A Service Call or a Prayer?

The following meditation was written by Rev. Dr. Greg Rapier, pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Sacramento, California

“Praise God with the blast of the ram’s horn! Praise God with lute and lyre! Let every living thing praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:3, 6 Common English Bible)

A friend of mine called a plumber once about a clogged drain. She’d been working for a couple of days to fix it before she finally gave in. The plumber walked around the small room, assessed the curvature of the drain, and cleared the mess in about fifteen seconds. That’ll be twenty dollars, ma’am. My friend was shocked that he charged so little; she’d ordered sandwiches that cost more. So she pressed for details.

The plumber had a cross necklace that patted his chest as he spoke, and he explained how, for him, each service call is an act of honoring God. He’d been working for decades, and he knew all the tricks people in his profession used to squeeze a few extra dollars from their clients, but his faith made him refuse. Honest prices for honest labor—simple as that.

With his hands covered in God-knows-what, that plumber expressed something holy. And the woman with the clogged drain caught a glimpse of it—whether she knew it or not. This short visit wasn’t just a service call. It was prayer.

Psalm 150 ends the entire psalter with an explosion of praise—trumpets, harps, lutes, cymbals, dancing. Every instrument imaginable, every voice, everything that makes noise unified in a scene of chaotic, ecstatic praise. The psalm suggests anything you’ve got can be used to praise God if you let it. Even a plunger.

We often imagine prayer as something we carve out and separate from ordinary life: a quiet devotional in the morning, a Sunday service, a few simple words before a meal. These things matter, and the time we separate for God matters too. But Psalm 150 makes a wilder claim, that the whole range of human expression—absolutely everything under the sun—belongs to God. The trumpet and the tambourine, yes. But also, the garden, the kitchen, the workbench, and the pipe wrench. Over the centuries, a rich tradition has developed of breath prayers and walking prayers, where an entire life falls under the auspice of a conversation with God. Let every living thing praise the Lord—absolutely. Not just during a quick devotion. Not just when we hit pause on the rest of life. Always.

Joy,