Songs of Creation
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
February 16, 1997
Memory Verse: "Know that the Lord is God; it is God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are God's people, and the sheep of God's pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
Today's Texts: Psalms 33:1-2, 145:1-9 and Matthew 6:25-34
Opening Prayer: O God who speaks to us in music and mystery, comes to us now with your wisdom and your word. Speak to our hearts and make us know that you are God. Amen.
This morning I begin a sermon series on the book of Psalms that will take us through Lent to Good Friday and all the way to Easter Sunday. I can hardly imagine a more fitting start to choir appreciation Sunday. The Psalms so often form the basis for the anthems and introits of the Gallery Choir that they, along with our weekly responsive reading, have helped to make the Psalms a staple in our scriptural diet. It is safe to say that a week does not go by in which the Psalms are not somewhere present, undergirding the message of the day, although I seldom deal with them in my sermons and I have never preached an entire series on them.
This may explain, in part, why several of you requested a series on the Psalms when I took requests last summer as part of my annual sermon planning. It may also explain why the adult education series on the Psalms, led by Heather Biggers and Patty Pohlman, was so well received that it's now back by popular demand. We have a deep need to appreciate and understand such a ubiquitous part of our liturgy, scripture, and tradition. The authors of the New Testament make extensive use of the book of Psalms, including 152 direct quotations or specific allusions. It has even been suggested that when Jesus went off to pray, in lonely places, he was praying the Psalms.
Who does not know at least some snippet of this treasured book! If I was to say, "The Lord is my shepherd," chances are most of you could finish the sentence, "I shall not want." (Psalm 23:1). If I was to say, "This is the day which the Lord has made," chances are most of you could add, "let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24). If I was to say, "God is our refuge and strength," chances are many of you would come up with "a very present help in trouble." (Psalm 46:1).
These things have a way of working themselves into our consciousness, and of sustaining life through good times and bad. I have heard people celebrate good news by repeating the 100th Psalm, which was today's call to worship, and I have heard them face bad news by repeating the 23rd Psalm, which is most often used at funerals and memorial services. I will never forget the testimony of a Methodist minister who came to visit Yale Divinity School while I was in seminary. This man had been tortured as a political prisoner in unspeakable ways, and the only thing that got him through the ordeal was that he kept saying the Psalms over and over again. He had never worked on committing the Psalms to memory, but in the hour of his greatest need they came flooding back as a veritable gift from God.
What is it about the Psalms that gives them the ability to touch the deep places of the human heart? They are not a unified historical narrative which flows and develops a plot from chapter 1, verse 1, to chapter 150, verse 6. They are not a prophecy which can be tagged to a particular place and time in the history of ancient Israel. They are not a book in the New Testament, which was written after the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But they nevertheless hold an unique place of honor and respect in our experience, reason, and tradition. Speaking to God "out of the depths" (Psalm 130:1), they call us to do the same.
Walter Brueggemann -- a United Church of Christ minister, seminary professor, and one of the foremost authorities on the Psalms -- has been one of the freshest minds to approach the Psalms since the pioneering work of Hermann Gunkel and Sigmund Mowinckel in the early part of this century. Gunkel and Mowinckel analyzed each Psalm and categorized it as to its type and setting in life. This is what scholars call form criticism. Their work has been so influential that, until fairly recently, there has hardly been a commentary on the Psalms or an introduction to the Psalter that has not been organized around their categories.
In the early 1980s, Brueggemann came along with an entirely different approach. Although he did not reject Gunkel's categorization of the Psalms into laments and songs of thanksgiving, praise, royalty, and wisdom, Brueggemann proceeded to ask a different question. Instead of form, he focused on function. Instead of setting in life, he focused on theology. What does the book of Psalms say about God and, perhaps more importantly, what does it say about us as a community of faith? This has been Brueggemann's primary concern.
This approach to the Psalms has created new avenues of interpretation and understanding. These avenues may assist those who find the Psalms troubling or even offensive. At the same time as some of you have requested a sermon series on the Psalms, as one of your favorite books, others of you have shaken your heads in disgust. It all seems so archaic and crude, this God who "sits in the heavens and laughs" at the vain designs of mortals, this God who "dashes the nations in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Psalm 2). Whatever happened to grace and loving your enemy and forgiveness? Why go back to reading about wrath and destroying your enemy and vengeance? Certainly there must be another way.
Brueggemann argues persuasively that there is no other way. For those of us who want to follow Jesus, during this season of Lent, all the way to Easter Sunday there is no way to avoid the sordid and gruesome tale which comes between now and then. We are, after all, custodians of the cross -- the electric chair of the Roman Empire. And we call it Good Friday. Our story knows all about the depths of Sheol, before coming out on the other side of glory. The crucifixion is filled with the pathos of the most anguished Psalms, while the resurrection dances with the best of them. It is, indeed, the most surprising impossibility of them all.
This is the theological flow which Brueggemann discerns in the Psalms. It is a flow from orientation to disorientation to reorientation. (cf. The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Augsburg • Minneapolis, 1984) and The Psalms & The Life of Faith (Fortress Press • Minneapolis, 1995). This flow is not reflected in the organization of the book itself, with its 150 Psalms divided into five sections (1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106, 107-150). It is not that the first two sections are Psalms of orientation, followed by two sections of disorientation, and a final section of reorientation. On the contrary, the Psalms constantly jump back and forth between songs of complaint and songs of victory, songs vengeance and songs of thanksgiving, songs of penitence and songs of praise. There is no orderly progression from one function to the next.
Brueggemann discerns this theological flow from the juxtaposition of the individual Psalms themselves. By putting together such opposite expressions of faith, the Psalms give voice to the overarching theme of God's eternal presence. "Whether I ascend to the highest heaven, or make my bed in Sheol, you are there." (Psalm 139). My sermon series will seek to animate and illustrate the theology of the Psalms as part of our Lenten preparations. In so doing, I hope to recognize and clarify the pattern which forms the basis of the Christian life itself.
The Psalms of orientation reflect a very happy and steady state of mind. It stems from the simple affirmation that God created and ordered the world according to a beneficent plan. What could bring more comfort and joy than that!
"I will extoll you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever." (Psalm 145:1f). Those were the opening lines of our responsive reading. What moves the Psalmist to make such a prodigious pronouncement? It is not that God has redeemed or rescued the Psalmist from the predicaments of life. It is much more general and a priori than that. It is more akin to the spontaneous affirmation which comes to someone who is lying comfortably out under the stars on a warm summer night.
"I will meditate on the glorious splendor of your majesty. I will declare the greatness of your deeds. I will celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness. I will sing aloud of your righteousness."
Surely the difficulty of life has not completely robbed you of those moments when you could marvel and wonder at the universe. The probability that all this could have been created by chance is extremely small. Some have even calculated it to be nonexistent or have compared it to the probability of an airplane falling into place from an explosion at a metal factory. In any event, the astonishment and awe of the Psalmist is an almost universal human experience, regardless of how fleeting it may be.
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made. God spoke, and it came to be. God commanded, and it stood firm. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of God."
Songs of creation and orientation are not always inspired by the great outdoors. I was inspired this past week by reading the little book entitled Osceola McCarty's Simple Wisdom for Rich Living (Longstreet Press • Atlanta, 1996). Perhaps you've heard of Osceola McCarty. She has appeared on five television networks and has been featured in seven magazines and newspapers. She has received numerous national and international awards including the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Wallenberg Humanitarian Award, and the Avicenna Medal from UNESCO.
What did this elderly African-American woman do to receive such attention? She donated to $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi. Now that is probably not the largest gift the University has ever received, but it is certainly the most hard won and special. Osceola started to work at the age of eight, washing and ironing alongside her mother, grandmother, and aunt in order to help make ends meet. "Later, when illness limited her aunt's ability to work, Osceola had to fill an earnings gap for the household. She quit school in the sixth grade and went to work full time. She never made it back to the classroom."
"Instead, work became the great good in her life. She found beauty in its movement and pride in its provisions. She was happy to have it and gave herself over to it with abandon -- sometimes staying up until to two or three in the morning to finish her ironing. There was little else that captivated her. She did not desire possessions or travel. She wanted only her God, her work, and her family." "Her faith was as simple as the Sermon on the Mount and as difficult to practice." There was no striving after the things of this world, and there was worry about tomorrow. If God could create the universe and care for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, God could take care of Osceola McCarty.
At the age of 84, Osceola was still washing and ironing clothes in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She had saved almost $300,000 over the course of her lifetime, and she decided to give more than half of it to a school she had never even visited. "We are responsible for the way we use our time on this earth," she writes, "so I try to be a good steward. I start each day on my knees, saying the Lord's Prayer. Then I get busy about my work. I get to cleaning and washing. I find that my life and my work are increasing all the time. I am blessed beyond what I had hoped."
