(Please read this psalm, printed at the end of the blog entry, before reading the sermon.)
In the movie How the West Was Won, there is a memorable scene. A groom rides from the prairie camp to thank God for his bride. While praying he hears a gunshot and returns to find a dead rattlesnake and his wife on the ground bitten by the snake. Slowly, in agonizing pain, she dies in his arms. In that scene, we are struck by the vulnerability, injustice, and suffering of life. Place that scene beside Psalm 121 and ask yourself if they are compatible.
When we hear this psalm in its seemingly idealistic expressions of truth and confidence (not only in the goodness of God but also in the essential and continual goodness of life itself), we perhaps feel that we are being given an incomplete answer to the complex questions and experiences of our existence. Does God keep us? Does our Maker watch over us? Does the Almighty really protect us from the dangers and catastrophes of life?
Few comments have shaken me theologically or questioned my faith more than the comment of a little girl whose Sunday school class sang “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, Black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” At the conclusion of the song, the class was told how many children were starving in the world and how that day’s offering would be used to help feed them. The little girl asked, “Doesn’t Jesus love those little children, too?” It was a child’s question, but in the end, perhaps only the questions of honest little children matter. The question was essentially asking, “Does God really keep us? All of us?” After World War II and the Holocaust, one theologian said that nothing should be written in theology which was not relevant in the presence of a starving or burning child.
On the surface, Psalm 121 seems far removed from the experiences of many in our world, even those of many Christians. I think of those followers of Christ in Central and South America who are striving for justice and are being falsely labeled and slaughtered like animals; children and families who are victims of senseless tragedies like drive-by shootings and accidents caused by drunk drivers; the countless women and children who are abused by men and have to deal with the suffocating aftermath of such trauma; mothers who have to choose which child to feed because there is not enough food for all her children. Even in the most grace-filled congregations, church members have seen and endured more than enough suffering, heartache, and pain over the last two years. All of this suffering and pain on God’s good earth is enough us to make us wonder out loud whether we can ever let this beautiful, perhaps naïve, psalm become our prayer without extensive revision. So, what are we to do?
We must first recognize that no other part of the Bible is as honest, realistic, and down-to-earth as the psalms.
We must first recognize that no other part of the Bible is as honest, realistic, and down-to-earth as the psalms. The Psalter contains not only praise but hot anger (directed even toward God); not only abiding trust, but serious doubt; not only deep love, but righteous indignation; not only words of comfort, but severe words of condemnation. And we find over and over again the heartrending questions of the faithful: “WHY? HOW LONG? WHEN?” Even our Lord in the throes of death quoted the opening words of Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why did you forsake me?”
So, before we even look at Psalm 121, let us recognize that the ancient Israelite worshipers were far more honest than we are when it comes to life and faith. That recognition should cause us to look more deeply into what the psalmist was trying to say, for he was well acquainted with the grief, sin, and suffering of this world. Perhaps this psalm merits more than a casual reading and a response that includes more than cliches.
We should note from the beginning that this is a pilgrim psalm, intended for someone who is going on a journey. Perhaps the journey was to Jerusalem which sits on the hills of Zion, or perhaps the journey was from Jerusalem as pilgrims began their trip home and looked out over the miles of distance they must travel before reaching the comfort and security of family and friends. Whatever the case, the psalm is written for those on a journey filled with various dangers and threats: cruel heat by day and sinister darkness by night; the ever-present possibility of bandits and thieves; treacherous paths which would challenge the most nimble-footed; and wild beasts lurking behind rocks and trees. Psalm is a prayer used for a pilgrimage.
Whatever the original purpose or focus of this psalm, for us, it has become a song of trust for the pilgrimage we call life. And the one great question we must all ask is where we should look for help on that journey. Before we offer the glib answer, “We look to God, of course,” let’s be honest about where we really look for help. Do we not often look to family, money, jobs, friends, our health, our own strength, and our independence? It’s not that these things are bad. Indeed, God often is present and helps us through such sources of assistance. The problem is that such sources can never be ultimate. At some point in time, they will all fail or end. So, once again, where do we look for help? Do we really look to God? And if we do (or if we would like to), then maybe this psalm will make some sense even in this crazy, unpredictable, and sometimes tragic world. Let’s look at three images which may help us uncover the depths of this psalm.
