Preached by Winton Boyd on September 14, 2008
We continue today on the journey through the “essential” biblical stories. We start with two psalms from what could be called the Bible’s book of prayer – the Psalms. Douglas John Hall begins his book Why Christian? with these words, “This is a book for people on the edges – the edges of faith, edges of the Judeo Christian tradition, in some cases the edges of the church.” I think the same could be said for the book of Psalms – an ancient book of prayers for people on the edge of faith, at their wits end, overwhelmed with both the joy and sorrow of life.
Walter Bruggemann says that much of Christian spirituality is romantic and unreal in its positiveness. He suggests that the psalms take a different course, “one that resonates much more with our experience.”
It is a good place to start this journey because I think it is critical to be clear about how we journey and the psalms help us do that. I chose these two psalms (23, 139) because in them, we see prayers from the Bible that touch all aspects of our lives.
Psalm 23 is the most famous psalm and commonly read at funerals. It has been so well known that when the creators of the Revised Standard Version were considering this psalm for their new translation, they left it virtually unchanged from the King James. They realized it was such a signature passage, with such well-known poetry to Christians that it could not be changed. They didn’t do this for any other portion of the Bible.
Author Dennis Bratcher suggests that the psalm is so profound in its simplicity that it can address many different contexts of life. This very lack of specificity, wrapped in deeply moving imagery and confession allows the psalm to serve as both lament, as people cry out from the depths of their pain; and as praise, as people rejoice at the verification of its truth in their own lives.
There is honesty about life in this psalm that even in the most moving expressions of devotion and faith still knows that darkness and tragedy may come. There is not false piety that wants to use God as a good luck charm to ward off the dark side of life. There is just the calm assurance that even in the darkness, God walks beside us.
• Psalm 23 represents the faith of a child whose fears can be calmed simply by holding the hand of a parent, and yet whose fears are very real.
• It is the reality of childish fear in a dark room with monsters under the bed, and yet the comfort that comes when a parent simply enters the room.
• It is the presence of one who is trusted that brings comfort and dispels fear.
We know, the longer we live, that the “evil” of the world may be far more substantial than childish fears.
• The death may be physical death, or the slow death of illness.
• The enemies may be real enemies who have betrayed, or lied, or stolen, or violated.
When I asked a few people what images this psalm evoked, one spoke of the “generational” quality of this psalm. The psalm is a reminder of a somewhat childlike trust that knows from experience that the presence of God in life is the only source of security, of provision, of comfort in the darkness. It is not a certainty shouted from a mountaintop – but evidenced in a quiet, persistent, a rock solid faith.
Despite the promise of God’s presence in our lives, it is not uncommon to feel like we have knocked on the door and nobody was home.
And when it does happen to us, we may find ourselves asking the most painful question that anyone who believes in God can ever ask: “Why have you gone off and left me to suffer alone? Oh God, why have you let me down?”
We are not the first to ask God this question. David, one of the most beloved writers in the entire Bible, in the very first verse of Psalm 22, asks the same question, “My God, my God, why, why have you abandoned me?”
David is not asking whether there is a God. He knows that God exists. But what good does it do if God exists out there somewhere in the great beyond but isn’t down here when we are in need? It is precisely because we believe that God exists that it hurts so much when there does not seem to be any help in our time of trouble.
Psalm 139 is an attempt to find both an answer and some faith in the face of such questions. Lewis Smedes paraphrases the psalm this way:
“When I feel as if I am going over the edge, the bottom is falling out beneath me, I’ll not be afraid because you, O God, will be there to hold me up when I fall. When I am lost in the dark and can’t find my way, and I’m afraid I’m going to stumble and break my neck, you, O God, will take my hand and lead me through. Even when life is hell on earth, I trust you. I trust you to be there. I trust you to be there with me, and you will not let me down.”
Whereas Psalm 23 assures us of confidence even at the end of our days, Psalm 139 points to God’s presence even before our beginning: For it was you who formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother’s womb…Your eyes beheld my unformed substance…”
As prayers, these psalms help us in our prayers.
They contain real questions and thoughts: A sense of abandonment, hatred for our enemies (a perfect hate), a sense of wonder at our very bodies. As a book of prayers, the psalms were the first “reality show”. Honest, raw, real.
They are questions/prayers that come from the heart. These prayers are not left-brain. These are not dissertations on the qualities of God. These come from the heart. I think this is particularly evident when we pray with the psalmist in vs. 19 and following: “O that you would kill the wicked, O God, and that the blood thirsty would depart from me – those who speak of you maliciously, and lift themselves up against you for evil. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you. I hate them with a perfect hatred, I count them my enemies.”
These words are not God’s, they are ours. If we are honest, we have hated our enemies; we have had thoughts that bordered on bloodthirsty. What Psalm 139 reminds us is there is power in praying from the heart, there is a catharsis that is missed when we only approach faith from the right brain.
Smedes tells the story of attending the funeral of a bright and beautiful young woman who died at the young age of twenty-two. She had just graduated cum laude from Princeton University and stood on the launching pad for her private crusade to make the world a better place for women. Then she got Hodgkin’s disease, and she died. At her funeral, the minister began his sermon by saying, “We have gathered here in the house of God to protest the death of Suzanne.” The license for such language comes from the psalms – it is not pious or romantic.
When your life feels as if it is falling apart and you are dangling in the cutting winds of pain and God doesn’t lift a finger to help, you don’t ask academic questions. Your question is a child’s cry from the bottom of the heart.
This is true when we are overwhelmed with joy as well. There are no words or pictures that describe the feeling one has coming through the tunnel and into Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park. There are no words to describe the sense of awesomeness one feels at the edge of the Grand Canyon or watching the waves crash into rocks at the ocean shore, or driving through the hills and dales of southwestern Wisconsin on a golden fall day. Our joy may come from falling in love or connecting in a new and profound way with another human being.
About a year ago, I had the pleasure of reconnecting with a cousin my age that I had not seen since we were both 13. When we reconnected at her dad’s funeral, we instantly re-bonded in a way we may not have done 35 years ago. We had an almost tangible “coming home” feeling – knowing in ways we could never explain that we were family. Beth kidded me about my then love for the Moody Blues (something I had completely forgotten), and treated Tammy as though she too were a long missed sister. But even as we shared those old memories, we marveled that the ways our lives had taken similar paths, with similar values and commitments.
I remember for several days afterward trying to describe for myself and others how beautiful this reunion was. Finally, I gave up and tried to simply relish the joy, to live in the joy, to live from that joy.
My prayers of thanksgiving and praise were coming from my heart and as such never felt adequate or articulate. I had knew, as Bobby McFerrin says in his translation of Psalm 23, that, “my heart fills with songs.”
They can only be “answered” in experience. Having attended or led two funerals in the past two weeks for young adults, I have heard a host of their peers ask the most obvious and painful question of all when there is a premature death – why? Why did this happen?
Like many of you, I find myself actually getting angry when an adult tries to find an easy answer to that question too quickly. To do so is to prevent the question from living within us. And yet, the longer we live with those questions, the more our experience shows us that indeed God can be trusted. Indeed, we can turn to God in times of need, seeking the comfort of the Spirit. But sometimes we have to wait, and waiting is the hardest job in the world. It is ten thousand times harder to wait than it is to rush into action.
The psalmist is here to proclaim, from his experience, God will be there. Generations of men and women who cling to this psalm are here to proclaim, God will be here.