Now isn't that the way life ought to be! One could hardly find a more eloquent testimony of orientation. There was neither selfish ambition nor deceit, neither extravagance nor fear. There was only a solitary human being doing her job -- and things worked out just the way they're supposed to. There was no illness leading to her premature death. There was no discrimination leading to her financial demise. There was no resentment leading to her spiritual poverty. No wonder she was featured as one of Barbara Walters' 10 Most Fascinating People in 1995!
"I knew there were people who didn't have to work as hard as I did," she told her, "but it didn't make me feel sad. I loved to work and when you love to do anything, those things don't bother you." "I have never been mad at or questioned God. He is above all our questions. People forget that. They forget that He is God and we are the work of His hands. (God) can do what He pleases."
Those who read the Psalms never forget. There is a sense of well-being that comes from knowing that God has created and ordered the universe. It is not an accident. It is not askew. It is regular, reliable, equitable, and generous. In the Hebrew, this morning's responsive reading is an acrostic. Each letter begins with a letter of the alphabet in sequence. That is part of the message. It is designed "to praise God for a world well-arranged and oriented, from A to Z." (Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms).
The final two verses of our responsive reading could have come from the lips of Osceola McCarty herself, but instead they represent what may be the oldest theological assertion about God in the Old Testament. "The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made." (Psalm 145:8-9).
Whatever the pitfalls and improbabilities of such a pacific view of the world, we must admit that this is where the life of faith begins. It is God who made us, and not we ourselves. (Psalm 100). It is God who knit us together and formed us in our mother's womb. (Psalm 139). We therefore have no need to be anxious, because God's rule is not in doubt and will not be challenged. The creator of the universe is also the lover of our souls. For this we rejoice, give thanks, and sing. Amen.
Songs of Torah
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
February 23, 1997
Memory Verse: "Know that the Lord is God; it is God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are God's people, and the sheep of God's pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
Today's Texts: Psalm 1:1-6, Psalm 119:1-8 and Matthew 5:17-20
Opening Prayer: Voice of God, speak to us your instructions for life. Make us listen for your word. Help us to pay attention to your Spirit. Amen.
In preparing for this morning's sermon on the songs of Torah, I stumbled upon the moving story of Natan Sharansky -- a Jew who suffered political persecution in the former Soviet Union. Although we are still at what Brueggeman calls the happy, "orientation phase" in our study of the Psalms, the story of Natan Sharansky infuses this phase with new depth and meaning.
"Happy are those who delight in Torah, who meditate on Torah day and night." "Torah" is a Hebrew word commonly translated as "law." "Happy are those who delight in the law, who meditate on the law day and night." It is a strange way of speaking. Even the lawyers in this congregation must find such an assertion a bit mysterious. They may practice law, but they don't often relish law as a thing of exquisite beauty and inestimable grace. Law, after all, is limited. Torah, however, is different.
"The law of the Lord is perfect," writes the Psalmist, "reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes; ... the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb." (Psalm 19:7-10).
Last week we spoke about the joy that comes from appreciating the mystery of creation while lying comfortably out under the stars on a warm summer night. This week we speak about the joy that comes from appreciating the integrity of creation while playing games with our infant children.
This is one way to understand the ecstatic delight which the Psalmists take in Torah. It is not a matter of compliance, which can hardly be described as delicious or exhilarating. It is more a matter of discovery, which can be cause for passionate rejoicing and heartfelt desire. You know the routine. I'm sure Genevieve has already begun to catch on. Hide behind a towel. "Where's daddy? -- Boo!" Hide behind a towel again. "Where's daddy? -- Boo!" And so it goes. How many times can baby push the pacifier off the table, and it still falls down? With the realization that there is something dependable and attentive about the universe, panic gives way to peace and eventually to squealing, gurgling pleasure.
This is exactly what the Psalmists say about Torah -- "the law of the Lord." It is "better than thousands of gold and silver pieces." (Psalm 119:72). It is "sweet," "refreshing," and "wonderful." (Psalm 119:103, 25, 129). It is "music" to our ears. (Psalm 119:54). It is "the delight" of those who plead for justice and "the peace" of those who hope for salvation. (Psalm 119:174, 165). It is the discovery that God has woven into the structure of the universe a certain orderliness, coherence, and rule which manifests the very righteousness of God and holds the key to life itself.
This key is obviously something much larger than the Ten Commandments. "You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall not commit adultery." These are rules to live by, to be sure, but they are hardly the stuff of poetry and song such as we find in the Psalms. They are only the tip of the divine iceberg.
A larger understanding of Torah is reflected in the conventional Jewish use of the word to refer to the first five books of the bible -- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In these books we find not only two different versions of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-21 & Deuteronomy 5:1-22), but dramatic stories of creation and deliverance, critical turning points of covenant commitment, elaborate regulations of purity and holiness, as well as profound recapitulations which have endured the test of time. They are all Torah.
"What does the Lord require of you?" "Only this," Moses tells his people, "To fear the Lord your God, to walk in all God's ways, to love God, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God ... for your own well-being." (Deuteronomy 11:12f). Here we begin to mine the depths of the iceberg itself.
Torah is not only a code of rules which hold sway in the universe but a covenantal relationship which defines the parameters of life itself. To those who see only the tip of the iceberg, Torah makes no sense whatsoever. But to those who pay attention to the deeper things in life, Torah is the only sense they know.
"Natan Sharansky was jailed in 1977 for speaking out in favor of the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union, advocating free speech, and refusing to cooperate with Soviet authorities. He was subjected to a horrible ordeal, including periods of solitary confinement and near starvation. When he was finally released in 1986, the one possession he carried to freedom was a copy of the book of Psalms in Hebrew."
Shortly before his release, Soviet guards confiscated the book. They returned it "only after Sharansky lay down in the snow and refused to take another step. The book had been a gift from his wife, Avital. Her constant efforts to win her husband's release, along with the book of Psalms she had given him, turned out to be Sharansky's source of strength during his imprisonment."
"In a review of Sharansky's autobiography, Fear No Evil (the title of which alludes to Psalm 23:4), Patricia Blake writes: 'Sharansky's spiritual resources were even more remarkable. For comfort and guidance he memorized the Psalms in Hebrew and chanted them often.... Like another mathematician before him, Archimedes, he reckoned that with a place to stand on he could move the earth. And so he did.'"
J. Clinton McCann points out that "Sharansky's story has nothing to do with naive optimism or self-righteous legalism. It has everything to do with delighting in and meditating on Torah; it has everything to do with being open to God's instruction; it has everything to do with being open to God's presence in the face of unimaginable opposition and open to God's power to transform the most hopeless of situations. In short, it has everything to do with having a 'place to stand.'"
"For Sharansky, the book of Psalms functioned precisely as its editors intended -- both to open the faithful to God's guidance and instruction and to serve as a source of that instruction. (The book of Psalms enabled him) to maintain what he describes as his 'spiritual independence against the kingdom of lies.'" Which is another way of saying that the book enabled him to maintain "his absolute dependence upon God." (J. Clinton McCann, Jr. A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms: The Psalms as Torah, (Abingdon Press • Nashville, 1993).
Surely this is why the book of Psalms begins as it does, chapter 1, verse 1, with a poem extolling the virtues of Torah. "Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither." (Psalm 1:1-3).
Many a preacher has picked up on texts such as this one to promise worldly prosperity to those who play by God's rules. But this caricature does violence both to the integrity of Creation and to the faith of Israel. If a formula could have been found which would guarantee worldly prosperity, it would have been found long ago and Israel would have never been carted off to Babylon. But that is not the way the world works. There are just too many variables to isolate it down to any one single factor or even to four spiritual laws. But there is a discernible pattern of cause and effect which gives comfort to those who hope in the Lord. The righteous may suffer, and the evil may prosper, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
This is the orientation which the Psalms reflect in their squealing, gurgling celebration of Torah. Far larger than the Ten Commandments, far larger too than the first five books of the bible or even the bible itself, Torah is finally God's guidance and instruction for life. Torah applies to everything. And there is nothing about which Torah does not contend. Those who pay attention to God's instruction are like trees planted by the water. They are righteous and happy like Natan Sharansky. Those who ignore God's instruction are like chaff that the wind drives away. They are wicked and weary like his persecutors.
One cannot overstate the significance of the fact that the Psalms, as they appear in the bible, are divided into five sections or books. As with the first five books of the bible, the traditional Torah, so too are the Psalms presented as a kind of Torah themselves. From beginning to end they make the same affirmation: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom. Attention to Torah is the secret of life.
