June 10, 2018

Dr. Linda Christians

Psalm 42:1-11

 We’re continuing our sermon series on the Psalm of Lament and I invite you to get your hymnal in front of you and turn to number 777 in the back. We’re going to read this responsively as Rev. Montgomery Mears helps us.

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me. By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. Psalm 42:1-11, NRSV

 When Dr. Pace emailed me, and asked me if I would preach on June 10 I was honored and I said, “Yes, I’ll preach.” And then he assigned the Psalms of Lament. Thank you, thank you, Tom Pace. I hope you’re having a great time in Colorado.

 Please pray with me. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you our Lord, our strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.

So, I have been giving this a great deal of thought. How do I begin to preach on the Psalms of Lament? How do I begin? I initially thought I’d begin with an illustration from a movie like “Steel Magnolias,” “Beaches,” “Marley and Me,” even “Bambi.” I thought of some opening liners in questions such as “Have you ever been so downcast that you cried in your sleep?” Or think of the time when your soul was so cast down that you didn’t know how you would pull yourself together again. Or has there been a time when the rug was so completely pulled out from underneath you by someone whom you loved, because they betrayed you?

 Has there been a time when you yearned? Yearned to be accepted, to be acknowledged, to be loved. To be in the presence of someone you’ve loved but who’s no longer with you. Are you far from home this morning and homesick for the ones you love?

 These are ways I thought about opening the sermon but I thought that if I did, the amount of time it would take for us to get out of that ditch of despair and to the “Yet, there’s hope” part would take far longer than we had this morning.

 So, I thought we would begin with the Psalmist – the Psalm and the Psalmist to get the Psalmist’s perspective. This Psalm we’ve just read responsively is a heart cry to God. It is one that the Psalmist, who’s in exile, who’s been banished from the Promised Land, who’s living in a foreign land. He’s far from home, he’s far from the worshipping community. He’s far from the temple, and that’s the place where the Spirit of God dwells. He’s far removed from his home. He’s far removed from God’s home.

 He cries so much that his tears, he said, are his food by day and by night and you get the impression that the tears flow even in his sleep.

 The first verse says this, “As the deer pants for water, so my soul longeth after thee.” This is to tell us just how desperate and thirsty for God the Psalmist is. It is the metaphor that says, “Our relationship with God is as essential to our spiritual well-being as water is to our physical well-being.”

 Now the deer depended on that water, the deer depended on water to quench its thirst. But the deer also depended on water for its protection from enemies. Did you know that when a deer is being hunted by an enemy, it finds a flowing stream, then goes and submerges its body all the way in, only leaving its nose above water? This throws off the scent and it hides the body from its enemies.

 The Psalmist’s soul is so downcast he’s seeking life-quenching water, his secret of God to care for and to protect him.

 The Psalmist is so downcast …he is so downcast. The word to a Psalmist and to the shepherd means so much more than it would to you and me. When the Psalmist says my soul is “cast down” or “downcast” it would mean a great deal to him and the shepherds of his time. It would give an image of a sheep that is cast down, has somehow rolled over on its back. If a sheep is rolled over on its back it has no way to get up without the help of someone else. It has to have the shepherd close by to help it get up.

 So, if the sheep is downcast or cast down it is bleating for help and in frightened frustration. It may be lashing about but without someone coming alongside to assist it, the situation is dire. Because what happens is that when a sheep is on its back the gasses inside the body build up and the sheep will die if help doesn’t come soon. Or it could be that predators – those enemies who are lurking nearby – take advantage of the sheep that is so vulnerable.

 But the Psalmist remembers and says, “My soul is cast down and even though my situation is dire, I long to be in the presence of God.” He remembers the times in the past when God has been faithful. His steadfast love and faithfulness has brought him through. He remembers the time in antiquity, all the times through the generations where God has taken the people and led them back to the Promised Land. Taken them, given them victories, and blessed them time and time again. So, though the Psalmist’s soul is cast down the Psalmist still remembers.

 There is that time of remembering of being in the Promised Land, in the temple, worshipping and praising God with the people around him. And as he remembers this he is led in these memories of these times to the next step toward hope.

