Introduction

This talk was given at St. Peter’s Church on 6 July 2025. Revd Mark Fletcher explores biblical refrains, drawing from Psalm 118:1-9 to demonstrate how repeated scriptural phrases can counter modern anxiety and write God’s truth upon our hearts. Fletcher challenges congregants to intentionally choose daily spiritual practices that remind them of their identity in God rather than allowing the world’s negative messaging to define them.

A few years ago, I was at a concert in Hyde Park in London and it felt like a really significant one. It was Paul McCartney from the Beatles, and it was a vast crowd, tens of thousand, possibly a hundred thousand people, and it was a wonderful event in the summertime in London. And the climax of the concert Paul McCartney got us to sing together and we sang a song, which you may well know, called Hey Jude. And honestly, to be standing alongside perhaps a hundred thousand other people singing this song together was a frankly transcendent moment. It was astonishing. And music has that power, doesn’t it?

Especially some music and there is something astonishing about singing with other people. We have lost some of that in our modern world as we’ve become more individualistic and more consumerist. But when you have those experiences, it sends sends a shiver down the spine. It reminds us, I think, of something really foundational of what it means to be human.

I think it is something of that for which we were made. Now at the heart of the Bible is a vast hymnal. It is Psalms and songs and poems. Songs of joy and of celebration, of consolation and lament. Songs to give heart and strength and to draw people together. We talked a couple of weeks ago. Do you remember we did this where actually if you open your Bible right in the middle, that’s the Psalms.

So it is the heart of the Bible and the very middle chapter of the Bible is our reading tonight. It’s Psalm 118. And it really is one of the greats. We know that Jesus loved this psalm and he quoted it often. He would’ve spent time praying and reflecting on this psalm, and then there are sort of crucial moments in his life where this is what he quotes.

Further on from our reading in verse 22, there’s a line that says The stone, the builders rejected, has become the cornerstone. That was the song that we just sang. And you remember Jesus said that. He quoted this psalm. Likewise at the triumphal entry, when Jesus comes into Jerusalem on a donkey, the crowds quote this Psalm, they quote verse 26.

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. Isn’t that amazing? We get to read these same words, these same poems and psalms and songs that people in the ancient world did. We have this point of connection with them. And they have a job to do. They are for us, just as they were for them.

And one of the notable features of this psalm, I don’t know if you spotted, is it has this refrain, this phrase, which repeats time and again through it. It says, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever. And I think those refrains are intentional. They are designed not just to be heard and understood, but they are repeated, so they somehow seep their way into our souls.

We lay them down, we write them upon our hearts. Those sort of ideas, those sort of songs are essential to helping us to remember who we are and where we stand in this world. That’s what great songs do, isn’t it? My head is full of song lyrics. Something will come on the radio and I’ll find that I know all of the words to it, and that’s the intention of these psalms.

We lay them down as a treasure in our hearts and in our lives. They speak not just to our minds, but to our very souls. Did you notice that these are words for ordinary people like you and I to sing? Verse four said, let those who fear the Lord say his love endures forever. You are to be saying these words, to be repeating them, and we need to echo them consciously and intentionally to remind ourselves of this truth.

Here we find our peace and our identity and our security in the God who is trustworthy, whose love endures forever. We speak to our hearts, and to one another, these words which go beyond our fears and speak peace to our hearts. And the reason why I think that matters so much is because I worry. I worry about the refrains that we hear in our hearts and minds in everyday life.

All of us, there’ll be different things, but there are these things, these refrains, which we allow to echo in our heads, and I fear that left to our own devices, we will slide towards anxiety and fear. And I worry that the world amplifies those things. So, whether that’s the news or social media, or online algorithms, or people in marketing, or even politicians, play to those anxieties in order to make us buy whatever they are selling.

The noise, the anxiety of the modern world is like a wire brush, which scours away our sense of ourselves and our sense of God. We need these refrains. We need these songs to remind us. These are words for when we face hard times. Verse six says, the Lord is with me. I will not be afraid. What can mere man do to me. It’s a reminder of how important this Psalm is. That, Jesus would’ve echoed those words. He would’ve said that to himself as he prayed it, as he faced opposition and even violence. The early church echoed these words. They lived in a culture where they were persecuted and despised, and the temptation in hard times is always towards fear. We need to remind ourselves who is really in control of this world and not to be afraid.

In the hardest moments of my life, it has been these psalms, which have carried me through. Which have helped me to draw near to God when I couldn’t do that for myself. These refrains are essential to remind us who we are. These words remind us who is trustworthy and frankly who is not. In a world where the powerful seem to hold sway without contradiction, in a world where the rich simply get richer, where power corrupts and where justice is hard to find, and we are tempted to accept that as the only way, these words remind us.

Verse eight. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in men. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. When it turns out that the powerful are only really in it for themselves, we need to say to them, you know what? You have no real power because we know the one who really is in control.

And he is trustworthy and he does have our best interests at heart. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love endures forever. You can see where I’m going with this. We need this in our lives. We need to lay down these truths. We all have these refrains and rituals that make up our everyday life.

These things that we tell ourselves day by day. The question is not whether we have those, but are they good? Are they true? Are they healthy? And these words of scripture are rich and deep and true. Used well, used often, they will write themselves upon our very souls. They will nourish us and remind us who we are and who God is.

You need this every week. That’s why we do church. That’s why we often echo the same words. It’s not a lack of imagination. It’s because we need to hold on to these things. We need to remind ourselves of these foundational truths. There’s an amazing film. It’s a good few years old now. It was called Memento.

And it was the story of a man who had no long-term memory. So every morning he would wake up and he could remember nothing of what had happened before. And so his response to that was to write upon his flesh and upon his body, on his arms and on his torso, who he was, where he came from, and what mattered to him.

Honestly, a remarkable film. But we in the same way are forgetful. We lose track of who we are. We allow the noise of this world to constantly overwrite the things that we believe to be true. My suggestion to you is you don’t just need this every week. You need this every day. You need to start the day reminding yourself what matters.

You need to write the script. Because if you don’t choose the script, the world will choose it for you. What does it look like for you to remind yourself day by day, who you are, what matters, and who God is? I don’t think there is anything more important to me personally, and I would recommend to you that the day begins in quiet and in the scriptures.

That is the place we’re drawn into the presence of God. We rediscover who we are before God. We need to say, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. And when we are hard pressed, when the fears and the anxieties creep in, we need to learn to return to that place. To return to that firm foundation.

We are so forgetful. We are so easily distracted. We need that routine. Some things that I’ve known people do, which I think are really helpful, is to essentially collect your own prayers and liturgy and to return to those day by day and to allow them to evolve over the course of the years. Other people use a good online app.

Donato and I were talking about the Bible app just the other week, and it’s brilliant. It’s so simple. And every day we’ll have a word of scripture and a reflection on that and what better way to start the day is there? Others will have other recommendations, and I’d love you to be talking to one another about what you’ve found that’s good. I love Lectio 365, which is brilliant. But every day I will pray Anglican morning prayer, and that’s a really kind of rich and full set of prayers and scripture. These are the foundations that remind us who we are and who God is. At the very heart of the Bible, there are these songs that we are to sing. That write their truth upon our hearts. And when we sing these songs, we look forward to the day when we will all sing it together. When that experience of the concert in Hyde Park is just a taste of what will be. When God’s people are called together when the gates are thrown open, when the king returns, when we are set free.

And when we shall together sing for joy in eternity. And at that moment we will understand why it was that singing triggered something so beautiful in our hearts because it is part of that for which we are made. Amen.