Psalms of Wisdom

                                             Psalms 1, 15

                Today is the last week of our Psalms sermon series.  I hope that it has been informative and of interest to you.  But more, I hope that you have been able to connect to the book of Psalms in a new way, seeing them a little differently, and hearing the invitation within the psalms to express yourself creatively to God: to say it like you feel it with your words and with other forms of art: music, poetry, dance perhaps, stories, drawings, sculpture, knitting, quilting – in whatever way you express your art and your feelings.  The Book of Psalms is an ARTISTIC book of the bible rather than a narrative, rather than history, rather than story.  The psalms are liturgy, they are song, and they are creative expressions of one’s experiences and feelings much more than one’s thoughts.

               Psalms of wisdom, however, I think contain one’s beliefs or thoughts more than the other type of psalms we’ve discussed.  Psalms of trust, praise, lament, and even history – these psalms invite us into the feelings of the experiences of the writers, as well as into our own experiences and feelings towards God, life, others and ourselves.  They express in total raw, open honesty prayers to God, and reflections on one’s situation at the moment.  But psalms of wisdom reflect more on the writer’s beliefs and reflections rather than feelings: they express a mandate for what it is to live a good life.  They are instructive for what it means to be people of God, and they talk to us rather than being prayers, pleas or supplications to God on our behalf.  And they tell us what is good in our behaviors, what is right, what is wise for us to do and be.  We see in their words wisdom expressed once again in beautiful poetry, we hear encouragement to choose well, to act well, to live well. 

We also know that words such as have been found in both of the psalms read today have been used by some people to attack, judge or correct other people.  We have seen on the news that no matter what you believe, you can probably find a way to justify it, Biblically, and these psalms are no exception: they, too, allow people with very different beliefs to use them in ways that can either help or harm.  For example, Psalm 1 says that the way of the wicked is destroyed.  And I have heard people use this with the prosperity gospel mentality, saying that if a person is not doing well, it shows that their behavior is suspect.  If a person is poor, or struggling, or ill – that this somehow indicates that their behavior is wrong. 

               We know this is false, and we know there are many other scriptures that confront this thinking.  The book of Job focuses on the idea that people’s suffering is not a reflection of their goodness or lack of goodness.  As Jesus himself says, “God causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike.” 

               So, too, with Psalm 15, these wise words have sometimes also been used to inflict damage.  The words are wonderful, beautiful and true: who is it who dwells with God? The one who speaks truth, who does no damage with their talk, does not harm a friend, someone who keeps their promises.   All of this is good and true.  But as we know, context here is very important.  For example, the “keeping the promises” part is tricky.  We know that Herod felt it was so important to keep his promise to Herodias that he killed John the Baptist.  And we know that because valuing promises over people is so dangerous, Jesus himself encouraged us to never make promises at all.  As he said: (Matthew 5:33-37) “Again you have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago: Don’t make a false solemn pledge, but you should follow through on what you have pledged to the Lord.  But I say to you that you must not pledge at all…Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.”  He said this because when people put their promises above the needs and realities of relationships and changing contexts, people get hurt, and damaged sometimes in very serious ways.

               The point I’m making is that wisdom is contextual.  And when we become too legalistic or rigid about anything, we lose wisdom all together.

               Let me give you some more modern examples. 

I look around at the sanctuary today and I have the (not very great) insight or wisdom to notice that something is “wrong.”  That things are not right here.  What is wrong?  Well, what’s wrong is that there are only a very few people here in the building.  The Church is not the building, it is the people.  So normally we would look at this empty church and say, “this is a sign that we are not doing well, that we are struggling.”  But today, during this season, during this crisis time in our community, we know that an empty sanctuary is not a sign that our congregation is struggling.  It is, instead, on this day, a sign of our deep connectedness, our commitment to caring for the larger community by practicing social isolation until the virus scare is past.  We know that it is a reflection of an effort to keep ourselves and everyone safe, healthy, well.

Another example: we know that eating is important.  But we usually save eating for specific times and places: we don’t eat in church, except for communion.  We usually don’t eat at work or in school.  And if we have allergies or other health problems such as diabetes, there are foods we cannot eat, or foods we should not eat.  The context of our own health and well being, and sometimes of social practices – these dictate whether or not it is wise to eat something and when it is wise to eat. 

Bathing is important, hygiene is important.  But we aren’t going to brush our teeth in the swimming pool or at the water fountain in the park. 

Being in community is very important.  But also taking time to retreat and pray is also important.  And during times such as this, we know being apart is not only important but necessary.

The reality is that very few things are good all the time.  Very few things are right in every situation or in every context. 

I think about Jesus’ words about anger and the danger of anger.  He said (Matthew 5:21-22): “You have heard that it was said to those who lived long ago, Don’t commit murder, and all who commit murder will be in danger of judgment.  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be in danger of judgment.”

He said this, and yet, later in the same gospel we hear of Jesus’ anger.  Matthew 21:12-13  “Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”

We also know that Jesus probably did not have a problem with buying and selling: he just had a problem with the context of doing so within the temple.

Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  He picked grain on the Sabbath, too.  Did Jesus have a problem with the 4th commandment which is to keep the Sabbath holy?  And to do no work at all on the Sabbath?  No, he just had a problem with people using the law as an excuse and a justification for hurting other people, avoiding healing, and forbidding eating. 

               In the book of Proverbs, 26: 7-12, we are told,

As legs dangle from a disabled person,

    so does a proverb in the mouth of fools.

Like tying a stone in a sling,

    so is giving respect to a fool.

 Like a thorny bush in the hand of a drunk,

    so is a proverb in the mouth of fools.

 Like an archer who wounds someone randomly,

    so is one who hires a fool or a passerby.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit,

    so a fool repeats foolish mistakes.

Do you see people who consider themselves wise?

    There is more hope for a fool than for them.

