The great drama of the trinitarian hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy”

Why do we sing as part of worship? The answer is not abstract or theoretical. It is given through the practice of singing the songs themselves. The defining practices of the Christian community and the defining nature of our humanness as expressed in the presence of God can be found in the sequence of Psalms 104, 105, 106, and 107.

• Psalm 104 displays the practice of wonder and awe that issues in exuberant praise.
• Psalm 105 displays the act of remembering God’s good actions that move us to glad obedience.
• Psalm 106 displays the act of remembering our own waywardness that situates us honestly in our need and hope for God’s rescue.
• Psalm 107 displays the act of gratitude that specifically names the occasions of God’s transformative fidelity and our response with material gratitude.

The four liturgic actions—praise, readiness for obedience, readiness for rescue, and thanks (to which other like actions can be readily added)—together constitute a rendering of humanness as it is given in the biblical tradition and as it may be performed in worship.

These dimensions of humanness, which are embraced as they are performed, amount to a world of gift that refuses the more conventional and pervasive world of commodity. The momentary departure from the world of commodity in worship requires a practice of imagination and emotional emancipation that together defy the tight calculus of market ideology. They also defy the kind of reasoned talk in which many Christians are wont to engage in worship. Singing is artistry that entails a kind of freedom that resists analytic control. Singing is, by the way of the world, quite unreasonable, and bears witness to an alternative reality.