Musings: Let Everything that Has Breath Praise the Lord

There are 150 Psalms in the Bible. They span an array of emotions from praise to anger, from sadness to joy. The way the Psalms end however tells us so much about life as well about our relationship to God. Psalm 150 ends by saying, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”  While this is a psalm that I had heard throughout my life, recently it has become so much more meaningful to me. As most of you know I have been fulfilling some chaplain duties as part of Clinical Pastoral Education. During this experience I have encountered people in some of their most intimate moments: fear of surgery, grief from the loss of a loved one, uncertainty of a crisis, and loneliness from being in a nursing home for so long. While ministry in all of these circumstances is a challenge I’m honored to have the opportunity to experience, one challenge has stood out above the rest as being the most difficult. That challenge is providing ministry to those who are unresponsive, those who may not even be aware that I am there. At first this was a frustration; what type of ministry can I provide if they cannot respond? How can I help them? How can I reach them? As I was reading scripture to one of these patients one day, I turned to this psalm and it all seemed to make sense when I read, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”

As I looked at this patient their eyes were slightly open,  fixated on the wall, they could not speak, they could not move, they could not even eat, all they could really do is breath; and yet let everything that has breath praise the Lord. This person, just like every person, is a one who is truly loved by God. While the world may see them as old, decrepit, and taking up space and money while waiting to die; the Lord sees each one as a precious child. The same Lord who breathed into man giving him life, is breathing into each and every one of us. From a baby who takes its first gasp of air to those who are exhaling their last breath; the Holy Spirit sings praises to God. For as Romans 8 says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

 Soon we will be celebrating  Pentecost and how the church was formed through the power of the Holy Spirit.  While we are called to be in ministry with the “least of these” let us be remind that our ministry is not a ministry of “results” but a ministry of love.  We serve others not for some benefit that we will gain, and not even necessarily anything those we serve will gain either; but we serve because we love God and because we recognize the sacred worth of all of God’s children.  If we love in this way then just like the psalms we will experience both joy and pain, fear and comfort, anger and praise. Still, at the end of the day when we recognize that the breath of God is in each and every one of us, working between us in a delicate dance of inhaling and exhaling, allowing two strangers who may not know each other or who may not even be able to communicate with each other to share in a sacred moment of praise, then we truly can exclaim,   “ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”