In other words, we need to be wise even in our wisdom.  Wisdom means acting appropriately based on one’s context.  The wise have an understanding of context, a vision into when something is right and when it is not.

The truth is that we just don’t know it all.  We just don’t.  Not one of us is all knowing, not one of us is wise beyond it all.  I wish it were otherwise, but we become stuck or confused because we know there is not one single person alive today who is all-wise. We all need help knowing how to do good, how to be good, how to understand these words of Wisdom written in our scriptures.  Where is that help for us?

First and foremost, weigh everything you do against the 2 commandments that Jesus summed up for us – loving God, and loving your neighbor as self. These are more important than any one law.  These are more important than all laws put together.  We are called to love, and wisdom requires that we value and weigh everything based on whether it does good or does harm to those we are called ot love: to everyone.  But even then sometimes it’s hard to know what’s right.  We have scriptures, we have the writings of wise people, we have our friends, our families, our communities, we have prayer, we have history.  Lots of resources to teach us.

I want to share with you a story.

There once was a boy who saw one of his old teachers after years at a wedding.  The boy walked up to the teacher and asked the woman if she remembered him.

The teacher did not recognize the boy who was now a man, but after George introduced himself, she said, “Oh yes!  I remember you now, George!  I have thought of you often over the years.  What are you doing now with your life?”

George told her that, like her, he had become a teacher. He then went on to tell the woman that he was a teacher because of her teaching him.  He said that he had followed in her footsteps because of the huge impact she had had on his life. 

She asked him what kind of impact she had made on his life and George told her this story:

“One day when I was a boy, I stole a beautiful, but very costly pocket watch from one of the other children in the class.  It was a birthday present to him and he loved it.  But it was beautiful and valuable and I had taken it.  Danny found you and told you and the whole class that someone had stolen his precious present, the watch.  I remember how you pled with the class and begged the class to return the watch, but I was too embarrassed to admit I had done it or to return it.  Then you locked the classroom door and asked the class to line up and close our eyes. You went from pocket to pocket searching for the watch. You came to my pocket and you found the watch and you gently pulled it out.  But you did not stop there. You continued, moving from pocket to pocket all the way to the end of the line. After you had the watch, you told us to open our eyes and return to our seats and you returned the watch to Danny. 

You never said a word to anyone about the fact that it was me who took the watch.  You didn’t even confront me about it.  You saved my dignity, and your kindness changed my life forever.  That is the power of being a good teacher, and because of your actions, I chose to be a teacher as well.”

The teacher responded to George saying that this was an amazing story, but that she didn’t remember much about it and certainly didn’t remember that George had stolen the watch.

George was stunned.  “How can you not remember that I stole it?  How could you not think of that story every time you thought of me?” 

The teacher responded, “I really don’t remember that it was you who stole the watch.  And here is the reason why: As I moved from pocket to pocket I kept my eyes closed, too.”

The power of kindness, the power of love – when we look through our wisdom psalms, ultimately, good behavior comes back to Godly behavior: behavior that is kind, behavior that is grace-filled, behavior that reflects the love of the God who loves us beyond our imagining.  Our wisdom Psalms help us to know how to love, they help us to follow God more closely.  They help us to be wise. 

What are the ways in which you are being called to use your wisdom, your kindness, today?  It may feel harder with our isolation, but there are ways.  Our food pantries are suffering right now, our people on the edge are losing housing and needing care.  You can support organizations with your money and resources even if you can’t visit people.  You can think about who in your community is most isolated and lonely and reach out with a phone call or an email.  You can follow the wisdom of today’s Psalm 15: speak truth, do not do damage with your talk, do not harm one another, do not insult one another, share your resources, without expecting a return; do not bribe, threaten or manipulate. 

I am grateful for each of you, as far away as you may be at this moment.  I am praying for you, wishing you well, sending you love.  Reach out if you need help.

My prayer for all of us today is that we use the psalms more fully as our own prayers, as our own commitment to seeing, hearing, understanding and loving God with ever more fullness.  Amen.

