Sermon for October 19

Sermon for October 19th

Years ago, I was sitting in a visit with a member of our congregation, and we came to the part of the visit where I offered Holy Communion. I always include a scripture passage during communion and on that visit I included Psalm 121. The congregant became quiet for an instance and than told me that Psalm 121 was called the soldiers Psalm. It was a psalm of hope that soldiers often prayed when faced with the horror of what they were enduring.

Other psalms are also called Soldiers psalms. Psalm 91 was another I encountered in my research, and it has a similar theme; that of God’s protection. These were honest prayers offered by the psalmists and although they were prayed in a context specific to their own time and place, the message was eternal. God would be with those facing difficult times. God would be present with them and even if they faced the end of their life, whether on a battlefield, or in a hospital room or elsewhere, they knew that God would be there too. In the words of Paul, written so many centuries after the Psalmists had lived, there is no where any of us can go that will separate us from the love of God. Not even death can separate us from God’s love. And for the soldier, facing their mortality, or for anyone else facing the same, that blessed assurance would have been a lifeline in an otherwise horrifying time.

But just as the psalms are wonderful for expressing ultimate hope and trust in God, so they are equally wonderful in expressing deep lament and frustration. Psalm 38 is one example of a personal lament psalm. Psalm 137 is communal psalm of lament, as the people remembered the shared indignity of the exile. They prayed to God that their enemies would be smote, even going so far as to rejoice in the idea that the infants of their enemies would have their heads caved in. While we in no way endorse that kind of violence, the raw anger and sorrow behind this psalm is very powerful. The Israelites were hurt, and they wanted God to act against their enemies. The emotions conveyed in this psalm are so human and so real that on some level (though not on the level of violence) we can find ourselves echoing similar sentiments. Where were you God when I received that cancer diagnosis, or when I watched my loved one die? Where are you as warfare continues to rip families and cultures apart, leaving only death and anguish in its wake? Will you not act? We can and do resonate with the raw truth of what the psalmists express in their psalms of lament.

As good Christians, we may indeed resonate with the intense emotions expressed in the psalms, but we would never presume to pray to God in such a fashion. We have been raised to pray with reverence and praise. We may ask for something, but we would never make demands of God or raise our spiritual voices to God. That wouldn’t be appropriate, or so we believe. Our prayer life should echo the respect and reverence due to God, our creator. We don’t yell or rail against God. We speak in tones of deep respect, even fear. It is all well and good for the ancient psalmists to speak that way, but that isn’t for us. We should never address God that way.

Yet those prayers of lament are just as important as the prayers of thanksgiving. They are honest and they express the deep anxiety that rests upon our souls. And when we pray in such an open and honest way, we are demonstrating that we know God is there. We don’t understand God’s ways. We don’t know why things work the way they do. Perhaps it is nothing more than the reality of our mortal life, but in the open, honest intensity of our prayers, we are inviting God in, knowing that God is still there. In the openness of our prayers, our heart is no longer guarded or cynical. They are made hearts of flesh once more, and into those hearts of flesh, God enters in.

I am about as Scandinavian as you can get. Outside of a heritage that is predominantly Norwegian and Danish, I also deeply dislike conflict. Conflict, for me, signals that there is a real issue in a relationship. Better just to talk it out calmly or patiently let it go; with the hope it may resolve on its own. An out right argument about something makes my palms sweat. Even now, when I don’t avoid conflict as much as I used to, I will avoid an argument like I would avoid the plague.

But I also know that after arguments, there is an opportunity to reset. I’ve cleared the air with the person I was arguing with and now we can work on making things better. If the argument leads to the end of the relationship, then perhaps the relationship wasn’t that strong to begin with. So, arguably, there is a place for arguments, and they can be healthy, if they are not chronic and arising due from deep seeded issues that beg more consideration. I may hate that, but in a relationship where love and respect is presence, an argument isn’t the end of something. It may in fact make something stronger.  

And so it is with prayers of lament. We are expressing our deep frustration and our deep desire to see a better dawn to the one who loves us with a love that cannot be quantified. If an argument was enough to breach our relationship with God, then too few of us would be able to confidently say that we are loved by God. But when we profess that nothing can separate us from God’s love, that includes times when we are mad at God or frustrated with God or simply can’t understand what God is up to. God’s response to this isn’t anger or damnation for our outburst. Rather, God comes to us, gathers us in and gives us peace. God doesn’t always give us answers but God does offer strength and peace, so that we not only can survive what we are enduring but we can still offer up to those around us God’s love.

I think about the soldier, facing battle and not knowing whether they will live or die, not knowing what they may be forced to do in the line of duty. They could rightly offer a Psalm like Psalm 38 as their prayer, angry with God for putting them in this position. Or they could offer a Psalm like Psalm 121, offering up a prayer of thanksgiving and hope. Both would be honest to the situation they find themselves in. And in both, they will encounter God. In both prayers, God will make God’s self known.

That is the joy of prayer. That is its power. In our honest, heartfelt prayers, we encounter God. When our hearts soften again to hearts of flesh, then we find that God enters in, and we come to know again God’s love and grace and peace. There is no better reason than that to pray. There is no better reason to say “Thanks be to God”.

Amen