With the help of Natan Sharansky's story, we begin to see what this is all about. It is not about keeping a narrow set of rules, but attending to the instruction of God. In his book The Road Less Traveled (Simon & Schuster • New York, 1978) M. Scott Peck defines attention as the work of love itself. "The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another we give him or her our attention.... We make the effort to set aside our existing preoccupations and actively shift our consciousness."
"By far the most common and important way in which we can exercise our attention is by listening. We spend an enormous amount of time listening, most of which we waste, because on the whole most of us listen very poorly.... Listening well is an exercise of attention and by necessity hard work. It is because they do not realize this or because they are not willing to do the work that most people do not listen well."
Peck gives the example of listening to our children. In some families, children are virtually not allowed to talk at all. In others families, children are allowed to talk but virtually no one listens. In still other families, children are allowed to talk and people pretend to listen "occasionally making 'unh huh' or 'that's nice' noises at more or less appropriate times in response to the monologue." Finally, in some families, children are allowed talk but people only listen to what they want to hear.
None of these families are really listening to their children. None of these families are doing the work of love. None of these families are "giving (their children) full and complete attention, weighing each word and understanding each sentence." This is the hard way of love, which no one can practice all the time. But if we never listen to our children in this way, then we will fail to notice the extraordinary dimensions of their personalities and we will shunt the development of a happy and wholesome relationship.
What's true between parents and children, is equally true between partners, and even more true when it comes to our relationship with God -- an invisible Spirit who so often speaks with a still, small voice. God's instruction is something we must pay attention to if we hope to experience the delight of a real relationship which can sustain us through good times and bad, even as bad as the imprisonment of Natan Sharansky.
Peck believes that what keeps us back from the work of attention is laziness and fear. It's not so much self-centeredness as it is apathy and inertia. We fail to take the risk of love, either because it's too much effort or because it goes beyond our habitual comfort zones.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes it clear that our excuses will not get us into the reign of heaven. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Torah -- the instruction of God. I have not come to abolish but to fulfill. Whoever fails to pay attention to God's instruction, and who teaches others to do the same, will never enter the reign of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-20, paraphrased).
This is not a threat, but a description of what happens when we stop paying attention to God. It is like what happens when we stop paying attention to our children. The relationship goes sour, and can end in a terrible mess. So too, with the law of the Lord. We ignore it at great cost and consequence. But those who listen to the voice of God, those who meditate on his law day and night, those look for the divine iceberg anchored beneath the surface of life, are like trees planted by streams of water. They draw upon an eternal source of happiness and righteousness.
It is not guarantee worldly prosperity, and it does not even preclude tremendous suffering and dislocation, but as we pay attention to the still, small voice of God our panic will begin to subside giving way to peace and eventually to squealing, gurgling pleasure. Hide behind the towel. "Where's daddy? -- Boo!" Daddy's there. Mommy's there. Torah's there. On that place you can stand. If you have ears to hear, let them hear. If you eyes to see, let them see. Amen.
Songs of Vengeance
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
March 2, 1997
Memory Verse: "Know that the Lord is God; it is God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are God's people, and the sheep of God's pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
Today's Texts: Psalms 59:1-13, 112:1-10 and Galatians 6:1-10
Opening Prayer: Gracious God, speak to us this morning your wonderful words of life. Reassure us of your presence. Teach us your ways. Make us subscribe to your will. Amen.
This morning we make a shift in our study of the book of Psalms. We began on a very positive note, indeed. Two weeks ago we imagined ourselves lying out under the stars in the warm grass, celebrating the mystery of creation. Last week we imagined ourselves playing peek-a-boo with our infant children, celebrating the integrity of creation. Those are the experiences that make people happy to be alive. They fill us with a sense of wonder and well-being. They move us to count our blessings and to sing God's praises.
Unfortunately, as Erma Bombeck once observed, life isn't always a bowl of cherries. In fact, it's often the pits. Bad things happen to even the most wonderful people. No one is exempt, not even the Christ of God. This experience is so universal as to require no documentation. We are all subject to what Martin Marty has called "the winter of the heart." (A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart, Harper & Row • San Francisco, 1983).
The Psalms of orientation, as Brueggemann calls them in his theology of the Psalms, confront the problem of evil with the confident affirmation that things are still, nevertheless, all right. God still reigns in heaven above, and God will triumph eventually on earth as well. Evil is a temporary setback rather than a permanent condition.
We might call this the "law and order" response to the problem of evil. It takes a temporal and judicial view. What's wrong today can be fixed tomorrow. Justice can be served by awarding damages to those who have been treated unfairly. The evil can be punished and the good can be rewarded. We might also call this the "happy ending" response to the problem of evil. Nothing is ever so bad as to make the Psalmists lose faith in God.
"Deliver me from my enemies, O God; protect me from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from those who work evil. Even now they lie in wait for my life; the mighty stir up strife against me. They prowl about the city like wild dogs, thinking, "Who will hear us?" But you, Lord God of Hosts, are God of Israel. You are my strength, my fortress, and my shield. So awake to punish the nations and spare none who treacherously plot evil. In your steadfast love, let me look in triumph on my enemies. Do not kill them, but let them be consumed in wrath. Consume them until they are no more. Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God reigns." (Psalm 59, paraphrased).
There's none of this "love your enemies" stuff here, and "pray for those who persecute you." It's not that such ideas were nowhere to be found in scripture (cf. Proverbs 25:21f); "vengeance," after all, "is mine," saith the Lord. (Deuteronomy 32:35). It's rather that a very different idea was being worked on, in order to make things come out all right in the end. Since God reigns, God can track and settle the score of the righteous and the unrighteous. God can serve as judge, jury, and executioner with complete impunity. God can make sure that people get what they deserve.
This is the very objection that some people have to the Psalms. The passion for meting out justice, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth style, produces some of the most outrageous assertions. Don't just kill my enemies, but make them suffer first! (Psalm 59:11-13). Humiliate them in my presence! (Psalm 23:5). Cut them off from your steadfast love! (Psalm 143:12). Let them never know kindness or mercy. (Psalm 109:12).
Such assertions are scattered throughout the Psalms; they have a way of surprising us and casting a pall upon an otherwise sublime and beautiful poem. Psalm 137 is perhaps the most devilish example of them all. After twelve verses of the most ineffable thoughts, it zaps you by urging God to bless anyone who will snatch up a Babylonian baby and beat its brains out on the pavement. (Psalm 137:13).
C. S. Lewis commiserates with those who respond to such barbarism by desiring to never read the Psalms again. (Reflections on the Psalms, Harcourt Brace & Company • New York, 1958, 1986). It is tempting to simply leave them alone as expressions of an antiquated theology which has now been replaced by the law of love. But Lewis warns against such an irreverent reading of Holy Scripture.
For one thing, the Psalms have a way of exposing the lie about ourselves. We like to think of ourselves as sophisticated and cultured people who have gotten beyond such base human emotions, and yet we live in one of the most violent societies on earth. A day doesn't go by in which we don't hear of some new atrocity, often committed by people just like us. Our hostilities have not been superseded by grace; instead, they've gone underground only to explode in homes, families, churches, neighborhoods, and cities around the country.
Reading the Psalms, with their unabashed hope for God's vengeance to be visited upon the earth, forces us to look at ourselves. Our discomfort and embarrassment in reading these things is the very reason they're worth reading. Just because they're in the bible doesn't mean they should be condoned or approved, let alone used to justify similar passions in ourselves. On the contrary, they can become an occasion for own healing and redemption. They bring to the surface that which we do not want to hear.
Not only do they expose the lie about ourselves, but they make it abundantly clear that God cares about the course of human history. These are not the formulations of a religion whose primary concern is to help souls escape from the trappings of the material world; these are the formulations of a religion whose primary concern is to help people live in the material world with liberty and justice for all.
It is, in other words, an expression of the same sentiment which forms the basis for the social gospel. History matters. People matter. You matter to God. Not some disembodied shadow of yourself, but your whole being -- body, mind, soul, and strength. This sentiment is reflected in the wail of young children who are told they can't do something an older sibling is allowed to do because they are too young: "That's not fair!" They are filled with rage over the perceived inequities of the situation, and they want to set things right -- or else.
So too with the Psalms of vengeance. They too want to set things right -- or else. Their concern is not with the ethereal plane of heaven, but with the nitty-gritty realm of planet earth.
The story is told of President Lincoln's response to a request for a presidential pardon. The petition was brought to him by the Honorable John B. Alley, who presented him with a request on behalf of a person confined in the Newburyport jail for being engaged in the slave trade. It was accompanied by a letter to Mr. Alley in which the prisoner acknowledged his guilt and the justice of his sentence. He was very penitent -- at least on paper -- and had received the full measure of his punishment, so far as related to the term of imprisonment; but he was still held because he could not pay his fine.