Psalms of Praise

Psalms of Praise

Psalm 146


            Today as we continue our journey through the Psalms we come to the category of psalms known as psalms of praise.  While praise is an aspect of many psalms, some psalms are all praise.  Praise is at the heart of the life of the people of God both as individuals and as a worshiping community.  Passages throughout the Bible express praise.  Praise is a response of song, instruments, words and actions lifted up to the one who loves us eternally, who delivers us from all evil and who has created all that is.  The book of psalms can be divided into five distinct books, each one ending with a doxology which is a psalm of praise.  Many of the psalms of praise actually begin with the words “Praise the Lord” and some also conclude with this.  Other words used to communicate praise include extol, bless, laud, glory, joyful and gladness.  Psalms of praise, as with other types of psalms, follow a distinctive pattern.  Psalms of praise include two main aspects.  The first is that a past pain or distress of the community or person is described.  This description is very different, however from the expression of pain in psalms of lament because in the lament psalms, the pain is not yet past.  In the praise psalms, the pain or distress is over, resolved.  The second element of psalms of praise then is a remembering of the wonderful things that God has done as creator, deliverer and sustainer.
          The psalm we read for today, psalm 146, includes the word Praise five times.  And we are given a detailed list of what God has done for God’s people:  “God is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—
God remains faithful forever.
God upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
God sets prisoners free,
gives sight to the blind,
lifts up those who are bowed down,
loves the righteous.
 God watches over the alien resident
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but frustrates the ways of the wicked.”
          Once again, as throughout our scriptures, God’s focus is on the needs of the downtrodden and oppressed, those really in need of God’s love and care, which God then provides in abundance.  The righteous then are those who express the same care for those in need that God expresses.
          Other psalms of praise have other emphases, however.  Psalm 150 emphasizes not only the reasons for praising God (as did psalm 146), but also the ways to praise God such as with trumpet, lute, harp, tambourine, dance, strings, pipe and cymbals.  Everything that breathes is then supposed to return praise to God.
            So maybe the bigger question as we look at the psalms of praise is why do we praise God?  Why do we praise God?  Does God need our praise?  Does God need to be told that God is wonderful?
            I don’t believe so.  Instead, as with everything that God calls us to, I believe it is out of God’s love for us that we are called to praise.  So maybe the better question then is, what gift comes to us from praising God?
            Well, first, praising God reminds us of all the wondrous blessings that we have in having a God who is so loving and wonderful.  It reminds us that God has filled our lives with gifts like the air we breathe, the food we eat, the sun, the rain, the fellowship of other people, our pets, our families, our friends, meaningful work, growing opportunities and the list goes on and on.  Also, praising God reminds us that we are not alone.  It reminds us that we are loved.  When we are struggling, praising God can lift our hearts with hope and reminders of what God has done for us and promises to do again.  The praise psalms remind us, by recalling past struggles and the life that comes after those struggles, that our pain is temporary and that God is with us in the pain and will carry us through to the other side of any death with new life.  Psalms such as the one we read today, 146, remind us that God is with the oppressed, with those who are downtrodden and powerless.  These psalms fill our heart with joy, with awe, with a sense that we are a small part of a huge and wondrous creation, and yet even in our smallness we are not alone and every part of our lives matters to the one who created us.
           The truth is that for those of us who are connected with God, who have a relationship with God, there are times when our souls will cry out with praise.  There are times when the hearts of those who listen to and for God will find themselves filled with joy, with awe, with praise.  Have you ever been in the forest and been struck dumb with the beauty of the trees?  Have you ever listened to a babbling brook and heard the very voice of God’s love for you?  Have you ever looked at someone you love and seen the awe and wonder of the amazing individual that God has created right in front of you?  Have you ever listened to a piece of music that went straight to your heart with such depth that it felt like your heart would break if you could not praise the one who ultimately made all music?  The first time I looked upon each of my babies, the joy was so overwhelming that every part of my being cried out with praise.
          We can’t NOT praise.  There are moments in our lives when our hearts spill over with gratitude and joy.  That gratitude and joy are themselves gifts from God, we cannot help in those moments BUT praise God as our hearts, our minds, our souls and even our bodies are touched with joy, with love, with awe, with wonder.
           When I was a little girl, I remember going to camp (church camp – Westminster Woods, for those familiar with it).  It was my first time away at camp and I was having a really terrible time.  My best friend had gone with me, but she dropped me the second we arrived at camp.  More than that, she was gossipy about me and unkind in such a way that the rest of my cabin was also not interested in being my friend.  My counselor had a very conservative theology and was constantly threatening us with the fires of hell if we did not believe or see things the way that she wanted us to.  I was alone in so many, many ways.  And honestly, I just wanted to go home.  But there was a night when we were all sitting by the campfire when I prayed to God for help.  I prayed that God would somehow make everything okay, that I would not feel so alone and miserable.  The gift I was given in that moment is probably part of the reason I’m a pastor today.  God did not “fix” the problem, God did not change my friend’s heart or open others around me to consider being kind.  But instead, God opened my eyes.  I looked around and saw the incredible beauty of the woods in which we were camping.  I saw a squirrel running up a tree and smelled the deep pine scent that surrounded us.  The flames in the fire were warm and comforting, and they seemed to dance with a life and joy all their own.  The music that the leaders singing was touching and beautiful.  All of my senses were overwhelmed with the beauty around me, and I felt my heart soar.  My heart was changed so that I could see life, love, beauty.. GOD all around me.  And so, while my situation was still difficult, it was no longer unbearable.  Because I saw the good.  My reaction was praise: the praise of my heart – reaching to God.
            During lent we are called to refocus on our spiritual disciplines.  One of those necessary disciplines is centering our lives with an attitude of thanksgiving and gratitude.  This is much more, however, than just allowing those moments of praise to spontaneously well up.  This is calling us to be intentional about living a life of praise.  The psalms of praise give us a way to do God’s blessings, to begin and end each day remembering that even in hard times God’s abundant love is poured out for us.  As Daniel Geslin puts it, “Even in times of… loss …, exercising our faith can turn our grieving into gratitude. We are transformed from the grieving demand, "I want more," to the grateful response, "Thank you, God, for the gift of (what I had that is now lost)” That is one of the ways in which God opens blind eyes, sets captives free, and lifts up those who are bowed down.”
           It is not just in our psalms, or our ancient songs that we find this praise.  Our modern hymns are also filled with this praise.  What are some of your favorite hymns?  I think one that especially speaks to me is the poetry of “How can I keep from singing?”
          While singing it, sometimes we don’t hear all the words, so I invite you to close your eyes and simply hear the words, the poetry of this amazing hymn:
My life goes on in endless song
Above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear it's music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness 'round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

--

Another is the first 2 verses of “how great thou art”:

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed;

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
and hear the brook, and feel the gentle breeze;
           Refrain:
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

            When I sing these songs, my heart cries out with the glory of God, with praise for the creator who made us and music and poetry, who loves us eternally, and who saves us, daily, from a life of meaninglessness, from a life of emptiness, from death itself.
            I invite you to welcome in the spirit of gratitude and to join us, from your homes, as we sing together, to invite in God’s spirit, to remember that our God is the God who created and creates still, the God who loves us eternally, the God who saves.  Amen.