First, She will not let your foot slip. God walks with us. God is not up there or out there, but with us, walking by our side. One of the questions we must ask is whether we want God to walk with us day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. Do we want an eternal companion for the journey, or do we want a cosmic police officer, a competent rescuer, a celestial ambulance service, a bottled genii whose presence we control for all those times we “really need the Lord?” God is with us, side by side, and the faithful can honestly say, “My help comes from the Lord,” because they celebrate rather than begrudge that constant presence on the journey. During the Montgomery bus boycott, an elderly Black woman who had to walk alone to her domestic employment in a city fraught with danger was asked if she needed help. Here answer was, “I’m not alone. God whose steps span eternity has slowed His pace to walk with me.”
I think it’s imperative to recognize that God gives us only one enduring and constant promise in this life. That promise is simply, “I will be with you.” As the psalmist of another song of trust observed, we must walk through the valley of the shadow. Life does not allow us to walk around that valley. But “the Lord is my shepherd.” The recognition of this abiding promise will keep us from breaking on the hard rocks of life.
The second image is, She neither slumbers nor sleeps. Ancient people were always afraid their gods might be away, sleeping, having sex, on the toilet, or otherwise occupied. (I’m serious about “on the toilet.” They saw their gods as larger and similar beings to themselves.) But the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. In other words, God is with us through thick and thin. When we ask where God is, the Bible tells us that God is here, always attentive, always with us, never off duty, never leaving Her post.
During the communist regime in Russia, a group of Christians who were worshiping illegally were seized by the communist police who demanded to know their names. Once the authorities knew the names of Christians, the state could better target them for discrimination and oppression. After revealing their names, a policeman who had recorded the names repeated them to make sure no one had been overlooked. After the list was read, one of the Christians said, “You missed one.” The police officer counted the names and the number of Christians and they matched. The Christian said, “You missed Jesus of Nazareth. He’s also here.” That story reminds me of Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. Even though they had been stripped, beaten many times with rods, and thrown into prison, midnight found them praying and singing hymns of joy while the other prisoners and the jailer listened. Either Paul and Silas were nuts, or in the midnight darkness of a prison cell, they knew a God who neither slumbers nor sleeps.
And finally, we have the following image: The Lord shall preserve you from all evil. She shall preserve your soul. There is a touching incident in the life of St. Giles, patron saint of Edinburgh. Travelling through the land preaching the gospel, he had as his constant companion a deer which he greatly loved. When they came to a village, Giles would point to the deer in his sermons and quote the Psalmist, “As the deer pants after the water in the brooks, so pants my soul after You, O God.” One day as Giles and his mute friend were passing through a forest, they heard dogs barking. Frightened, the deer began to run with his master in hot pursuit. Suddenly, Giles saw a hunter fitting an arrow to his bow, ready to shoot the fleeing animal. Instinctively, Giles stretched out his arm in the direction of his pet. He was just in the line of the arrow’s flight. It pierced his hand and struck the deer in its side, but Giles’ hand had so broken the arrow’s force that it wounded the animal only superficially.
Of course, this legend is a parable of God in our human experience. As our constant, unseen companion, God may not always be able to shield us against the arrows of misfortune, but our Maker does break the force of that misfortune and prevents it from utterly destroying us. God guards us in the way that really and ultimately matters—not against the suffering but against the evil that can destroy our hearts and souls. That close, divine presence will keep us from the ultimate despair, the deadly sin, and the final loneliness. Jesus said it so well: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”
[Wisdom and maturity help us deal with those situations which seem hopeless and beyond healing. There are those who find life so difficult that they feel the only escape from their pain is suicide. There are also those who suffer from dementia and become shells of their former selves. There have been many generations of slaves and victims of Jim Crow in this country who have endured unimaginable and unending suffering and oppression. There are those who from birth to death are ruthlessly ground up in the wheels of poverty and hunger. And there are countless people who daily struggle with the fallout of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. One is tempted to say with profound anger and sorrow that all these people have been abandoned and lost in the unfairness of life to the point that healing is no longer possible. To that understandable resignation, I offer three thoughts. (1) Even in the pain and oppression Blacks have suffered in this country, many Blacks have held on to a viable and powerful faith in God and have courageously chosen life over death. I am amazed at the vast number of people of color in this society who, in the worst of times, have done the best of things. Many have even found some degree of dignity and joy in the most horrible of situations. Their trust in God gave them extraordinary strength to keep on keeping on. They never lost faith that their God is committed to their freedom and healing. (2) Much suffering in this world is caused by those of us who choose to stand aside and let the forces of greed, violence, and arrogance fill the vacuum we refuse to permeate with our faithfulness and dedication to justice and compassion. Too many suffer and die on our watch when we have the power and resources to make this a better world. (3) As comedian Gracie Allen said, “Never put a period where God puts a comma.” The Christian faith is based on the resurrection of Jesus—on the faith that God took the broken, dead body of a Jewish peasant and raised it into a “transphysical” resurrected body. In the resurrection, Jesus became the “first fruits” of the harvest of justice, compassion, and reconciliation God has promised to bring to fruition—a consummation where, in the marvelous words of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” This faith must never degenerate into a “pie in the sky” escapism from the hard work of bringing God’s will to earth in the here and now. But such faith does inspire us to trust courageously and boldly that there is hope for everyone and every part of creation. God will bring us all home healed, forgiven, and emancipated. We must never put a period where God (or the vicissitudes of life) has put a comma. As Jesus reminded us, Her eye is even on the sparrow that falls.]
