"We Do Not Know What Grief and Care..."
By Rev. Daniel Smith
April 20, 2008
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Take Thursday, for example, in Japan. A little league team this week had 66 runs scored on them in just two innings of regulation play! Ouch! Can you imagine how those poor little losers felt? And why didn’t anyone think to stop the game?
Or take Monday, in Nevada. A dog owner was reunited with his Siberian Husky. The dog had last been seen by it owner a full week before, some 80 miles from home. But this poor puppy, lost and lonely, somehow founds its own way home. He traversed the high Nevada dessert and two mountain ranges before making his grand appearance right in the center of his hometown.
Then of course, there are the more substantial headlines in a day’s news from around the world, and from our lives. 30 more dead in Iraq. Another shooting in Boston. A Pope that surprises followers by meeting with a few victims for clergy sexual abuse almost 5 years after the facts first came to light. Or, what about the phone call that a family member is in the hospital? What about the test results some one or even a few of you are awaiting from the doctor, even at this very moment?
We do not know what grief and care each coming day may bring.
The heart shall find some gladness there, trust you in everything.
The latter line of this verse presents a tall order, and especially for this community on a morning like this one. Most either are just now hearing or are only beginning to process the news about Mary’s departure. To find gladness and trust in the midst of loss and change is easier sung than said, and easier said than done!
In case you’re wondering, I don’t plan to say much more than that this morning about Mary’s leaving. I wanted and needed to name the elephant that is not only sitting in the room, but that is weighing down on so many of our hearts. I expect we will feeling this weight for a long while. Since this elephant ain’t going anywhere anytime soon and I wouldn’t dare try to budge it for any of you, I trust you will forgive me if I move to speak in more general terms about how we might come to trust God in everything.
By now you should all be wondering what happened to the scripture! No gospel lesson to start things off? As I approached this Sunday’s sermon, I was reminded of some texts that Jesus himself would turn to in hard times. I found myself drawn to the Psalms, and especially the ones that are in the handout you should have received on your way in today.
Though we may not know the grief and care our days may bring, fortunately for us, those who wrote the Psalms did. In fact, within this book of ancient hymns and prayers, there’s a sense of anticipation of the entire range of human emotion and feeling. Here, there are resources for our petitions and lamentations. Here, there are wells of comfort and hope that can meet us wherever we are, no matter what happens. If you are feeling grief and sadness, for whatever reason this morning, it’s in there. Anger or frustration? It’s in there. If your soul is disquieted by Mary’s news or some other news in your life or the world, let the psalms speak to you and, in the words of Psalm 19, let all these meditations of your heart be acceptable in God’s sight, for God IS our strength and our redeemer.
So much of our scripture is about God reaching out to us, through creation, through the history of our spiritual ancestors, through words of prophets and through Jesus. The Psalms though are much more about humanity’s reaching out to God. They are a record of the human search for God, of souls reaching out and even groping for the divine presence whether in times of thanksgiving and joy, or in times of despair and trouble. Though time bound in origin, these words are timeless, made fresh by the experiences that readers in every generation bring to them.
What’s more, the Psalms aren’t merely meant to be studied, or interpreted so much as they are meant to be internalized and read not only with our minds, but as importantly with our hearts and with our souls. They are to be repeated, again and again, like a mantra, or a favorite song, until they sound out a resonance inside of us that we come to know intimately, and trust deeply. Were I someone with a mind for memorizing things, the psalms would top the list – all 150 of them! But I am coming to know them by heart anyway, and I invite you to do the same, at least a few stanzas or lines at a time, and most especially because….we do not know what grief and care awaits us. Even when we do, it helps to have a way of grounding and making real our trust in God.
A reading from Psalm 4:
Answer me when I call, O God of my right!