The President, when he had himself read the petition, responded to Mr. Alley with these words: "My friend, you know my weakness is to be, if possible, too easily moved by appeals for mercy, and if this man were guilty of the foulest murder that the arm of a man could perpetrate, I might forgive him on such an appeal; but the man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children and sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hands. No! He may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act of mine. (Lincoln's Wit, Ace Books, 1958.)
The Psalms of vengeance sympathize with President Lincoln's point of view. Our actions produce consequences which do not always lead to forgiveness. One of the dangers of Christianity, with our message of salvation by grace through faith, is that we stop contending with these consequences. Since everything is forgiven, we can easily excuse and gloss over the ramifications of our own selfishness and inadequacies.
But that's not the way the world works. Justice is woven into the fabric of the universe. We don't complain that God has been punitive or overly harsh when a person throws an object off the top of a building and it falls to the earth. We understand that that's the way the world works. So too with justice. There are natural consequences to the things we say and do. When we're hurting and in pain as the victim of one kind of injustice or another, there's comfort in affirming that "God's gonna' get you for that."
The apostle Paul described this phenomenon in his letter to the Galatians, which was written to address the questions of law and grace. In Christ we have been set free, but how we use that freedom determines the kind of life we live.
"Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. Whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith." (Galatians 6:7, 9-10).
In other words, what goes around comes around. Remember the context for the Psalms. Israel had been destroyed first by civil war and then by one foreign power after another. The promises of God had grown rather thin. The glories of the Temple were no more. The people were scattered throughout the ancient world. Many lost their possessions and became slaves.
No wonder the people had become vindictive in their expressions and appeals to God. Subjugation and deprivation does that to people! Injustice and oppression does that to people! This is the natural way of things. Hurt other people, and there will be hell to pay. Life will get miserable, and if there's never any closure, life will get worse.
Of these things the Psalmists are absolutely certain. "It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice. For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever. They are not afraid of evil tidings; their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord. Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid; in the end they will look in triumph on their foes. They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor; their righteousness endures forever; their horn is exalted in honor. The wicked see it and are angry; they gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing." (Psalm 112:7-10).
There it is again. That basic structure in the Psalms of orientation. The righteous will be remembered forever. But the desire of the wicked will come to nothing. Even though things don't always work out as they should in the short-run, the long-run can be counted upon absolutely. Even when things go wrong, everything is still all right because God is in charge -- watching over the universe like Santa Claus to reward the nice and punish the nasty.
This view of the world, which may seem rather childish, is made more palatable because the nice and nasty are not defined in the narrow, legalistic sense of moral perfection. We don't have a code of rules which we have to follow in order to receive the benefits of God. Instead, the benefits of God are offered to those who treat other people right.
If we act with compassion and sensitivity, if we care for the poor and the needy, if we concern ourselves with justice and peace, then we will reap what we sow. If we are merciless and hardhearted, if we care only for ourselves and our families, if we oppress and violate others, then we will reap what we sow.
This, in the end, is the most redemptive thing we can say about the Psalms of vengeance. They are not describing the attitudes of God, but the realities of life. This is how the world works. And there's nothing anyone can do to change that fact. God doesn't single people out to punish or to bless. God lets people make their own choices, which have their inevitable consequences. It may not be an exact science, but the relationship of cause and effect tends to work out in predictable fashion.
You never know exactly how things will go. But in the end, the Psalmist is right. The righteous are remembered forever, while the desire of the wicked comes to nothing. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Songs of Penitence
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
March 9, 1997
Memory Verse: "Know that the Lord is God; it is God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are God's people, and the sheep of God's pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
Today's Texts: Psalms 51:1-2, 32:1-11 and Luke 18:9-14
Opening Prayer: Forgiving God, give us now the gift of your Spirit. Comfort us with your love. Instruct us with your wisdom. Perfect us with your grace. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
I suppose we've all heard his name, in one shape or form. Martin Luther is one of the few people about whom it may be said that the history of the world was profoundly altered by his work. Even those who do not know much about Martin Luther, father of the Protestant Reformation, probably recognize his name thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. What you may not know is that Martin Luther King, Jr. was not always so named. He was born as the junior son of the Rev. Michael Luther King in Atlanta, Georgia. In his early years, Martin Luther King, Jr. was called "Mike."
But as "Mike" became a leader in the civil rights movement, as he became a reformer who once again altered the course of history, the name Michael Luther King gave way to Martin Luther King -- for father and son alike. The association and the similarities could not be ignored.
Martin Luther was born in 1483 into the simple home of German peasants. His father, more energetic and ambitious than most peasants, was fired with ambition to give his son an education fitting to a career in the law. After graduation from the University of Erfurt, Martin Luther was intending to enter law school -- a career that Martin Luther King, Jr. also considered for himself. But then Martin Luther had two close encounters with death. The first was the sudden death of a close friend. The second was a narrow escape from being struck by lighting.
A law career was no longer compelling. Death, and the salvation of his soul after death, became Luther's sole obsession. The problem was not the eternal life of his soul -- that was taken for granted. The problem was getting that eternal soul into heaven. God's justice demanded the punishment of sin. God's law demanded the perfection of human nature. And if Martin Luther was certain of anything, he was certain of his own imperfections. The assurances of the church failed to satisfy. The notion that God's judgment could be mitigated, or even avoided altogether, with the payment of indulgences appeared phony and contemptible. Martin Luther became an anguished soul with a deep sense of his own sinfulness and a morbid fear of his own demise.
The problem became so pronounced that Luther ended up going to confession every day; he was so guilt-ridden that he would have gone every hour if they had let him. On most nights Luther slept well, but he even felt guilty about that, thinking, "Here am I, sinful as I am, having a good night's sleep." So he would confess that. One day the older priest to whom Luther went for confession said to him, "Martin, either find a new sin and commit it, or quit coming to see me!"
Martin Luther entered the monastery of Augustinian hermits in Erfurt, Germany in 1505, at the age of 21. Six years later, upon completion of his training as a Catholic priest, and following an extended visit to Rome, Luther became a doctor of theology at the recently founded University of Wittenberg. He began at once to lecture on the bible, producing his first book in what was to become a prolific literary career. That first book was a commentary on the Psalms, which was followed by a special treatment of "The Seven Penitential Psalms" (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143) in 1517 -- the same year he posted those famous Ninety-five Theses on the door of the castle church that launched the Protestant Reformation.
The scriptures in general, and the Penitential Psalms in particular, helped Luther to lighten the load of guilt and sin. God could not be bribed and salvation could not be earned. The problem was far more profound, as King David discovered in his famous lament following his adulterous and murderous relationship with Bathsheba. "I have sinned against you, O God, and have done what is evil in your sight. You are justified in your sentence and blameless in your judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me."
This, you will note, is a variation on the theme of "the devil made me do it." I could hardly help myself, David seems to be saying, since sin had taken hold of me from before the time I was born and since the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion. With the apostle Paul, Martin Luther could exclaim: "I do not do the good I want, while the evil I do not want is what I do." (Romans 7:19).
This is the core of "The Seven Penitential Psalms" and of our sermon this morning as we follow the Psalms in our pilgrimage toward Easter. You may remember, that we began this series with those great affirmations of faith, namely, that God had not only created the universe but had ordered the universe according to an infallible law. For two weeks we basked in the goodness of those affirmations. As one person said, "I needed that."
But last week we began to see some cracks in the dike. We looked around and discovered, much to our dismay, that something is rotten in Denmark -- that all is not right in the universe. This discovery, which is often quite painful and personal, is the beginning of what Brueggemann calls the season of disorientation in the movement of the Psalms. It is, indeed, disorienting to confront the problem of evil. How can evil exist if God is the sole, beneficent creator of a well-ordered universe? The answer to that question, if an answer exists at all, lies in one of two directions. Either it's the other guy's fault, or it's our own fault.
Last week we considered the possibility that it was the other guy's fault, and we came face to face with the Songs of Vengeance. This approach left us with a pretty nasty image of God, but it was a consistent response to the problem of evil. And it has more merit than pretending as though the problem doesn't exist at all. If "those guys out there" have messed around with the ordering of God's universe, then one might reasonably petition God to get "those guys."
This was particularly understandable when set in the context of Judah's defeat and humiliation at the hands of the Babylonian horde. Nothing was left of their civilization. People were deprived, degraded, violated, and subjugated. God was their only hope for escape, and in the power of their imagination they pictured divine vengeance. Like abused children, they had fantasies of death and deliverance.
But accusing "those guys out there" was not the predominant Jewish response to the problem of evil. More often than not, like Martin Luther 2,000 years later, they found reason to blame themselves. "While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.'" (Psalm 32:3-5a).
