Sermon Notes — November 16, 2025
Hallelujah Anyway
Psalm 150
Rev. Dr. Mary Beth Bernheisel
November 16, 2025
Hallelujah!
(Wait for response)
Hallelujah!
(Wait for response)
Hallelujah!
(Wait for response)
There’s something about hearing a hallelujah that just makes you want to Hallelujah right back.
Hallelujah!
(Wait for response)
Will you pray with me and for me?
Why the Hallelujahs?
The writer of Psalm 150 would say
“Why not the Hallelujahs?”
After all, God is God.
That alone is worthy of our Hallelujahs — the truth that God is, is enough to elicit our praise. But thanks be to God that God also acts. God creates. God makes — and then makes all things new again and again and again. God is the first and mightiest actor of the cosmos — the composer of all the universe and God never stops acting.
And so we say Hallelujah.
Hallelujah is the variation of two Hebrew words that mean — can you look at today’s scripture and guess?
(Wait)
Praise the Lord!
In fact, the Hebrew name of the book that we call Psalms is Tehillim, which means
Book of Praises
From beginning to end the Psalms are a book of praises. A book of Hallelujahs.
And that might seem a little strange because, as we know, not all of the psalms have the same festive tone as Psalm 150. Psalm 150 just makes us want to shout to God, but what about, say, Psalm 22, the Psalm that Jesus cried out from the cross during his execution?
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.
(Psalm 22:1-2)
Or this one:
I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like one without strength.
(Psalm 88:3-4)
Hallelujah?
Nearly a third of the psalms in the Book of Praises are Psalms of lament — cries of anguish and agony, cries for help and salvation.
Perhaps it would be more honest to say
Hallelujah, anyway?
I first heard that phrase – Hallelujah, anyway – from one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott. Lamott published a book of the same title. Hallelujah anyway. What was news to me was that she borrowed her title from a gospel singer named Candi Staton who wrote a song called Hallelujah Anyway. The chorus goes like this :
Praise him till your blessings come down
Praise him till your situation turns around
You gotta lift up your voice and say:
Hallelujah anyway.
Hallelujah anyway.
Bernhard Anderson who is an Old Testament scholar, calls the psalms of lament “praise in a minor key.” The very fact that we cry aloud to God in the very worst situations, in the deepest and darkest moments, in the most desperate times of our lives is testament to God’s worthiness to be praised. God listens, God hears, God is with us. Hallelujah.
Even Psalm 150 – which we hardly ever hear in our own worship – isn’t a psalm only for special occasions. For our Jewish brothers and sisters, Psalm 150 is an everyday psalm. It’s part of their daily prayers. It’s an everyday psalm for our Catholic brothers and sisters, too. It’s not part of their prayers every day, but it appears frequently in their Liturgy of the Hours. Psalm 150 doesn’t invite us to praise God when we feel like it, or when we need special words. Psalm 150 is an imperative – a command – to praise God.
Some days it’s Hallelujah.
Some days it’s Hallelujah, anyway.
The Psalms are a messy, mixed-up journey through the highs and lows of life. There are psalms for when we find ourselves in awe of God’s majesty and greatness; there are psalms of thanksgiving for God’s goodness to us. We read psalms of agony and abandonment – cries to God for mercy. There are psalms of sheer joy; psalms of gratitude for the privilege of being able to worship God. And the psalms aren’t arranged by category or listed in a particular order – just like the good days and the hard days of our lives show up in no particular order. But at the end of all things – at the end of the messy mix of hope, lament, and wonder – there is music.
There is a chorus of generosity singing Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.
We lose a bit in translation. When we look at the Psalm in the original Hebrew we see that each line is longer than the last – it’s a visual crescendo, if that’s a thing. As each instrument is added the lines get longer until we can imagine a great cacophony of praise.
Remember that Hebrew reads from right to left and we see how each line builds upon the last until all that is left is
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
The writer of the psalm makes an unmistakable connection between breath and praise.
The word that is translated breath in Psalm 150 is the Hebrew word neshama – it’s the breath that God gives to humans. Think way back to Genesis. Adam is just a well-designed pile of dirt until God gives Adam his breath – God’s breath. It is God’s breath that gives us life, that animates us and gives us vitality. It’s God’s breath that makes us live. And just a side note, this Hebrew word for God’s breath, neshama? It’s a feminine noun, just like the word ruah is a feminine noun. Ruah is the word that the Hebrew writers most often use to talk about God’s spirit or God’s breath. Just a little something to mull over.
Old Testament scholar James Mays tells us that
The breath of life, in the long run, is the human being’s only possession, and in this the human being is [wholly] dependent on the Lord.
In other words, in the end, the only thing we possess – the only thing that is truly ours – is our breath. And even that is God’s gift to us. Were God to take it from us we would go back to being just a pile of dust.
That said, the psalmist gives us clear instructions on exactly what we are to do with that breath.
We are to
Praise the Lord!
There is no better or truer use of our breath than to praise God.
How? With everything we can find – with our songs, with our instruments, with our bodies as we dance.
Why? Because God is God. Congregational pastor Ashley Grant reminds us that our culture conditions us to be useful. Our culture conditions us to do things that have a tangible result – that bring health, or wealth, or fame, or happiness. Praising God does not necessarily result in any of these things, although perhaps we might find ourselves happier people after shouting a few Hallelujahs, or healthier because we’ve filled our lungs with the breath of God and then exhaled God’s praises. In the end, though, we do not praise God because it is to our benefit or because we hope to gain something from it. In the end we praise God because God is.
And I believe that this congregation deeply desires to be a family of disciples that gives our neighbors and our community and even our world good reason to say Hallelujah. Good reason to say, Praise the Lord. In a few minutes we’ll invite you to bring your estimate of giving card for 2026 to the rail, and we’re going to pray over these cards. We’re going to ask God to use what we have committed to do more than we can ever ask or imagine. We’re going to ask God to use what we have committed for the really boring stuff like keeping the lights on and the heaters heating. We’re going to ask God to use what we have committed so that we can expand our programs and give more humans the opportunity to come be part of our family. We’re going to ask God to use what we have committed to help us love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We can’t even imagine yet how God is going to use these gifts in the coming year but we come knowing that if it was up to us we would do some good things, but when we let God lead the way we are going to go on an adventure that we cannot foresee.
But first we’re going to share some Hallelujahs. I’m going to get us started because I want to say praise the Lord for the things that have happened over the past week.
Praise the Lord that the people in our community – our church and so far beyond our church – heard the cry of the needy and donated so much food and so much money that we had 31,000 pounds of food to pack yesterday.
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord that 665 families in our community are going to receive banana boxes full of food for Thanksgiving.
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord for 400 turkeys!
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord for our friends from Chesterton Academy who helped arrange the food so that it was ready to be packed!
Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord for our neighbors and friends who came to fill food boxes!
Hallelujah!
What do you want to say “praise the Lord” for?
(Wait)
It’s God’s breath in our lungs and so we pour out our praise to God alone in all that we say and all that we do. What better and truer act is there for us than to say Hallelujah, Praise the Lord?