattle guard. Donkeys in comparison with horses are slower and less powerful, but they are extremely intelligent animals. Donkeys are exceptionally strong, patient, and persistent animals and make excellent pack animals. Horses are much more high strung, i.e. in times of panic or danger they will run away, donkeys, however, will simply freeze when frightened. Donkeys also have a strong sense of survival and if they deem something as dangerous they simply won’t do it, hence they don’t make steeplechasers.

What makes this Story and Animal Important?

Balaam was a hired gun type of soothsayer. Soothsayers were in the entourage of the wealthy. They never spoke against their patrons (you do not bite the hand that feeds you). They instead prophesied against the foes of their patron. In this case Balaam was being hired by a paranoid King Balak to curse Israel.

Balaam surprises us because he is in contact with God who speaks to him in a dream. Balaam is not shocked so either he has had some on-going relationship with God or he is an equal opportunity prophet open for business with any and all higher powers, or both. Clearly Balaam is not dedicated to God. In the closing books of the New Testament it is clear that his character was thought to be crooked. He was a wheeler-and-dealer using Spiritual Formation as his gig.

The ass had never spoken before and had no record of ever having spoken again. Her behaviorial track record to which Balaam gives ascent was as a loyal, dedicated, obedient, hard working beast of burden.

The only reason she breaks her silence is she is empowered by God to do so. What she says seems to arise to a great degree from her own character. Surely she warns Balaam for his life, but she does even that in a clearly self-serving context; protecting herself and making a plea for her own fair-treatment. In this there is also a self-righteousness quality.

My take-away:

I am not a “dumb animal” albeit in this moment in her story neither was Jenny. On the other hand, scripture states that the righteous man has regard for the life of his beast. So, too, I want to be a man of Godly compassion for all of God’s creatures and creation.

I am not female. I do, however, owe it to both Jenny and the other half to try to be more sensitive to a female worldview when I speak in her voice.

I do not want to be self-righteous nor to sound self-righteous. I am reminded that when we read that passage about the Pharisee, you know, the one that stood in the temple and prayed his haughty prayer - thanking God that he was not like this publican, etc.... that we are very often guilty in that same moment of “thanking God that we are not like that Pharisee – and in doing so become exactly what we despise. Lord help me be more humble and aware of my sin.

I do not want to be self-serving however I think that might well be at least somewhat unavoidable. I learned along time ago that we all say, preach, and teach what we want to hear and that which edifies ourselves for the most part. I must accept that I am guilty of that too.

If someone has already said what I am saying then I want to say something else and let their message be enough. I do not need to have nor to air an opinion on every topic – just to see myself in print.

I do not want to be harsh, strident, nor merely alarmist. Jenny did not speak until the last minute, albeit in this case the timing must have been God’s, duh. Perhaps, I might speak best when God has seemed to open a door for me, too. Otherwise like Jenny I should remain quiet/mute.

Thanks for letting me share. I will try to use this as a guide for myself..

In the name of Balaam’s Ass, Jenny

Only God Can Give Us a New Life