This approach is good to go, on just about any occasion. Who has not sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? (Romans 3:23). Even the most righteous among us must recognize that there are times and places when we are not what we should be. In an age of ethical relativism, when increasing numbers of people live with the idea that nothing is ultimately right or wrong, it is still true that we confront times when promises are broken, relationships are torn, and life itself is destroyed. Something is rotten in Denmark, something is wrong with the world, and maybe -- just maybe -- it has something to do with us.
M. Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Traveled, suggests that most people who come to see a psychiatrist are suffering from "disorders of responsibility." Some people do not take enough responsibility for the world and its problems, while others take too much. Some people suffer from character disorders while others suffer from neuroses.
"The problem of distinguishing what we are and what we are not responsible for in this life," writes Dr. Peck, "is one of the greatest problems of human existence. It is never completely solved; for the entirety of our lives we must continually assess and reassess where our responsibilities lie in the ever-changing course of events." (Ibid., Simon & Schuster • New York, 1978).
We see this dynamic playing itself out in the Psalms of disorientation. At times they demonize the other, taking too little responsibility, while at other times they demonize the self, taking on too much. "You saved our ancestors," Psalmist proclaims in Psalm 22, "but I am mocked. I am a worm, and not even human. My heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast."
Faced with this tremendous awareness of their own responsibility, penitence -- feeling sorry and appealing for mercy -- was the only possible response. You may remember the story of what happened during the reign of King Josiah, who ruled for thirty-one years in the southern kingdom of Judah. It begins in 2 Kings, chapter 22. During Josiah's reign, they conducted a capital campaign and repaired the temple in Jerusalem. The workers found the book of the law in the house of the Lord, who in turn passed it on to the high priest, who passed it on to the King's secretary, who read it to the King.
Hearing what the Lord required exposed the decadence and depravity of society. The King was convicted of sin. He tore his clothes and wept out loud. He was penitent and humbled himself before the Lord. As a result, God took pity upon him and postponed the judgment. Josiah took responsibility for his sin, and the sin of his people. He did not shunt it off on anyone else. Instead, he threw himself on the mercy of God, hoping against hope that God's steadfast love would win out over God's punitive justice. The King feared God, and he presented himself to God in the spirit of our New Testament tax collector, saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
Dr. Richard Carl Hoefler tells the story of a little boy who was visiting his grandparents. He was given his first sling-shot and had great fun playing with it in the woods. He would take aim and let the stone fly, but he never hit a thing. Then, on his way home for dinner, he cut through the backyard and saw Grandmother's pet duck. He took aim and let the stone fly. It went straight to the mark and the duck fell dead. The boy panicked. In frightened desperation, he took the dead duck and hid it in the woodpile. Then he saw his sister Sally standing over by the corner of the house. She had seen the whole thing.
They went into dinner. Sally said nothing. After dinner Grandmother said "O.K. Sally, let's clear the table and wash the dishes." Sally said, "Oh, Grandmother, Johnny said he wanted to help you in the kitchen today. Didn't you, Johnny?" And then she whispered to him, "Remember the duck." So Johnny did the dishes. Later in the day Grandfather called the children to go fishing. Grandmother said, "I'm sorry, but Sally can't go. She has to stay here and help me clean the house and get supper." Sally smiled and said, "That's all been taken care of. Johnny said he wanted to help today, didn't you, Johnny?" And then she whispered, "Remember the duck."
Now this went on for several days. Johnny did all the chores, his and those assigned to Sally. Finally, he could stand it no longer, so he went to his grandmother and confessed all. His grandmother took him in her arms and said, "I know, Johnny. I was standing at the kitchen window and I saw the whole thing. And because I love you, I forgave you. And knowing that I loved you and would always forgive you, I wondered just how long you would let Sally make a slave of you." (Will Daylight Come)
As Dr. Hoefler points out, this is our problem. We become slaves to our sin, forgetting the forgiveness that God in Christ Jesus has offered to the world since the beginning of time.
This was the insight of Martin Luther and of the Reformation that he launched almost 500 years ago. The songs of penitence are not just one more scheme of how to win the favor of God. The story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is not just one more illustration of how to avoid the judgment of God. Instead, they reveal the dynamic of human responsibility and divine response; the lament resolves into thanksgiving as the problem of evil resolves into the mystery of grace.
"Psalm 51," writes Martin Luther, is one of the foremost of the psalms of instruction. In it David truly teaches us what sin is, where it comes from, what damage it does -- and how one may be freed from it. In this psalm, as nowhere else. It is clearly shown that sin is an inheritance, born in us, and that no works can help us against it, only God's grace and forgiveness. Through his Spirit, he creates us new again, as a new person, a new creation. Otherwise, says David, sin with its terror and despair is so mighty that it even crushes the bones, until God's grace comes to our comfort.
Afterwards, when by grace and the Spirit we have again become new, then we can not only learn how to praise but actually thank and praise God -- yes, even suffer and bear the cross. All of this David calls true sacrifice and worship. He rejects all other sacrifices which the raving saints brings. He prays at the end that God might build up and preserve the city of Jerusalem to such sacrifices and worship." (Bruce A. Cameron, Psalms: With Introductions by Martin Luther, Concordia Publish House • St. Louis, MO, 1993).
This is our hope yet today -- not that we might puff ourselves up with pride but that we might confess our sins and be forgiven. "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" is our prayer, our hope, and our peace. Amen.
Songs of Despair
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
March 16, 1997
Memory Verse: "Know that the Lord is God; it is God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are God's people, and the sheep of God's pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
Today's Texts: Psalms 88:1-18, 137:1-8 and Mark 14:32-40
Opening Prayer: O Lord, God of our salvation, listen to our cry. Do not cast us off and do not hide your face from us. Speak to us through your word. Comfort us with your presence. Move us with your Spirit. Amen.
Two weeks from today we will begin a new venture in our life together as The First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, of Columbus, Ohio. It will be Easter Sunday, 1997, and we will officially launch our contemporary worship service at 8:45 in the morning. Due to the requirements of the Easter brunch, the service will take place here in the sanctuary rather than downstairs in the Parish Hall.
I am calling your attention to this event in the life of our church for two reasons. First, I don't want you to be surprised if you come to the early service on Easter. Our church has traditionally had two services on Easter, and they have been more or less identical. This year will be different. The early service will be contemporary worship -- including synthesizer, drums, and bass guitar. Our new choir will sing from the chancel steps and everyone will be encouraged to sit up close in order to facilitate a participatory atmosphere. We will solicit praises and petitions from the congregation, before lifting them up to God in prayer. There will be hand clapping and excitement, as we begin to see the fruit of our labors on this project.
If you do not want to attend a contemporary worship service on Easter, then you will need to come to the later service at 11:00. This will be traditional worship, with all the trimmings. We will have special instruments, including timpani, trumpets, and trombones, along with our outstanding Gallery Choir. We will also have the joy of receiving the first new members into the fellowship of First Church during 1997. These new members have received more training and have developed more relationships than any class in recent memory, due to their participation in our Lenten Renewal Group. It should be an Easter service to remember -- especially if you stay for both services after attending the Easter sunrise at the Scioto Riverfront Amphitheater. By 1:00 in the afternoon we'll all be ready for a nap!
The second reason for calling your attention to our Easter schedule has to do with this morning's focus in our study of the Psalms. There has been, as most of you know, a measure of controversy in our starting a contemporary worship service here at First Church. Different objections have been advanced, including the cost, the process, and the product. For some people, a worship service with contemporary gospel music violates their understanding of our church's tradition and identity. As one person said to me, "This kind of music is what I've been fighting against for the past fifty years."
Now I am in no position to deal with every concern from the pulpit this morning, especially since it took our Ad Hoc Worship Committee more than nine months to identify and address them in a way that makes sense to most of the people in our church. But I do want to raise an underlying theological issue which may be contributing to the intensity of our feelings and opinions about this subject.
How do you feel about people who get all excited about Jesus? How do you feel about people who jump up and down and wave their arms in worship? How do you feel about people who insist upon answering the telephone, "Praise the Lord! God is good!"?
My guess is that such people make some of us uncomfortable all of the time, and all of us uncomfortable some of the time. It's not that they are unchristian, and it's not even that they are different from what we are used to. It goes deeper than that, to our understanding of God and of how God works in the world.
Must we always put on a happy face when we come to worship? Must we always block out the ugliness of life with brave talk about how God has everything under control? Must we always sing and dance, while the world goes to hell in a handbasket?
The Psalmists said, "No!" "By the rivers of Babylon -- there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!' How could we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" (Psalm 137:1-4).
