Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
Serve God with gladness;
come into God’s presence with singing.
I imagine this being one of the psalms used to process into the temple with great joy. Perhaps choirs are singing, instrumentalists are playing, and there is much celebration—much joyful noise! God made us, and we are God’s people. Give thanks! What a happy occasion this could be.
And here, several thousand years later, we proclaim these words again. God made us, and we are God’s people, the sheep of God’s pasture. Give thanks! Make a joyful noise!
And: We say this on Pride Sunday. God made us—in all our fabulous diversity. And we are God’s. All of us. Even those who have been “othered,” pushed to the margins, made to feel unwelcome and unacceptable. We are God’s, created by God, loved by God as our whole and authentic selves, no matter who we love, no matter what we have done, or what mistakes we have made. Nothing changes that God loves us.
On June 28, 1969, police raided a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York, called the Stonewall Inn. We’ve all heard of the Stonewall uprising. In those days, it was not unusual for police to raid gay bars, to harass gay people just for being gay. But this time the gay community had had enough. There was a riot and demonstrations that continued for several days. There was anger; there was fear. But by the next year, 1970, this was morphing into a joyful noise, a protest of the oppression of LGBTQ people and also a celebration. With these first pride parades, the LGBTQ community dared to come out of the shadows, to stop acting as if there was something wrong with them, and instead to celebrate themselves exactly as they were and to insist on being seen and accepted. And now there are pride parades all over the country and around the world. Does it mean abuse of and discrimination against LGBTQ people has ceased? That murder of trans women is finished? No. But it has helped to shift public perception to be overall more accepting. That is worth celebrating. That’s the world we’re living into, even though persecution has not stopped.
In March, Victor Orbán of Hungary pushed through a law banning “events that ‘depict or promote’ homosexuality to minors under age 18.” According to NPR,
Orbán and his party have insisted that Pride, a celebration of LGBTQ+ visibility and struggle for equal rights, was a violation of children’s rights to moral and spiritual development — rights that a recent constitutional amendment declared took precedence over other fundamental rights, including that to peacefully assemble. (https://www.npr.org/2025/06/28/nx-s1-5449685/hungary-budapest-pride-defies-ban.)
Extra government cameras capable of facial ID were set up along the parade route. Participation in the parade was punishable by a fine of nearly $600.
So what happened yesterday, the day the Pride Parade was to have taken place in Budapest? Was the parade canceled? Did people stay home in fear?
No. Over 100,000 people showed up for the biggest Pride Parade Budapest has ever seen in its 30 years of holding these events. The mayor of Budapest defied Orbán and made the parade a municipal event, which didn’t need a permit. And the mayor himself marched. Again, according to the story on NPR, “More than 70 members of the European Parliament, as well as other officials from countries around Europe, participated in Saturday’s march.” The 100,000-plus marchers had flags and music and dancing. They made one heck of a joyful noise.
This is the kind of joyful noise that can topple oppressive governments.
I mention again a story I told a few months ago, because it, too, illustrates the power of making a joyful noise, not just when everything is going great, but specifically when times are oppressive and dangerous. Jim Wallis tells this story in his book God’s Politics:
During the deepest, darkest days of apartheid when the government tried to shut down opposition by canceling a political rally, Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared that he would hold a church service instead.
St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa was filled with worshippers. Outside the cathedral hundreds of police gathered, a show of force intended to intimidate. As Tutu was preaching they entered the Cathedral, armed, and lined the walls. They took out notebooks and recorded Tutu’s words.
But Tutu would not be intimidated. He preached against the evils of apartheid, declaring it could not endure. At one extraordinary point he addressed the police directly.
You are powerful. You are very powerful, but you are not gods and I serve a God who cannot be mocked. So, since you’ve already lost, since you’ve already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!
With that the congregation erupted in dance and song.
The police didn’t know what to do. Their attempts at intimidation had failed, overcome by the archbishop’s confidence that God and goodness would triumph over evil. It was but a matter of time.
[Desmond Tutu’s Confidence | Stories for Preaching]
Making a joyful noise to God is a way of celebrating that life is not something we’ve earned or deserved but a gift. Life is a gift—the good and the bad. All of it. And with this gift of life we can choose to live from a place of fear and hate, or, as Jan reminded us last week, we can live from a place of love and thanksgiving and joy. We can use this gift of life to try and make things better for everyone, to live into the realm of God we are trying to create, as if we have already stepped onto the winning side, as if it were already here. We talk about God’s realm as emerging right now and also not yet. We live into that realm, even though it isn’t fully here. In the midst of oppression—of the LGBTQ community, of race through apartheid—we sing and dance in the streets.
Perhaps you remember this song from the Civil Rights Movement.
“If you’re looking at the back of the bus and you can’t find me nowhere
Come on over to the front of the bus. I’ll be riding right there.”
That’s a joyful song that envisions a world in which anyone who wants to can ride at the front of the bus. And that song helped to create that reality.
Making a joyful noise to God isn’t just about singing and dancing in the streets or in a church worship service. It can look all kinds of ways. This morning I saw a flock of birds swooping out over the water, spreading out and then coming back together, moving as if they were all part of one extended body. They were being their best bird selves, and it was beautiful. That’s a way of making a joyful noise to God.
Yesterday I attended a memorial service for Rev. Randall Mullins, who was one of my pastors when I was a teenager at University UCC. Randall was into clowning, with the red nose and his gentle, loving sense of humor. About ten years ago, Randall was diagnosed with cancer in his mouth, and surgery was scheduled to remove his tongue. His tongue. Imagine being a minister and not being able to talk. So he knew this would be a life-changing surgery. This would be a profound loss. And as they wheeled him into the operating room, he wore a red nose. And he sang “Come O Fount of Every Blessing.” Every blessing. He sang a joyful noise of thanksgiving even as he faced the loss of his tongue, the loss of the ability to taste food or even to eat in a normal way, the loss of his voice.
As I said earlier, life is a gift—the good and the bad. All of it. Being embodied—in this body, in this time, in this place—is a gift. We are invited to make the most of this gift by loving freely and deeply, by centering ourselves not in fear or hate but in love and using that love to transform the world. Love yourself: celebrate who God created you to be.
Don’t Hesitate, by Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
From Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), 61.
So whether we are facing personal challenges, as Randall did with his surgery, or whether we are fighting for a justice issue that is bigger than ourselves,
Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth.
Serve God with gladness;
come into God’s presence with singing.
Know that the Sovereign One is God.
It is God who made us, and we are God’s;
we are God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture.
Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving
and God’s courts with praise.
Give thanks to God; bless the holy name.
For God is good;
God’s steadfast love endures forever
and God’s faithfulness to all generations.
Amen.