It takes someone who really means it so say with conviction and trust, “My help comes from the Lord” and to know the spiritual truth that God does keep us (and those we love) in ways that ultimately matter. It takes those who, on the pilgrimage of life, can hear by their side the steps of pierced feet that leave no footprints and feel resting on their shoulders nail-scarred hands that cannot be seen. The Black woman previously mentioned prefaced her magnificent testimony about God walking by her side with these words: “My feet are tired, but my soul is rested.” It takes people whose souls are rested in the presence of God to trust that God keeps them in ways that matter.
So, we see that this psalm of trust is not naïve. It’s not a Pollyanna ditty to be sung by religious halfwits. It’s an invitation to ask ourselves whence our help really comes. It’s an invitation to go on a pilgrimage with God.
Prayer
God of compassion who in Christ has walked where we walk, felt what we feel, struggled where we struggle, and suffered where we suffer, accept our praise and adoration for your great love toward us, your depth of understanding and your tender compassion for us in our pain and weakness. We stand in awe of your majesty seen in the beauty and grandeur of nature. We are inspired by your wisdom seen in the intricacies of our world and the providential movement of history.
Yet what touches us most and what gives us a warm sense of belonging and being understood is your identity with us, your solidarity, your being with us in all of life’s joys and sorrows. And it is your compassionate presence, O God, which makes the essential difference in our living. For that undying and unconditional love for each of us, we are grateful. From that love we are empowered to live our little lives with confidence that as long as we are in dialogue with you, they are not in vain.
Yet, Merciful God, we know that great as your compassion may be for us, you do not love us any more than you love any other human being. And because you love equally, unconditionally, and eternally, you must be concerned with justice. Grant us the courage not only to accept you as the God of compassion, but also as the Lord of justice. Help us hear your concern in the cries of the poor, to see your suffering love in the racked bodies and stunted minds of the hungry, to feel your agony in the pain of those who are oppressed and abused.
And finally, God, we would know you not only as the God of compassion and the Lord of justice—we would also know you as the healer of bodies and souls. Where there is suffering, pain, grief, disease, we pray for your healing and transforming presence. Where there is loneliness, may you bring community; where there is meaninglessness, may you bring purpose; where there is despair, hope; where there is sorrow, joy; where there is fear, courage; where there is greed, sharing; where there is hate, love. Be unto us the tender God of compassion, the Persistent Lord of justice, and the Sensitive Healer of bodies and souls as we offer our prayers through Jesus, our Master, Example, and Friend. Amen.
Communion Meditation
In Colossians 3, Paul wrote to the early Christians that in the act of baptism, “You have died, and your life has been hidden with Christ in God.” In other words, in baptism, we have identified with Christ, have trusted our lives unto him, and will share his destiny. But all this remains hidden to the world. As far as suffering, heartache, tragedy, and pain are concerned, from all outward appearances, there seems to be no difference between those within the faith and those outside the faith.
The difference is found in what, or better yet, in whom we know and that knowledge comes through risky trust and deep communion. If our lives are hidden with Christ in God, we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God. As Paul says in Romans 8, “neither life nor death, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” How do we know that? In a sense, we do not “know” that in a way we can prove to others or even to ourselves. We come to “know” such grace through trust and through the continuing communion we have with a loving God. Through this Bread and Wine, those who have eyes to see can perceive how God keeps us both now and forever.
Commission
The secret of faithful discipleship is trusting our lives are hidden with Christ in God. That awareness gives us courage and strength, allows for love and compassion, and inspires uncommon devotion and undying commitment.
We are hidden with Christ in God so that we might give ourselves in faithfulness to this world. This explains the great spirituality of those who have done the most to make this world over in the image of Jesus. The deeper we go into God, the farther we must go into our world in Jesus’ name. So, let us continue the journey both inward and outward to the glory of God and the healing of Her world.
Psalm 121 (NRSV)
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.