This is the theological issue that may underlie the concerns of some people about our contemporary worship service. The concern is not about the construction of a new style of worship, but about the construction of a spiritual illusion. This pulpit has long stood for a certain integrity in its relationship to the world around us, variously called the "social gospel" or "practical theology." Are we now to abandon this tradition in favor of what Martin Marty calls a "summery spirituality" which continually shouts "the language of abundance and life"? We know too much about the winter of the Spirit to accept such an eventuality, even it does meet the spiritual needs of the people who are living in the strange land called America. (A Cry of Absence: Reflections for the Winter of the Heart, Harper & Row • San Francisco, 1983).
On Tuesday morning Emmett Ramey, a long-time member of First Church, woke up to celebrate his 78th birthday. He was feeling well that morning, so he drove himself to Kiwanis -- a primary commitment for more than 50 years. After the meeting, he and his wife went out to lunch at Utica's. On the way home from lunch, with his wife driving the car, Emmett Ramey suffered a major stroke from which he died the next day.
What do we have to say? Are we to encourage the Rameys with hollow sounding words? Or are we to hear the cry of Absence for what it is: a wintery season of the heart that chills the soul with the anger, fear, and loneliness.
The Psalms will not allow us to get away with anything less than total honesty. Contemporary worship is not the cause of what Walter Brueggemann calls "the costly loss of lament" in our churches and in our society. Mainline Protestant hymnals have been just as prone to gloss over the songs of despair in favor of the songs of praise and thanksgiving. It's so much more appealing to sing happy songs to God than to sing lamentations about the problems of life. But if happy songs are the only songs we ever sing, we end up with a superficial theology and a false sense of self in relationship to God.
The fact is, life doesn't always work out the way it should. The evil ones are not always punished, and the good ones are not always blessed. Our pleas and confessions do not always move God to straighten things out and to start things over. In fact, life has a way of going from bad to worse -- even for the faithful few. Murphy's law applies more often than we'd like to admit: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. The songs of despair acknowledge this negativity and call God to account.
In most of the laments, this acknowledgment leads to healing and transformation. What starts out as a complaint ends up as a thanksgiving. "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord." (Psalm 130:1). Those depths can be any legitimate human suffering. We're not talking here about whining over nothing. We're talking about the problems of sin, sickness, and sadness. We're talking about poverty, persecution, and paranoia. We're talking about the trauma of being surrounded by enemies. We're talking about having your home destroyed in a flood or your child killed in an accident. We're talking about having your life crippled by an addiction or your job eliminated in a corporate restructuring.
The list of legitimate human sufferings could go on indefinitely. At a recent conference the people had one complaint after another. The food was bad, the service was lousy, the hot tub was broken, the speakers were not inspiring. These complaints did not come "out of the depths" and they were not resolved by the agency and presence of God. Indeed, these complaints were actually diversions from the real problems of life.
"Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. ... For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with God there is great power to redeem." (Psalm 130:1, 7). This is the hope of biblical faith: that the God who rescued Israel from the armies of Pharaoh would rescue us now. This is the theological basis for the songs of despair. We rail against God precisely because God is God -- and much of what happens in the world just shouldn't happen. After a lifetime spent among people in abject poverty, caring for destitute and dying people on the streets of Calcutta, a reporter asked Mother Teresa what she wants to say to God when she goes to heaven, "All I know," she replied, "is that God has a lot of explaining to do."
That's the faith of someone who has a real relationship with God, of someone who's not afraid to argue with God about the problems and pitfalls of life. There is no sugarcoating here. There is no pretense or illusion. There is only the affirmation that God is still God regardless of life's difficulties.
Psalm 88 represents the low-point of the entire Psalter. It does not resolve into an affirmation of hope. It does not lead to healing and transformation within the text itself. Instead, the Psalmist remains in the Pit from beginning to end -- and therein lies its power.
"O Lord, God of my salvation, listen to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. I am like those who have no hope, like those forsaken among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more. You have put me in the depth of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep. Every day I call on you, O Lord, in the morning my prayer comes before you. Why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me? I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. My companions are in darkness." (Psalm 88, selected verses).
Your ability to relate to this Psalm, and the ability of this Psalm to minister to you, is influenced by how you're feeling right now. The worse you're feeling, the more this Psalm speaks.
William Styron, in Sophie's Choice, has Stingo on his sad way by bus from Washington, D.C. to New York City to bury his two close friends who have committed suicide. As Stingo gets on the bus, he is visibly bereft, without any resource. An African-American woman sits beside him on a train. She sees his need and offers him a prescription for his torment. She lines out Psalm 88.
"We read aloud through Wilmington, Chester, and past Trenton," remembers Stingo, "turning from time to time to Ecclesiastes and Isaiah. After a while we tried the Sermon on the Mount, but somehow it didn't work for me; the grand old Hebrew woe seemed more cathartic." "Dat is some fine Psalm," is all the old woman has to say. (William Styron, Sophie's Choice, Random House • New York, 1979).
I can just see Jesus praying this psalm in the Garden of Gethsemane. "Sit here while I pray." And he began to be distressed and agitated; deeply grieved, even to death. "Abba, Father, take this cup from me." I suffer your terrors; I am desperate. My companions are in darkness. "Could you not keep awake one hour?" And they did not know what to say to him.
At such a point there really is nothing to say. And if you've ever been in the Pit, you know exactly what I'm talking about. The catharsis comes from our ability to talk with God in such a way. It provides both comfort and instruction. God may not be ready to respond at the point of the cross, hope may not always bear fruit in just the nick of time, but it is enough that we continue to cry out: "Lord! God! Abba! Father!"
"With you all things are possible. Nevertheless, not what I want, but what you want." May Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Psalm 88 reminds us that even when we stand in utter darkness, we do not stand alone. To cry into the darkness, "O Lord, my God," is itself an act of hope. When every approach in every moment has been tried and found wanting, there is still the possibility of faith.
This, indeed, is the message of the cross in Old Testament form. It is the message that God loves us enough to be with us even in the depths of despair. It does not try to sidestep or sugarcoat the problems of life; it takes the problems as they are and it contends with God for understanding and deliverance.
This is what I call a responsible faith, and it is as possible to express such faith in a contemporary as in a traditional worship service. The medium resonates with different parts of the soul, but the message need not be compromised. God is not just an omnipotent being who always takes the initiative and is always worthy of praise. God is a covenant partner who can enter into serious conversation and communion with his creation. Our cry does not fall on deaf ears! It produces meaning and love as we engage ourselves in the struggle for justice and peace. (cf. Walter Brueggemann, The Psalms & The Life of Faith, Fortress Press • Minneapolis, 1995).
We dare not forget to sing the songs of despair. They produce far more treasure than the power of positive thinking. As those who've been victimized by abuse have discovered, breaking the conspiracy of silence is the beginning of healing. "Where the cry is not voiced," Brueggemann concludes, "heaven is not moved and history is not initiated. The end is hopelessness. Where the cry is seriously voiced, heaven may answer and earth may have a new chance." (Ibid.) Then we can say with the Psalmist, "For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with God there is great power to redeem." Amen.
Songs of Thanksgiving
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
March 23, 1997
Memory Verse: "Know that the Lord is God; it is God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are God's people, and the sheep of God's pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
Today's Texts: Psalms 118:1-2, 19-29; 66:1-7, 16-20 and John 12:12-16
Opening Prayer: Gracious God, speak to us now through the movement of your Spirit. Fill our hearts with praise and bend our minds to you. In Christ's name. Amen.
I must have done a pretty good job last week in my sermon about the songs of despair, because my mother called and talked to my wife to find out how I was doing. My mother subscribes to my sermons, and when she received this one in the mail she thought I sounded down in the dumps.
This was, in fact, the point. Last week we reached the bottom in our study of the Psalms, and it apparently struck a resonant chord in more people than just my mother. An unusual number of people came up and thanked me for the sermon, saying, "You have no idea what I've just been through. That sermon really spoke to me."
Then yesterday The Columbus Dispatch delivered another horrific picture of despair into the sanctuary of my living room: "Suicide bomb kills 4 in Israel," proclaimed the headline. The color photo showed an Israeli policewoman sprinting from the scene of the bombing, at a Tel Aviv cafe, with an injured 6-month-old baby. It was the firefighter in the Oklahoma City bombing all over again. The baby's mother turned out to be one of those killed, while Islamic militants turned out to cheer the suicide bomber with shouts of "Allahu Akbhar!" -- God is great.