Psalms of Lament

Psalm 51
            Today is our third Sunday of looking at the psalms and today we were supposed to be looking at the psalms of lament.  That being said, I woke up this morning feeling the need to talk more about what is happening in our world today.  The Hebrew word that we translate “lament” literally means “Howl” or “wail”.  A lament, then, is a crying out, and it formed a ritualized way of dealing with grief, with loss, with pain.  Somehow that feels appropriate given what is happening in our world.  Lament psalms could be very personal, such as today’s psalm.  But other laments were corporate.  And I think that today, as we face this pandemic and the crisis that has turned all of our lives over, at least for a time, we are in need of a way of expressing our corporate lament. 
            These laments, these spoken rituals of mourning were so important and so central in practice for the Israelites that there are more laments than any other type of psalm.  Again, there are more laments than ANY other type of psalm.  While there are approximately ten different categories of psalms, laments comprise more than a third of the psalms that we have in our Bible.  Last week I mentioned that trust was the single most dominant theme within the psalms and trust is expressed in all of our psalms, including the lament psalms.  When we think about it, we can recognize that it takes a great deal of trust in God’s grace, God’s mercy, and especially, God’s deep and abiding love for us to be able to complain to God.  We would not dare to complain to a tyrant.  But because we trust that God hears us, that God loves us and that God will respond to our laments, that trust gives us permission to express our pain and petitions for God’s care in the midst of that pain.  Laments are expressed many other places in scripture as well – the book of lamentations consists of five poems mourning the loss of the temple and Jerusalem.  Jesus offers laments, and not only the one from the cross when he quotes psalm 22 with “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”.  For example, in Luke 13: 34-35 when Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. ³⁵ Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” he is expressing lament.
            Psalms of lament follow a prescribed format.  That format is:
Incantation – or calling on God
Expressions of Complaint
Expression of trust
Petitions asking God for specific things
            and
Praise of God.
           The corporate psalms of lament also add an aspect of remembering God’s past actions.  Each lament may have each of these components in different quantities, however.  For example, psalm 22, the psalm of lament that is perhaps the most well known because Jesus begins to quote it when he says on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – this psalm is mostly complaints and praise, while psalm 51,which we heard today, is mostly petition.
             Psalms of lament truly let all feelings be expressed before God.  And while I think at a cognitive level, all of us understand that we can express anything to God, and that, in fact, nothing should be withheld from God, still, there are aspects of psalms of lament that are challenging, I believe, for all of us.  The first is doubt or accusation against God.  It can feel disrespectful to us to hear phrases such as “How long, O Lord?  Will you be angry forever?”  “How long will your wrath burn like fire?”  “How long shall the wicked exult?”  “Rouse yourself!  Why do you sleep O God?”  And even the well known, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Does that feel disrespectful to you?  It would be understandable if it did.  But again, I cannot emphasize enough that our ability to express our deepest pain, anger and other feelings are in fact deep expressions of our trust in God.  We trust that God will hear us, will respond, that is the context of these expressions of complaint. 
          The second aspect of our psalms that are difficult for us to hear are the many expressions in the psalms of vengeance, anger, and violence.  Phrases such as “God will punish you with a warrior’s sharp arrows, with burning coals of the broom bush.” (120), “They cried for help, but there was no one to save them—to the Lord, but he did not answer.  I beat them as fine as windblown dust; I trampled them like mud in the streets.” (18), “The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them. You will destroy their offspring from the earth, and their children from among humankind.” (21), “O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord! ⁷ Let them vanish like water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither.  Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime; like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.”(58), and perhaps the hardest to hear - “Happy is the one who seizes your infants, and dashes them against the rocks.” (137) 
          We are uneasy with these phrases for very good reasons.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:44, “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  And he says in Luke 6:27, “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.”  In the context of Jesus’ words of love and compassion, and his call to us to enact only love and compassion, we find the judgments, violence, anger and deep desire for vengeance to be unChristian at least!  W.H. Bellinger writes this, “The laments amazing candor is sometimes shocking to the reader, but it is crucial to the honest dialogue of faith.  The psalms do not bear witness to prayer ‘as it ought to be’ but to brutally honest prayer from the depths of life.  An honest faith acknowledges life’s realities.  In the Psalms, no part of life is ever beyond dialogue with God….the psalms that seek vengeance call God to the divine task of justice and take the desire for vengeance to the Lord who can act upon it.”  Additionally, it is not necessary that we read these words as our own prayers, though there are no doubt times when we might feel that angry, or that hurt.  And these words give us permission, encouragement even, to be honest with God about our feelings.  Does that mean we are given permission to harbor resentments?  To plan vengeance?  To dwell in anger?  To act out violence?  No.  We are still called to love, even our enemies.  But sometimes the expression of these feelings to God allows us to release them from our own souls.  God knows what we feel and God is a safe being, a loving being to whom we can express even the “unacceptable” feelings.  There is relief in knowing that we have a God with whom we can be completely open and honest.
           Bob sent me an article from the New York Times this week that was talking about the terrible way humans have behaved when pandemics have happened before.  It went into great detail about the horrible ways we have behaved when we were scared or in fear of diseases killing us.  In the past when there have been pandemics, people have even forsaken their children, all children, in their terror and fear and desire to stay safe themselves.  Children were left to die, often to starve, by parents trying to get away. I would hope that we have progressed enough as people that we would never, ever, do this to our children.  But then I see that we cage children at the border, and I realize that this is not so.  Those who live in a state of fear tend to behave badly.  They tend to focus on themselves and their needs above everyone else’s.  You know that this is NOT what we are called to do.  You know this.  So to me, while this article talks about a moral disease accompanying a physical one, I would say this is a spiritual disease that is accompanying a physical one.  We are called to love, no matter what the threat is to our own lives.  We are called to be willing to walk the path towards the cross, towards death even, in the service of that love. 
            Psalms of Lament invite us to express our fear, our pain, our anger, to God so that we may release it and not allow it to control us.  This would be a good time for you to write one of your own.  And I would strongly encourage you to do that.  Don’t let your fear control you.  Don’t let it turn you away from God, from light, and most especially from Love.  THAT is the bottom line.  The expressions to God of all of our feelings allow us to release them.  We hand over our anger and our fear to God, literally through our words and our expressions, through our laments – and that allows us to behave better.  To not act on those feelings, but instead to live into our calls to love, no matter what else is going on.
           In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter was expressing extreme pain over the death of someone he had deeply loved.  The wise Dumbledore recognized the great value in simply allowing Harry to express those feelings.  I want to read you a part of the book: (p. 823):
            “I know how you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore very quietly.
             “No, you don’t,” said Harry, and his voice was suddenly loud and strong.  White-hot anger leapt inside him.  Dumbledore knew nothing about his feelings….
              …
            “There is no shame in what you are feeling, Harry,” said Dumbledore’s voice.  “On the contrary…the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength.”
            Harry felt the white-hot anger lick his insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling him with the desire to hurt Dumbledore for his calmness and his empty words.
           “My greatest strength, is it?” said Harry, his voice shaking as he stared out at the Quidditch stadium, no longer seeing it. “You haven’t got a clue…You don’t know…”
            “What don’t I know?” asked Dumbledore calmly.
            It was too much.  Harry turned around, shaking with rage.
           “I don’t want to talk about how I feel, all right?”
            “Harry, suffering like this proves you are still a man!  This pain is part of being human –”
           “THEN – I – DON’T – WANT – TO – BE- HUMAN!” Harry roared, and he seized one of the delicate silver instruments form the spindle-legged table beside him and flung it across the room.  It shattered into a hundred tiny pieces against the wall.
              …
              “I DON’T CARE!” Harry yelled … snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace.  “I’VE HAD ENOUGH, I’VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON’T CARE ANYMORE - ”
            He seized the table on which the silver instrument had stood and threw that too.  It broke apart on the floor and the legs rolled in different directions.
           “You do care,” said Dumbledore.  He had not flinched or made a single move to stop Harry demolishing his office.  His expression was calm, almost detached.  “You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”
           That pain, that deep, bleeding anger, rage, sense of wanting justice and revenge – these are the feelings that psalms of lament express and allow us to express in our own words as well.            Harry did not want to talk through his feelings, so instead he was acting them out, throwing things around the room, destroying things.  When we keep our fears and our pain bottled up, it has a tendency to come out anyway in our actions.  Expressing those feelings to God allows us to choose to behave differently.
             In Mitch Albom’s book, “have a little faith” (p 81-82), the Rabbi, too, expressed the gift in this ability to express and share those feelings.  He said,
           “I had a doctor once who was an atheist.  Did I ever tell you about him?”
             No.
          “This doctor, he liked to jab at me and my beliefs.  He used to schedule my appointments deliberately on Saturdays, so I would have to call the receptionist and explain why, because of my religion, that wouldn’t work.”
            Nice guy, I said.
           “Anyhow, one day, I read in the paper that his brother had died.  So I made a condolence call.”
            After the way he treated you?
           “In this job,” the Reb said, “you don’t retaliate….So I go to his house and he sees me.  I can tell he is upset.  I tell him I am sorry for his loss.  And he says, with an angry face, ‘I envy you.’
         “ “Why do you envy me?’ I said.
          “ ‘Because when you lose someone you love, you can curse God.  You can yell.  You can blame him.  You can demand to know why.  But I don’t believe in God.  I’m a doctor and I couldn’t help my brother!”
        “He was near tears. ‘Who do I blame?’ he kept asking me.  ‘I don’t believe in God, so I can only blame myself.’
           The Reb’s face tightened, “That,” he said softly, “is a terrible self-indictment.”
        Worse than an unanswered prayer?
        “Oh yes.  It is far more comforting to think God listened and said no, than to think that nobody’s out there.”
            Because of our understanding of what it means to be respectful towards God, because of our recognition that we are called towards love and compassion, we can struggle at times with the expression of lament.  But when we don’t express those feelings, they can eat us alive.
             Sometimes we find it easier to express our pain to other people, and that is okay, too.  But again, I encourage us also to come to God with all of those feelings.  God already knows them anyway, and God wants us, calls us, to take the time, take the risk of sharing them consciously with God.  Towards that end, I am going to have us end today by offering up psalm 6, another prayer of lament, together.  And I encourage you again to feel the feelings that are expressed, to allow them to touch you personally in whatever way the words speak to you.  Let us pray together:

Psalm 6:1-10 (NRSV)
¹ O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath.
² Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.
³ My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O LORD—how long?
⁴ Turn, O LORD, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.
⁵ For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?
⁶ I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping.
⁷ My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes.
⁸ Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
⁹ The LORD has heard my supplication; the LORD accepts my prayer.
¹⁰ All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame. 

In expressing these feelings we can trust absolutely that God cares, that God hears, that God invites us forward into new life, healing from our griefs and stepping forward into tomorrow with God at our side.  Amen.

Psalms of Trust

Psalm 23

            Last week we began our study of the psalms by looking at psalms of salvation history.  Today we continue our study of the psalms by looking at psalms of trust.  Some theologians do not consider there to be psalms specifically of trust, because psalms of trust tend to have other qualities as well that might make them more easily categorized into other genres.  Additionally, every psalm indicates some kind of trust in God.  Trust in God is the single dominant theme of the entire book of psalms, and truly of the entire Bible.  Even when there are laments or words of doubt in a psalm, the fact that the psalmist is talking to and about God indicates some level of trust.  Still, some psalms express trust more than others.  They express trust that God is the one who defends, protects, saves and provides refuge.  While lament (the type of psalm we will look at next week) is a temporary state within the psalms, trust is ongoing and permanent.  While we generally understand scripture as speaking to us about God, psalms of trust (as with all psalms) are prayers as well – our words back up to God.  The ones that are most powerful use beautiful metaphors such as a mother holding her child, a tent, a fortress, a rock, an eagle, a shepherd.  These psalms of trust bring comfort, even when we are in despair and pain because they remind us that beyond the sorrow we will always return to the God whom we can trust, who saves, helps, loves, shelters, guides and holds us.  And while we will go through difficult times, psalms of trust remind us that even in those hard times God is with us and God is ultimately powerful as well as compassionate.  Additionally, while nothing else can be fully trusted, not wealth, not health, not idols, not even the people we love, God can be relied upon to stay with us, to care for us.  God is the one we must depend on because there is nothing else on which we can completely depend.