 You see, this was the prayer that the Psalmist was praying, a heart cry to God to lead him to this place of hope. He lamented, he remembered, he cried for help. This was his prayer.

 My friends, it’s a prayer for you and me today because we all suffer. We’ve all suffered from desperation, from discouragement, from depression. We suffer with those in the world who though we are not close by, we suffer with those who are experiencing the eruption of the volcanoes in Guatemala and Hawaii. We suffer with those who are still struggling to get their lives together from Hurricane Harvey that occurred months ago. We struggle with the senseless deaths that occur in our schools. We suffer with those who suffer in silence even if we do not know who they are. We as a body of faith suffer with them. And we suffer with those who have suffered in silence whose names have become apparent, like the two suicides this week. Their souls were cast down; their spirits were disquieted within them.

 Some of us closer to home are experiencing tremendous loss and grief. Some of us feel abandoned, forlorn, weary, worn and depressed. There are people today who have lost their jobs, they are sitting at home on their sofa and they are missing their friends, their peers, their co-workers. They’re wondering, “Does anyone remember me? Does anyone care for me? Is God here for me? Does God really care?”

 There are parents who have children who are ill, who are broken, and who’ve lost their way. They’ve done all they possibly can do and they wonder, “Does God really care? Is God present with me?”

 We all suffer, so what are we to do with that? I think the Psalms of Lament and in particular this Psalm of Lament, gives us a prescription on how to address those times when we all suffer. The first is to name the cause of our suffering, to identify the source of what it is that is causing us to suffer.

 Not long ago I met with a young man in my office. Bright young man, likable. He was telling me that he was in his first job and he was successful at it. He was well liked by his peers, by his clients, and he felt that he was on the road to his first promotion. All that part was going good, then he got to the point of the matter of the meeting. He said, “Linda, my manager has thrown just one more sarcastic, snide, mean remark to me and I just don’t think I can take it anymore. I don’t know what to do.” Just one more comment took his soul, his mind, his body and his spirit down. So, we talked for a while and I encouraged him to see a professional counselor. For several weeks he did and he was able to come back and say, “I can name the cause of my suffering. It’s verbal abuse. I know the cause of my suffering.”

 Now let me be quick to say that his situation has not changed, his manager has not changed, but what’s within him now is some sort of a power that he can name. Then he can take the next step for what he will do.

 You identify the source. You may be one of those who can’t identify the source of your suffering today. I want you to encourage you to reach out to a counselor or friend. We have the Nick Finnegan Counseling Center just a block east of here with counselors who are ready and available to help you find what it is that is causing you to suffer.

 The first thing is to identify it, and the second thing is to remember God’s steadfast love and faithfulness.

Time and time again in antiquity the Israelites were shown again what God had done for them. Blessing after blessing, victory after victory, rescue after rescue, God showed them time and time again. God knows we forget. It’s easy to say, “Remember!” but how easily we forget.

I do hate to admit that I can’t remember where this next quote came from. I wish I did because it was a powerful source. But I want you to hear this quote. It goes like this: “Memory is the key to hope while we wait confidently for God to act.”

In the midst of feeling separated from God, this Psalmist remembered the good times that God had acted. He remembered God’s faithfulness.

Several years ago, I was taking one of my Doctor of Ministry courses in Pasadena, California. In this one particular class the professor took us to the Art Institute in Pasadena, and I have to confess I didn’t quite know exactly why we were there. I came to understand so that we could begin to think outside of the box so that when we looked at Scripture we’d be better able to think outside the box and see things differently, to see from the author’s perspective. During this time, I was sitting there and really engaged in what the Art Institute director was doing.

He had stacks of portraits on either side – or layers of portraits, and he would go and pull out a portrait and very silently just show it to everyone. Then he’d say, “I want you for just a moment to imagine what was in the artist’s mind. Or what is the story the artist is telling in this portrait.”

Now I would say I’m pretty simple so if it was a picture of a man with the dog on a leash near a tree in a park, I’d say that the man was walking his dog in the park. Each portrait from one side to the other just kept getting a little bit deeper and became a little more difficult for me to figure out the story.