Aaargh! If we don't feel despair at the reporting of this story, if we don't feel disoriented by the condition of our world, if we don't feel outrage and disgust, or worse yet, if we don't feel anything at all, then there's something wrong with us as followers of a crucified Messiah. There are times when there's little else to do than to sit down and cry. Listen once again to Psalm 88 as paraphrased by Eugene Peterson, an ordained Presbyterian minister and a professor of spiritual theology:
"God, you're my last chance of the day. I spend the night on my knees before you. Put me on your salvation agenda; take notes on the trouble I'm in. I've had my fill of trouble; I'm camped on the edge of hell. I'm written off as a lost cause, one more statistic, a hopeless case. Abandoned as already dead, one more body in a stack of corpses, and not so much as a gravestone -- I'm a black hole in oblivion."
"You've dropped me into a bottomless pit, sunk me in a pitch-black abyss. I'm battered senseless by your rage, relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger. You turned my friends against me, made me horrible to them. I'm caught in a maze and can't find my way out, blinded by tears of pain and frustration."
"I call to you, God; all day I call. I wring my hands, I plead for help. Are the dead a live audience for your miracles? Do ghosts ever join the choirs that praise you? Does your love make any difference in a graveyard? Is your faithful presence noticed in the corridors of hell? Are your marvelous wonders ever seen in the dark? Your righteous ways noticed in the Land of No memory?"
"I'm standing my ground, God, shouting for help, at my prayers every morning, on my knees each daybreak. Why, God, do you turn a deaf ear? Why do you make yourself scarce? For as long as I remember I've been hurting; I've taken the worst you can hand out, and I've had it. Your wildfire anger has blazed through my life; I'm bleeding, black and blue. You've attacked me fiercely from every side, raining down blows till I'm nearly dead. You made lover and neighbor alike dump me; the only friend I have left is Darkness." (Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: Psalms, NavPress • Colorado Springs, 1994).
That is, indeed, "some fine Psalm" (William Styron, Sophie's Choice). It has, as Brueggemann says, all the "extravagance, hyperbole, and abrasiveness needed for the experience" of being battered by suicide bombers and the many other vicissitudes of life (The Message of the Psalms).
The experience of living in "ragged and painful disarray" is all too common an experience, and it is hardly limited to modern-day Tel Aviv. 2,000 years ago the Romans were in charge, and they ruled the world with unprecedented cruelty. One by one, the nations of the Mediterranean basin were conquered and destroyed. The small Jewish nation was no exception. 63 years before the start of the common era, they succumbed to Roman domination.
This means that the entire life of Jesus was lived against the backdrop of a brutal, military occupation. The promised land was confiscated and the chosen people were enslaved. The middle-classes were driven into peasantry and the peasants were driven into homelessness. The dignity of people was systematically destroyed, starting with the sexual exploitation of women and children. The Jewish nation had no realistic hope of liberation.
As a result, some people cooperated with their conquerors in order to cut a deal for themselves that would ease their burdens. The tax collectors and Temple officials were cases in point. Other people resisted their conquerors through isolated retreats or armed rebellions. The community of the Dead Sea scrolls and the party of the Zealots, from which Jesus drew at least one disciple, are examples of these. But most people simply endured their conquered status, surviving as best they could within the very narrow options available. They became a powerless people who were victimized, oppressed, ghettoized, persecuted, tortured, and killed.
When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed after 133 years of Roman occupation, and when the last vestiges of resistance were quashed on the mountain of Masada, the devastation was complete. And it lasted almost 2,000 years. But in the time of Jesus, hope was still alive that God could snatch victory from the throes of defeat. There was nothing ephemeral or other-worldly about this hope. It was an unabashed political expectation that God would anoint someone to organize a movement that would kick the Romans out of Israel.
These were the flames of apocalyptic hope which Jesus fanned with his famous entry into Jerusalem. The people were tired of singing songs of despair. They were ready for a strong deliverer, like Moses or David. And what better time for God to act than during the celebration of Passover, when the population of Jerusalem swelled to more than 100,000 people. They were eating unleavened bread and bitter herbs, in memory of their escape from Egyptian slavery more than 1,000 years earlier. In all that time, the story had not been forgotten. In all that time, the hope had not died. Perhaps now was the time of God's own choosing.
Jesus, the teacher / healer from Galilee, was coming to town. It may have been the first time the Galilean sage decided to take his movement to the capital city. If it was, it was also the last. But the people didn't know that. The disciples had heard talk of Jesus' death, but the crowds got all excited about the possibility of liberation, about the end of disorientation, about the abolition of despair.
And so they came out to meet him, waving palm branches, and shouting, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord -- the King of Israel!" (John 12:13). This was a campaign swing and a coronation march all rolled into one. Jesus was to be their strong deliverer. Jesus was to win back their long-lost health, money, and love. Jesus was to be their CEO. His entry into Jerusalem was a direct assault on the Roman hegemony. It was cause for praise and thanksgiving. It was proof that God had not abandoned them forever.
The petition of the Psalms was answered. The hope of the prophets was fulfilled. "Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! Give us success! Bind the festal procession with branches, hang colored banners above the altar! You are God, and I will give thanks to you. You are God, and I will extol you. O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good, and God's steadfast love endures forever." (Psalm 118:25, 27-29).
"Say to God, 'How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great power, your enemies cringe before you. All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you. They sing praises to your name. Come and see what God has done. God has turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. Come and hear what God has done. God has not rejected our prayer or removed his steadfast love forever." (Psalm 66:
Things did not, of course, turn out as the people had hoped. The Romans were not thrown out of Jerusalem, at least not then and there. But we dare not diminish the power of thanksgiving and praise in the face of difficulty and despair. It is often the only thing we have left to sustain us through the hardest times of life.
This past week I received a note from Tony and Anneke Scott, friends from Chicago. On Thanksgiving Day they celebrated the birth of their first child, a son named Anthony Skyler, and they have now moved into to a new apartment. Tony runs a soup kitchen which serves meals, seven days a week, to those in need. Anneke has taken on the task of fund raising and development. But things were not always so blessed.
When Tony was ten years old he tried to beat a train across the tracks with some of his friends. His friends made it, but Tony got caught and dragged by the train -- losing a leg in the process. He probably would have lost his life if hadn't been for all the dirt and cinders which stopped the bleeding.
The struggle against despair and disability has been a part of Tony's life ever since. For a time, he felt sorry for himself. For a time, he dropped out of society. But when he reached his lowest point he walked in the door of that soup kitchen, only to receive much more than a handout and a meal. Tony received a hand up as he got involved with soup kitchen administration and the church itself.
One thing led to another, and Tony caught on the songs of thanksgiving and praise. They have nurtured his spirit and transformed his soul. There was a time when Tony wore a prosthetic leg in order to hide the fact of his disability. Now, however, he is proud to be seen on his crutches, serving day after day as a witness to people who struggle with their own problems of disorientation and despair. Now, however, he is proud to sing the songs of Zion, as testimony to the power and goodness of God.
This is the beginning of our climb out of the Pit. It is not always a miraculous intervention, such as would have been required to liberate Israel from their Roman captivity or to save Tony's leg. It is sometimes a new way of understanding our predicament, such as Tony's resolve to live with a spirit of grace instead of bitterness.
How else can we understand the pageantry of the Palm Sunday parade? Jesus accepted the praises of thanksgiving from his people, not because he accepted their call to take up arms against the Roman tyranny, but because he understood the deep seated human need to embrace God in the face of despair. This was why he entered Jerusalem on a humble donkey rather than on a shining steed. It was to demonstrate, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah, that he was coming to bring peace to the nations rather than to draw the bow of battle. (Zechariah 9:10).
"This is the day that the Lord has made," proclaims the Psalmist, "let us rejoice and be glad in it!" (Psalm 118:24). This is the day, after all we have been through and suffered. This is the day, in spite of how it may appear. This is the day, regardless of how we may feel or think about it. This is the day, whether it turns out right or wrong, and so we lift our hands in praise.
The plans for the construction of this great church building were developed at the end of the Roaring 20s. A large bequest had been received, from the Jeffrey family, and it was anticipated that the rest of the funds for would come from the sale of our old property downtown. But then came the stock market crash of October, 1929. Our church was left with a decision: do we cancel the project altogether, do we scale it down, or do we go ahead with the extravagance of praise in the midst of a Great Depression?
The decision was a Palm Sunday decision. The decision was to go ahead with the extravagance of praise. The decision was to pour costly perfume all over the feet of Jesus. As though we were lovers who could hardly say or do enough for our beloved, the decision was to raise a cathedral from a pile of stones.
Is it wrong to sing and dance and to carry on like this in the face of the world's disorientation and despair? Is it wrong to build churches, stained-glass windows, organs, and crosses while the world languishes under the effects of sin and death? I don't think so. It was the devil, after all, who tried to convince Jesus that people could live by bread alone. (Matthew 4:1-4). But without songs of thanksgiving, life is hardly worth living.