            Psalm 23, a psalm of trust, is undoubtedly the most loved, most repeated, most often translated and interpreted psalm that we have.  It speaks deeply to our hearts, not only because of the beauty of its words, the deep trust in God that it expresses, and the comfort that it offers, but also because, in being the most familiar psalm, it recalls memories for each of us, it brings connections for each of us to other times, other people, other experiences.  It once again, as with the history psalms, connects us with tradition, with history, with other people of faith throughout our Christian (and frankly Jewish and Muslim) traditions.  At the same time, because it is so familiar, it can be hard to really hear it, or to hear the new word that God has for you today within the psalm. 

            So there are some things I’d like to share with you about Psalm 23 and then we will engage in an exercise together concerning the psalm.

            There are two primary metaphors in this psalm.  The first is God as shepherd, caring for all of us as sheep; the other is God as host, preparing a table for us, anointing our heads with oil, filling our cups to overflowing.  Bernard Anderson puts it this way, “According to the Bedouin law of hospitality, once a traveler is received into the shepherd’s tent, and especially once his host has spread food before him, he is guaranteed immunity from enemies who may be attempting to overtake him. … so the psalmist expresses trust in the good Shepherd by saying that in Yahweh’s tent one finds a protecting and gracious welcome.  This divine hospitality is not just a temporary reprieve but a limitless protection from the powers that threaten one’s existence.”

            According to theologian Jeff Paschal, we are invited then to imagine entering a room filled with our enemies. In that place, God says to us, "Right this way. I have prepared a banquet table for you. Please be seated." So we take a seat and begin to eat the feast God has prepared—and we eat right in front of our enemies. If that is not enough, then God anoints our head with oil and fills our cup until it overflows, showering us with honor, with respect, with love …Then the psalm ends. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long". The Hebrew here may be translated, "Surely goodness and kindness shall dog me all my life."  Imagine that.  Every moment of life God is pursuing us, hounding us with goodness and kindness. What kind of God is this? The psalmist

says this God is our shepherd, who fulfills our needs, causes us to rest and be restored, leads us in the right way of living, protects us from evil, honors and blesses us, and never stops pursuing us with goodness and kindness. 

It can be very hard to hear, in our consumer society, that God will provide our every need.  Especially when we are told repeatedly that we have “needs” for things that aren’t actually needs.  We don’t actually need the nicest, most beautiful car on the lot or a 3000 square foot home.  We don’t need to eat out at nice restaurants or pay expensive hair stylists.  Those are wants.  Some have taken the psalm to mean that God will just provide the bare minimum –again, simply those things that really are needs.  But that, too, is not the image that is given to us.  We are given an image of an overflowing cup.  We are given an image of God’s grace in extreme abundance.  Still, that overflowing cup is not usually about giving us more and more material stuff, but riches of a different and much deeper kind.  God will provide us with overflowing care, overflowing love, overflowing gratitude for the blessings that surround us in every moment.  God will bring us joy - true joy, and hope and love and faith.

Sometimes we take these for granted, we fail to remember how blessed we are in each moment and by each breath we take.  Sometimes our vision focuses so much more on the things with which we struggle, the challenges in our lives that we simply can’t see, easily forget, or take for granted such as God’s presence and God’s care in every moment.  I think about my own life.  I think about the many, many challenges that have occurred to me through that life.  You know of many of those challenges.  But now, each time I am faced with extreme difficulties I am aware that I have a choice each time as I walk through whatever is occurring in my life.  I can choose to focus on the tragedy or I can look at the incredible blessings of fellowship, of care for myself and my children, the resources I’ve always had to get through the time emotionally, financially, mentally; my health.  As I’ve mentioned once more, there was a time when we were in the process of buying a new home when the buyer of our original home pulled out.  We could not sell our house for six months and had to pay double mortgages on two homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, until all of our savings were gone.  But the truth is that we had the savings to get us through.  We managed to sell our house before we had to go into debt.  Yes, we spent all our savings, but we always had enough, and once that time was over, we could begin to save again.  Other times were difficult, but I came through them with increased compassion, with a deeper understanding of the choices I want to make in my life,  with a strength to endure and a strong commitment to be the person I choose to be, not the person who is simply reactive to life, but a person who chooses a path and moves through it with intention.  I want to tell you one other personal story, and Middle hesitantly gave me permission to share this with you.  Middle is my miracle child.  Five times Middle has been in situations that could have ended his life.  When he was two he came down with croup.  His croup was so bad that he awakened us in the middle of the night completely unable to breath.  We had to call 911 and when the paramedics arrived and tested his oxygen level, he was at 50%, low enough that they packed him into an ambulance and rushed him to the hospital.  When he was 3, he got hold of a tube of toothpaste and ate the entire thing.  This turned out not to be quite the catastrophe that I thought it might have been, but because it was a tube of fluoridated toothpaste it certainly scared us until we were able to talk to poison control.  When he was four, he got a piece of hotdog stuck in his throat.  Thanks be to God that I noticed he couldn’t breathe and knew the Heimlich maneuver.  He was in the almost fatal car accident with the car coming directly at us in the wrong lane on the freeway two years ago: positioned in exactly the place where he would have been the first to die.  These are the stories he’d let me tell you, but frankly there are others.    

