The New New Orientation

 

Over the last few days, we have returned to the framework of orientation (Psalm 1 or 127 or 131 or 133 or 145) to times when the old order collapsed, and you feel like you cannot determine where you are.  All feels like chaos!  These are psalms of lament like Psalm 22 or 77 or 139-143.  But then, there are psalms of reorientation and new order!  This is not a return to what was, but a new creation of what God is doing now.   One example is the final psalm 150:

 ^1-6 Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy house of worship,
    praise him under the open skies;
Praise him for his acts of power,
    praise him for his magnificent greatness;
Praise with a blast on the trumpet,
    praise by strumming soft strings;
Praise him with castanets and dance,
    praise him with banjo and flute;
Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum,
    praise him with fiddles and mandolin.
Let every living, breathing creature praise God!
    Hallelujah!

Augustine once said, “A Christian should be hallelujah from head to foot!”.  Note also that are not many external reasons given for the reason to let loose with praise to God.  When you read the words above it isn’t a long list of proof or evidence.  We don’t get specifics here!  As scholars say, this is a psalm when we are unfettered and lost in wonder, love and praise.  When was the last time you were lost in God’s grace, goodness, peace, and presence?  What if this doesn’t need to depend on the external scoreboard of life?  What if God’s goodness is always the current of life, but we have become adjusted to human’s way of living?  How do you or I or we get caught in a flow of faith that takes us in new directions we never saw coming?  How can hallelujah be the first word on your lip in the morning, the destination/direction throughout the day, and the last word you say before you close your eyes?  May these questions percolate and propel your life this day and in the days to come.

When Disorientation Interrupts

 

Yesterday we prayerfully pondered where God is at work in renovating your heart and where are you residing in the roominess of God?  We read how God longs to create order and structure, but we know that life isn’t always level or smooth!  Psalms 1 and 127 are both psalms of orientation, trying to give us a foundation on which our faith can stand.  But when the winds start whipping and whirling, we need to borrow words of disorientation.  Pray these words from Psalm 73,

^1-5 No doubt about it! God is good—
    good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it,
    missed seeing God’s goodness.
I was looking the other way,
    looking up to the people at the top,
    envying the wicked who have it made,
Who have nothing to worry about,
    not a care in the whole wide world.

^6-10 Pretentious with arrogance,
    they wear the latest fashions in violence,
Pampered and overfed,
    decked out in silk bows of silliness.
They jeer, using words to kill;
    they bully their way with words.
They’re full of hot air,
    loudmouths disturbing the peace.
People actually listen to them—can you believe it?
    Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.

^11-14 What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?
    Nobody’s tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything;
    they have it made, piling up riches.
I’ve been stupid to play by the rules;
    what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that’s what—
    a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.

I love those first few verses; the juxtaposition of God is good all the time and all the time God is good!  But then, we open the paper or emails or have someone say something that hurts or see how good things happen to bad people!  How the rich get richer, those who have still take more resources from those who have little.  (I love that phrase how the “Pampered and overfed (are) decked out in silk bows of silliness…use words to kill us.”  The psalms could have been written yesterday!)

Go back and reread these words pausing where the Spirit guides you to linger on the words and when you sense you need space in God’s wisdom to explore what is being said.  Enter the room of this psalm with curiosity and openness.  Amen.

Which Room?

 

Yesterday, we heard the heartbreaking and soul ache of a people who felt abandoned and strong emotions of life stirring at the circumstances where the people of God were in exile.  This is a place many of us have been in our lives, an address where maybe you have or are receiving mail right now.  Carroll Struhlmueller says that psalms are like different rooms in a home.  A room where you can weep and a room where you can dance and a room where you can rest in comfort and a room where you confront who you are.  This connects to Psalm 127:

 ^1-2 If God doesn’t build the house,
    the builders only build shacks.
If God doesn’t guard the city,
    the night watchman might as well nap.
It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late,
    and work your worried fingers to the bone.
Don’t you know he enjoys
    giving rest to those he loves?

^3-5 Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?
    the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows
    are the children of a vigorous youth.
Oh, how blessed are you parents,
    with your quivers full of children!
Your enemies don’t stand a chance against you;
    you’ll sweep them right off your doorstep.

This is what Walter Brueggemann would call a Psalm of orientation.  The words present a worldview where if you follow the rules and regulations all will be well.  “Your enemies don’t stand a chance!”  What I love about the psalms is that these words can be found just ten chapters before the words we heard yesterday.  Between chapters 127 and 137 the wheels fall off ~ the psalmist moves from orientation in 127 above to weeping by a pool of tears in Psalm 137 from yesterday.  Sometimes that is how quickly things can fall apart!  We think we are walking on sunshine and all is well, until we stumble and fall splat on our face or someone we thought was a our friend betrays our confidence. 

My question is which room of the house is God working on in your heart right now?  Are you in a room of dancing or mourning?  Are you in a room of care or concern?  Do you find yourself residing and remaining in one room more than others?  When and where are you finding rest in the room of God’s love?  Hold these questions as rooms God is working to construct and create ~ we do not labor alone or in vain, but with the One who has a hardhat and tool belt and isn’t afraid of a little dust.  May the psalms continue to help you explore and encounter God’s presence in these days. Amen.