I recall one night very late in the evening when I was called to the hospital. As I got into the elevator, a man got in behind me with tears in his eyes. We stood there for a moment, in awkward silence. Finally, he blurted out, "She's going to make it, she's better, she's going to make it." Then the elevators doors opened and the man made his way down the hall. I have not seen the man since; I do not know who he was talking about; and I do not know how things actually turned out.
But none of that matters. What matters is that the man had found his voice in the midst of despair. What matters is that the man was singing the songs of thanksgiving in the face of difficulty. What matters is that the man had confessed with his mouth the salvation that God has prepared for us since the beginning of time. That is the world in which I choose to live. That is the world in which Jesus invites us to share. Amen.
Songs of Impossibility
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
Easter Day
March 30, 1997
Memory Verse: "Know that the Lord is God; it is God who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are God's people, and the sheep of God's pasture." (Psalm 100:3)
Today's Texts: Psalms 118:1-2. 14-24; 145:1-7 and John 20:1-18
Opening Prayer: God of Passion and Power, who suffers and dies that we might live, make us come alive now. Infuse our spirits with your Spirit, that we might know your love. Amen.
The discovery of the bodies took place on Wednesday, the news started to make headlines on Thursday, but it wasn't until Friday -- Good Friday -- that we began to hear the gruesome and bizarre details of what happened in Rancho Santa Fe, California. 39 people had committed suicide in order to evacuate their bodies so that a UFO, hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet, could transport them to heaven.
"We have no hesitation to leave this place, to leave the bodies that we have," explained the group's leader in a dramatic videotaped suicide note. The victims ranged in age from 28 to 72. There were 21 women and 18 men. All 39 died from a combination of alcohol, the drug phenobarbitol and suffocation. "We're going to be moving along," said one man on the videotape, "to the next evolutionary level above human -- taking on a brand new vehicle that we're going to be using in the next level." Some of the men, including their leader, had been castrated.
All this was apparently triggered long ago, when the group's leader had a near-death experience in the 1970s. With advances in medical technology, such experiences have become increasingly common. They made the cover last week of U.S. News and World Report, and were touched upon in related stories in both Time and Newsweek. With Easter right around the corner, and with no knowledge of the bodies already rotting in Rancho Santa Fe, the big three news weeklies decided that their readers would have heaven on their minds and that it would make for hot-selling, front-page news.
"Easter," concludes the article in U.S. News & World Report, "at its essence is about a belief in the triumph of life over death. It is one faith's response to the mystery that has haunted humankind since our first contemplative ancestors gazed into the abyss of death and trembled. What, if anything, awaits beyond the grave?" (March 31, 1997).
Now if that's why so many of you showed up this morning, to hear me say that Easter is primarily an affirmation of life after death, with some cute story about a cocoon and a butterfly, you're going to be sorely disappointed. It's not that I don't believe in immortality, in one sense or another, it's rather that I don't believe in Easter as essentially the soul's ticket into heaven after we die. If that's all Easter was about, the Christian faith would have been extinguished long ago and the 39 people in Rancho Santa Fe would be on the right track. God had bigger fish to fry than the eternal fortunes of our individual souls; God had to care about the fortune of the world itself -- the very world those 39 people just sought to escape.
This was the context of God's concern during the Easter event in its original setting. Remember that it took place in Jerusalem, during the celebration of Passover. This ancient Jewish festival had nothing to do with pie-in-the-sky, by-and-by; it had everything to do with the ability of God to turn around the present-day fortunes of an oppressed and broken people.
Israel had been victimized by Egyptian slavery for more than 400 years. They had been told what to do, where to live, and how to think. They had been pressed into forced labor in order to build supply cities for the Pharaoh. They had been intimidated and interrogated until they hardly knew who they were as children of a living God. They had even been given new names.
But God observed their misery and sent Moses to lead them into freedom. It was an impossible charge, to be sure. Moses recognized that from the beginning. "Who am I, Lord?" he protested. "Suppose they will not believe me?" "What if Pharaoh hardens his heart and refuses to let the people go?" "O Lord, please send someone else!"
But God refused to take "No!" for an answer. "Go, and I will be with you." "When you talk to your people, I will be with you." "When you stand up to Pharaoh, I will be with you." "When you escape into the wilderness, I will be with you." "And you will worship me, on this mountain."
Ten plagues and a dramatic escape later, Moses had all the proof he needed. This God was not leading the people into the wilderness that they might die and go to heaven -- they could have done that in Egypt! This God was leading the people into the wilderness that they might enter a promised land on the other side of the Jordan. The Exodus was an earthy and surprising tale of deliverance in the here and now. God helped the Israelites break free of their limitations and act, in faith, as though God could to the impossible to set things right. It was a tale of milk and honey and a whole lot more.
So began the formative, foundational event of ancient Judaism. Their God was not an idol made of metal and wood, with a mouth that couldn't talk, eyes that couldn't see, ears that couldn't hear, a nose that couldn't smell, hands that couldn't grasp, and feet that couldn't walk or run. Their God was the living One who created life and demonstrated steadfast love for people in order to help them deal with the contingencies of history.
This, then, was the setting of the original Easter event. Jesus' resurrection was viewed as a new Exodus from Egypt, another demonstration that God was concerned about the lost, the lonely, the last, the least, and the languishing. Easter was a political statement that God intended to stay involved with the fortunes of people. It was as though God was saying, "You matter so much to me, that I will even overturn a death sentence from the highest court in the land in order to restore your faith, to rebuild your hope, and to reconcile your love."
That is the good news of Easter which I hope each of you will take away from this service today: "You matter to God. You matter so much to God that the living One will do whatever it takes -- even the impossible -- to set you free for faith, hope, and love." The world does not understand such abiding concern, and is quick to deny its reality, but for those who are being saved it is the power and wisdom of God.
Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann offers insight into the nature of God's power with his provocative interpretation of the Hebrew word pelâ. The word is usually translated as "marvels" or "wonders," in reference to the acts of God, but Brueggemann suggests that a better translation might be "impossibilities," since the acts of God so frequently defy our expectations and so thoroughly challenge our assumptions about the world.
The acts of God are imponderable, as any insurance agent will tell you. They lift up the weak and bring down the strong. They create and destroy. They shatter the idols of our security and trouble the waters of our despair. They undermine the system and myths which make the world go round, and they undergird the communities and stories which speak for God. They cause valued things to end and impossible things to begin, beyond our wildest imagination. They turn the tables on life and death so as to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
All this can be traced from the very beginnings of scripture itself:
This, Brueggemann argues, is the trajectory of scripture in general, and of the Psalms in particular. God's creation is also God's playground. God's loving kindness is steadfast and sure. The orientation of life may disappear for a season, but disorientation never has the last and final word. A new orientation is always waiting to be born. God has a way of doing the impossible. (The Psalms & The Life of Faith, Fortress Press • Minneapolis, MN, 1995).
"Impossibility" is so characteristic of God's nature that our shifting definitions of the possible may be a good place to look if we want to see the activity of God in our world today. Scientists had once thought they could define what was possible in nature, however, the past century has undermined their confidence in nature's predictability. Many scientists now see a "grand design" in the universe which includes the inexplicable and the impossible. God has been written back into the equation, just when many thought the final bell had tolled.
Historians had once thought they could define what was possible in history, however, the past century has undermined their confidence in history's predictability. The notion of "progress" has been given up in favor of a much bumpier ride, with occasional outbursts of creativity, compassion, and community. God has been reintroduced as the protector of the weak, just when the strong thought they had gotten the upper hand.
It all comes down to the question: "Whose report will you believe?" Will you believe the report of Pilate, who sentenced Jesus to death, or will you believe the report of Mary, who announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord." Will you believe the report of the world, with its vested interest in defining and controlling the possible, or will you believe the report of the Lord, with its broad openness to exposing and unleashing the impossible?
These are not the promises of God. These are not the messages of Easter. These are the possibilities of the world. But our faith sings about the impossibilities of God's reign, on earth as it is in heaven, from one end of scripture to the other.
Do you see, now, what's so terribly wrong headed about the cult in Rancho Santa Fe? Easter was never about helping people to evacuate their bodies in order to go to heaven. That is a concept foreign to scripture itself. Easter was about helping people to discover the impossibilities of God in the midst of life. God is not in a spaceship trying to help people escape from this world, God is in our suffering trying to help people transform this world. God is the hope that something impossible might happen, at any moment, to redeem and reconcile life.
2,000 years ago something impossible is exactly what happened.
On Easter Sunday God rolled that all together in one, final blast. We dare not forget this impossibility and how it came to be. This impossibility is not a blank check for health, money, and love, regardless of what the religious exploiters might say. This impossibility is a down payment on the promise of God to be with us, even to the end of the age. Amen.