All of these situations (except the toothpaste incident) were potentially fatal.  And while every day I thank God for my son, I don’t every day remember that he was watched over and cared for in these scary, threatening situations.  There are times when I focus on the challenges instead, sometimes the smallest challenges, like of a disagreement or not doing what I think he should be doing to the degree I want it done, rather than on the amazing gifts that I have been given every single day by the continued presence of three beautiful and miraculous children. 

My own life, too, has been saved miraculously on several occasions, mostly involving cars.  The scariest of these occurred when I was 22 and was a mission volunteer in North Carolina for a little over a half year.  One day I was travelling up an old logging road in an old truck with one of the leaders of the mission experience when suddenly the engine of the truck we were driving died, and the breaks went out at the same time.  The logging road was extremely steep and on the left side of the road was a sheer wall rising up, on the other, a sheer cliff going down.  As the truck began to roll backwards down this winding, steep road, the driver of the car calmly said, “I’m going to turn the truck into the wall.  Hold on.”  He did that, and the truck stopped finally at an angle – a steep enough angle that he yelled at me to scoot next to him and get out ASAP before the truck rolled over and off the cliff.  We got out, but just barely.  Another time I was driving behind one of those car-carrying trucks where we were both driving 70 mph on the freeway when suddenly one of the cars rolled off the back, and almost straight into me.  The car’s tires caught at the last minute and it swerved off the road, but I probably missed it by at most a foot.  A third time I ended up behind a drunk driver, also driving 70 mph on the freeway, who crossed the line a little too close to a wall and flipped his car right in front of me.  Fortunately, there were no cars in the lane next to me as I swerved to avoid crashing.  And again I was driving two years ago when we were almost in a head-on collision that would have killed all of us.

My continued life, too, is a miracle, for which I sometimes forget to be thankful.  But when I hear psalm 23, these are the stories that cross my mind.  When I hear the phrase, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil” I think of the times God has been right with me through the frightening times, through the hard times, through the real dangers of life and has seen me through.  I don’t expect to live forever.  I do expect that one of these times something will take my mortal life, whether that be an accident or a disease or something else.  But I remember that that will be in God’s time and that even in that transition, God will lead me beside quiet waters, and refresh my soul.  That is the promise of the psalm.  Those memories calling me into deep gratitude for my life, for my son’s life, for all the lives of the wonderful people around me are renewed and are brought about by this psalm, calling me to trust, and calling me into gratitude.

I would like to end today with a shortened exercise of lectio divina.  I invite you to close your eyes and listen again to psalm 23.  As we do so, I want to invite you to listen for a phrase or word that is speaking to you especially today.  I will ask you to say it out loud if you are comfortable, and then I will read the psalm one more time.  I invite you then to listen for the Holy Spirit, hear what memories or thoughts She would speak to you today.  I invite you to listen for a new word from God spoken in old language, in the words of such a familiar psalm of trust and comfort.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
 he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.

 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
             Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

Thanks be to God that we can trust in God’s love, God’s presence, God’s salvation, God’s comfort at all times and in all places.  Amen.