You gave me room when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer
I once attended a lecture by a favorite writer of mine, someone whose work I have admired since I first encountered it in high school. After she did a reading from her latest book, she took questions and said we could ask her anything. After a few questions about her book were asked, I shot my hand up in the air and asked her what I thought was a bold question given the audience. At least I knew she was a deeply spiritual woman. I asked her “Do you pray, and if so for what?” Without missing a beat, she said I usually begin by saying, “Lord, teach me how to pray.” I could immediately relate, and I still can. Fortunately though, somewhere along the way, God answered this prayer in part by opening my heart to the Psalms. There is no better model or guide when it comes to prayer. And it’s not the eloquence that they model, though they are gorgeous. It’s the honesty, the authenticity, the laying one’s soul bare before his or her maker. They allow us to take our anger, our doubts, our deepest lamentations right to God. And they assure us that God can handle it all and that God will allow us whatever space and indeed the room we may need in the midst of our distress!
From Psalm 118…
Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.
From Psalm 61
Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I call to you,
when my heart is faint.
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I…
And from Psalm 121…
The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore
If there is one thing you learn about praying this Sunday, learn that even one line of these psalms could be all a person needs to say his or her prayers for an entire week or a year. In fact, if as we are reading these together, you find yourself drawn to one line, please feel free to tune me out and to tune that line in (if you haven’t already done so!).
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I….
God will set me in a broad place.
Even when in troubled times, you are not finding God’s presence and are simply waiting and longing for it, there are psalms for you.
From Psalm 130…
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
And in Psalm 139, a profound awareness that in all our waiting, watching and searching for God, perhaps it is God that waits on and comes searching for us first.
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
Where has God found you lately? Where if not in the grief and care that life brings? And where can we go from Gods spirit? Where can we flee from this presence? The Psalmists tells us…
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me
,and your right hand shall hold me fast.
The line about God’s right hand reminds me of a prayer meeting I was in recently where someone was reading yet another Psalm, Psalm 16. The last line is stunning.
You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
In your right hand are pleasure forevermore.
At this meeting, the Psalmist, whether it was truly King David himself or some other ancient expositors, would have been proud of the range of emotions that were bubbling from our group as we pondered our relatedness to God and each other. While one person was taking solace in this notion of the fullness of joy, God’s pleasure in one hand, another person was in a decidedly different place, wrestling with a deep and lasting anger. Our group was reminded that we have two hands. One that may well stay clenched in a fist that rages against the very existence of pain, suffering, injustice in the world, and the other, an open and outstretched arm ready to give and receive gifts of grace, mercy, peace and joy. Hear this theme echoed in this great psalm of praise and thanksgiving.
O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good,
For God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Who alone does great wonders…
Who by understanding made the heavens…
Who spread out the earth on the waters…
Who made great lights…
The sun to rule over the day…
The moon and stars to rule over the night…
Who brought Israel out of Egypt…
With a strong hand and outstretched arm…
For God’s steadfast love endures forever…
O Give thanks to the God of heaven,
God’s steadfast love endures forever..
Friends, please forgive me so quickly for moving through these beautiful and delicate passages. As I close with just a few more readings. I would like to slow down, and leave some moments for quiet, some time for you internalize, and to pray these prayers for yourselves. My prayer is that these lines speak to your hearts, to whatever anguish and anxiety you may be feeling, about whatever news you may be carrying, and that even the act of listening, reading or praying may ground your souls in comfort and hope. Feel free to close your eyes if you wish and pray with me.
We may cry out in grief and lamentation…
How long, O Lord?...
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
(PAUSE)
We pray for God’s defense of our city and peace for our world
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the City of God
The holy habitation of the most high.
God is in the midst of the City. It shall not be moved.
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter.
God utters God’s voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us, The God of Jacob is our refuge.
(PAUSE)
We pray for comfort...
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.
Like the Psalmists, we too gather together strength in worship, in this community and in God’s presence…
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.
The Psalms also speak to us of God eternal, that we may find a reference point for our present trouble. I close now with Psalm 90, which is echoed in our final hymn. May it be an invitation for us all to keep these prayers and these songs in our hearts in coming days, whatever they may bring.
Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God…
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night…
So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart…
Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Amen.