The last portrait was one that will stay with me forever. It was a dark, dark piece. It was a piece that was created by someone who either experienced or knew about third world countries, where little children were being instituted or brought into the human trafficking industry. It was so dark.

My soul was cast down and disquieted within me for days. I reflected on that for days. It was a few days later that I was on a Supershuttle at 4:30 in the morning to catch my ride to the airport to fly home. Another man gets on the shuttle at the same time. He’s lively, he’s engaged. It’s like it was late for him, he’s just happy.

So, we struck up a conversation and I asked him, “So is this your home? Or are you headed home?” He said, “No, my home is in New York City and I’m so delighted to go back. But I’ve had such a good week here.” I said, “Oh, and would you mind telling me what you do?” He said, “Well, I’ve spent the week with students at the Art Institute.”

I think that was a God-divined appointment. I said, “Oh, I’ve been there, too. Can you tell me why you were there?” He said, “Well, I work with the United Nations and I’ve asked the students to engage in a special project. We have volunteers and staff who are working in third world countries and if we don’t remind them of all the success stories of lives that have been changed. If they don’t remember their successes, because of the vilest of conditions they’re in, they will lose hope, and our mission will be defeated. We have to remind them because they have to have the hope to go forward.”

That was powerful. I’ll never forget the Holy Spirit present in that van. Supershuttles have a special place in my heart.

We’re called to name the source of our suffering, to remember God’s steadfast love, because our souls did get cast down. In the Old Testament God admonished the people for not remembering. In the New Testament time Jesus knew we would forget. God knows us so well.

On Sunday mornings at 8:30 we have communion here. Just after this service at 12:05, we’ll have communion in the chapel. Jesus instituted the Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, because he knew how easily we would forget all that God has done for us through him. So, when we have that liturgy before us, those words that we say and we pray, it is to remind us time and time again of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. Remember how much Jesus Christ has loved you. Remember all that God has done for you.

If you do that, you get to this place where you don’t have the “Whys” as much. Because the “Whys” – where you ask, “why this?” or “Why that?” is replaced with the “Who.” God’s faithfulness and steadfast love endures forever.

We identify the cause, we remember God’s faithfulness, and third, we place our hope in God. Our hope is placed in God, not in the things of this world.

Out of the eleven verses the Psalmist repeats, in three of them, “Hope in God for I shall again praise him. My help and my God. Hope in God, hope in God.” We may not realize to the degree that the Psalmist did, how much we yearn, truly yearn, to be in God’s presence. Or yearn to be with others in a worshipping community. We don’t realize how much we yearn to be at home with God in the presence of God who is near, who cares for us and offers protection.

As we lean into that yearning we name our suffering, we remember what God has done for us, and we take that initial step where we can say, “I place my hope in God.” And with that comes a conviction of a hope that says, “There is no hopeless situation. There is no hopeless illness. No hopeless marriage. No hopeless children.” If there were hopeless situations, God would have given up long ago. That is not the God that I know.

God’s love is steadfast and enduring. As Christians, as believers in Jesus, we also have the benefit that the Psalmist did not have, of the in-dwelling presence of God, dwelling inside of us, to remind us the very presence of God is all around and within us. And so, when we forget we get a little nudge. It might come from reading of Scripture, perhaps it’s through a friend. We have the Spirit that gives us the conviction that says, “The hopeless have hope, the dead have life, the abandoned, or those who feel abandoned, have the presence of God’s Spirit within them. And the homeless have an eternal home.”

Last week Dr. Pace said that our prayers lead us, they guide us. He said that prayer is a leading edge. That means that as we pray our hearts and lives will follow in the way that God intends for us.

So, during those times when your soul is cast down, when words don’t come to you because you’re so weary and heavy laden, I want you to pray the Psalms. Pray the Psalms of a “Yet” or a “Therefore” or a “But” or an “And.” It says, “Yet there is hope in God.”

My friends, there is hope in God for you, for me, for all the world. So, may God be given all the Lament and as you do so, make sure you get to the part that says, “Yet…” Every Psalm of Lament has glory and praise. Amen