Psalms: Salvation History

Psalm 105

            This lent we will be focusing on the psalms and what they have to say to us, what they have to teach us, their piece in our faith lives.  As part of that, today I want to give a brief overview and then we will focus on psalms of history, psalm 105 being one of those. 
            The psalms are a collection of prayers, poems and songs that express to God and to God’s people a wide spectrum of human experience and emotion.  As such they express praise, thanksgiving, wonder, doubt, faith, lament, grief, trust, hope, joy, sorrow.  The psalms reflect all of these feelings, as well as all sorts of human experiences, and they do so as a way of connecting with, honoring and reaching out to the Holy Spirit.  As theologian Eugene Peterson says it, “When we pray the psalms, we enter into the centuries-long experience of being a people of God.”  Many of the psalms are attributed to King David, but not all of them.  Scholars have identified different types of psalms, and while many of the psalms fit into more than one category, generally, for our understanding and study, they are divided into the following different types:
Hymns of praise,
Enthronement hymns which recognize God as King over all the world,
Songs of Zion which recognize and lift up Jerusalem as God’s holy city,
Songs of lament,
Songs of trust,
Sacred History psalms which look at the history of God’s people,
Royal psalms which focus on ways in which God is actively involved in the politics, battles and national work of Israel,
Songs of thanksgiving,
Wisdom psalms which contain short memorable wise sayings,
And liturgies that were used in festivals and other worship experiences in the temple.
          If any of you would like a list of these different kinds of psalms with the psalm numbers that tell you which psalm fits into which category, I would be happy to provide those for you.
          As I said before, the psalms are prayers, they are hymns, they are poetry.  As hymns, they were sung, many as part of worship services.  As poetry, they tap deep into human experience, touching mind, soul, heart, and spirit.  No matter what you are feeling or thinking, a psalm can be found that mirrors where you are, that speaks for you, reassures you that you are not alone in that experience, and in those feelings as they connect to the Divine One.  The psalms call you into a deeper connection with yourself as well as with God.  In this way, psalms are very personal, and invite us into the second half of the second commandment to love neighbor AS self (or, in this case, to love yourself even as you love your neighbor!).  The psalms invite us to take the time to focus on our own spiritual journeys and to offer up prayers, thoughts, and songs as a way of caring for ourselves, since a deeper connection to God IS a way to care for yourself as well.  As prayers, they give us words when our own words do not feel complete or do not feel enough.  They give us words that have been said over the centuries, and prayers that therefore connect us not only to our own experiences but to our tradition and to those throughout the centuries who have prayed these same words before us.
         The psalms are also teachers, not only of how to pray, but of who God is, and of who we are as God’s people.  The psalms of history contribute in a special way to teaching and connecting us.  Today’s psalm is one of the psalms that recounts the history of the Jewish people and casts that history in a light that gives special focus to God’s role in that history.  In telling history through the psalm, we express care for our faith community and for ourselves as individuals.  We know ourselves and are known by others according to the stories we hear, remember, and retell about who we are.  We are shaped by the traditions with which we identify and we reshape those same traditions as we pass them onto others.  There is, therefore, great purpose and great meaning in retelling the stories, in inviting them to remind us who we are, WHOSE we are and why we are. 
        I read a recent study on the well-being of children.  And one of the strongest and most surprising finds was that when children know their history, and by that I mean their extended history, the history of their parents and grandparents, they fare much better, make better choices, tend to be more successful as adults, are happier, healthier, feel more grounded, more connected, and more confident in life than when they don’t.  Think about the truth of this: no matter what kind of support and grounding we give to kids who are adopted, I’ve supported many of these kids as young adults who often have felt a sense of being lost, a strong desire to connect to their biological history, and a stronger sense of connection and continuance when they do know BOTH their biological family’s history as well as the history of the family into which they’ve been adopted.  When we know where we are from, when we have a connection to the past as well as to the present and the future, we feel grounded.  We know ourselves better.  We see the long arc of history that can allow us to remember that whatever we are experiencing in this moment is tiny in the scope of time.  We have a stronger sense of long-term connection to everything when we know where we are from and what has created us in this time and in this place to be exactly who we are today. 
         These history psalms invite us into that time of remembrance, of re-centering in the story, or recommitting to being the people of God with a history, with a faith tradition and faith community, with a purpose and a meaning.  They invite us to step back and to see the bigger picture of God’s movement through time.  No matter what is going on today or how we are feeling in the moment, when we look at history, when we reflect on not only our own personal lives and history, but on the history of all of God’s people, we see God active and present, interacting with us, never leaving us alone, calling us ever deeper into our faith and into relationship with God. 
        Bernard Anderson describes the psalms as “the songs that accompany the people of God on their journey through history.”  When we engage the psalms, and today as we engage the sacred history psalms, we invite the story to be our guide as we continue on our journeys with God.
             Even when the psalms of history reflect on hard times, on tragic times, naming those times and singing them reminds us that we walk even the hard times together – together with one another and together with God as God’s people.  Psalm 137, which also tells part of the story of God’s people, reflects this. “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 harps.  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 foreign land?  If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!  Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mount, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.”   This psalm reflects the time when in 586 B.C. Jerusalem was captured and burned, the Temple destroyed by the king of Babylon, and thousands of people from Judah were taken into exile in Babylon.  This psalm recalls the pain and anguish of a displaced people in grief for their capital, for their temple, for their home for God.  I would like us to take a moment to sing this psalm together. And as we do, I invite you to feel the pain of the exiled Israelites, but also to see if singing their pain allows you to express grief, too, for things that you have lost as well – for those times when there is nothing to do except sit down and weep for what has passed…. #784
            What was that like for you to sing this psalm?
            In contrast to the reflection of history that shows pain and grief, today’s scripture reading was psalm 105 and after the sermon we will sing another history psalm, psalm 136.  Both of these reflect the beauty of God’s saving action through history.   Psalm 136 interjects the phrase, “God’s love endures forever” after every line.  We will sing, “for your love is never ending” as the alternate line each time reminding us that God does act, is acting, continues to act with love every day and in every place, even when we sit by the waters of Babylon and weep.
            Whether we are telling a story of sorrow or telling a story of God’s acts of salvation, it is the telling of those stories that grounds us, gives us continuity in our own stories, helps us understand who we are, and helps us to see God in history.
            I think about the movie, “Secondhand Lions”.  For those who have not seen it, a neglected boy is left with great uncles whom he has never even met for a summer by a mother who is more interested in meeting men than in caring for her boy.  Walter quickly engages his uncles in telling him stories of their adventures in Africa.  Until the very end of the movie, we don’t know if these stories are true or not.  But what becomes very apparent throughout the movie is that the telling of these stories, these histories, is life-giving to Walter, regardless of the veracity of the stories themselves.  The stories teach him what it is to be brave, what it is to be a man, what it is to be loving and faithful and strong and courageous.  They ground him and connect him to a sense of family that is more than just the here and now.  They transform him from being a boy who feels nothing but rejection, who is scared of his own shadow, who cannot stand up for himself into a boy who does stand up for himself and for those he loves, who claims his own rights and claims his own life.  The stories gave him the strength to be a person with hopes, dreams and a future. 
          Madeleine L’Engle, who wrote many wonderful Christian children’s stories, including A Wrinkle in Time, says that stories are incredibly important because they tell us who we are, and who God is in relation to us.  She says they do this more deeply than almost anything else because the stories get into our psyches, and transform us into God’s people.  The sacred history psalms are an important part of that story telling, combining the poetry that speaks to our hearts with the stories that speak to our imaginations about who we are.
            Psalm 78, another history psalm, begins with details about the way in which we are to hear the stories of God’s amazing work in history.  You can read the psalm yourself, but it is very long, so I will just sum up the call for us.  We are expected:
1.      To listen to the teachings.
2.     To tell others what God has done
3.     To teach our children
4.     To set our hope in God
5.     To not forget the works of God
6.     To keep God’s commandments
7.     And finally, to NOT be like our ancestors – in other words, to learn from history, and to choose a different path forward. 
           Each sacred history psalm, even when it tells stories of sorrow, also presents the same vision of God – the one who has done wondrous deeds, who has acted with justice, who brings salvation, who loves, forgives and rescues.  That is the story we are called to tell again and again with these psalms, with our songs, with our prayers, and with our readings. 
         I want to finish today by having us pray together a piece of Psalm 77.  Please join me in prayer:
           I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord;
           I will remember your wonders of old.
           I will meditate on all your work,
           And muse on your mighty deeds.
          Your way, O God, is holy.
            What god is so great as our God?
          You are the God who works wonders;
            You have displayed your might among the people.
         With your strong arm you redeemed your people,
            The descendants of Jacob and Joseph.  Amen.