Story of the Psalms ~ Part Two

 

I pray you have found the morning meditation series on the psalms meaningful, offering you some new insights, as well as provoking questions about these ancient hymns/poems/prayers of faith.  I pray you will continue to read the psalms in the days and months to come.  As we wrap up and wind down this exploration of the psalms, there are a few thoughts I’d like to share with you.  Eugene Peterson says that we can tend to think that religion is about the right clothes or polished prayers, and that what we often offer on Sunday is a carefully curated version of our best self.  God wants us to be honest.  In Psalm 137, the poet starts off with a lament:

 Alongside Babylon’s rivers
    we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,
    remembering the good old days in Zion.
Alongside the quaking aspens
    we stacked our unplayed harps;
That’s where our captors demanded songs,
    sarcastic and mocking:
    “Sing us a happy Zion song!”

When/where are you sitting by a pool of your own tears right now?  The setting of the Psalm is exile in Babylon where the people of God had been captured and carted off when a foreign empire had defeated the Israelites and took over Jerusalem.  They have left the Promised Land of their ancestors and are now in a foreign land under the thumb of a leader.  So, of course, they cry!  Eugene Petersons, “Tears are a biological gift from God, a physical and cathartic release of what is uneasy within us”.  Tears don’t show us what is wrong, but what is right and what we value, because at the basic level when we cry there is some unease within us or around us.  Tears show us where we hurt, which can also open us to what healing and wholeness would look like.  For example, I cry when I drop my kids off at college because I value the relationship.  I cry when read the news because I value God’s realm where ALL are received as beloved.  The last line is particularly poignant, the captors mock the people of Israel, treat them like they are playthings for their entertainment.  Where are you feeling pushed down or pushed aside right now?  The psalmist continues,

Oh, how could we ever sing God’s song
    in this wasteland?
If I ever forget you, Jerusalem,
    let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves.
Let my tongue swell and turn black
    if I fail to remember you,
If I fail, O dear Jerusalem,
    to honor you as my greatest.

Sometimes we don’t feel like we can sing or raise a song of praise.  Sometimes the most honest and heartfelt emotion is anger, which we hear in the final verses:

God, remember those Edomites,
    and remember the ruin of Jerusalem,
That day they yelled out,
    “Wreck it, smash it to bits!”
And you, Babylonians—ravagers!
    A reward to whoever gets back at you
    for all you’ve done to us;
Yes, a reward to the one who grabs your babies
    and smashes their heads on the rocks!

Um, wow, that takes a turn toward violence at the end, doesn’t it?  We pray the anger or hate because it is real and for this real emotion to find release.  In those places where hope seems not just foolish, but so distant and disconnected we can’t just deny or distance ourselves from the energy and emotion of anger that is within us.  Hold the words above close to your heart and let the images help you find your voice about the rivers of tears, the silence of songs, and the hurt that can turn to hate, all of which the Psalms say we can share with the Sacred.

Bring the Gift of Laughter

 

As we wrap up this week, we have stepped back to see a wider structure (the forest for the trees), I pray you have found this helpful.  We’ve explored how the psalms can move from order to disorder to reorder, just as our lives do ~ often there are parts of our life that are in all three categories simultaneously.  That is, our volunteering can be going great ~ feels like it is on solid ground, and all is orderly - while a relationship with a friend can be in chaos/coming apart - while we can be exploring a new way of singing out our prayer.  We have seen that psalms can also be approached through individual/communal lament or individual/communal thanksgiving.  To be sure, not every psalm can be neatly classified and put in a box.  Some psalms resist and refuse to be labeled.  One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 100.  The Message translates the Hebrew this way:

On your feet now—applaud God!
    Bring a gift of laughter,
    sing yourselves into God’s presence.

Know this: God is God,

    God made us; we didn’t make God.
    We’re God’s people, God’s well-tended sheep.

Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
    Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
    Thank God. Worship God.

For God is sheer beauty,
    all-generous in love,
    loyal always and ever.

Bring the gift of laughter to God…sing to God with gusto…give thanks to God and enter the sheer beauty of God’s all generous love.  I can think of no better way to spend today or this weekend than trying to live and let these words guide my actions/words/life.  Amen. 

Thanksgiving

 

So far this week, we have sung the blues individually and collectively.  We have been honest about the hurt within us and around us.  We have confessed the ache and professed that God isn’t finished yet.  Now, we turn to psalms of thanksgiving!  These are psalms that often look back on a time of crisis and see how God moved in our midst. 

Wait…don’t rush past this.  You could look back over your life to when you were in the “valley of the shadow of death” or in the pit or when if it wasn’t for bad luck, you wouldn’t have had any luck at all and think, “Welp, that settles that.”  One of the stories we can tell ourselves is that all life is suffering.  Or that people are out to get us.  We can see only the brokenness of life.  

I love that psalms of thanksgiving don’t just try to put icing on the burnt cake of life.  Psalms of thanksgiving say, “I cried to God and God showed up in this way”.  We need to let these words inform and inspire the ways we view our life and how we offer our praise and prayers to God today.  In psalms of thanksgiving, the poet/hymn writer will talk about past distress, the cry for help, and how God showed up and awoke a new song.  That last movement is key.  Psalms of thanksgiving don’t praise God for returning to status quo, but a new way of being.  These words bear witness to the surprising gift of new life that was not expected.  As with lament, there are both individual psalms of thanksgiving and communal.  Individual thanksgivings can be found in Psalm 30, 34, 92, 116 and 138.  Communal thanksgiving psalms are found in 65-68, 75, 107, 115, 118, and 124.

I invite you to read one of each from the above list.  Then, write your own, using your words. When in your past has God shown up as God, individually and collectively.  Name this, pray this, and sing this out today.  May our praise fill our homes, neighborhoods, community, and the world with the truth of God’s presence with us and for us.  Amen.

Communal Lament

 

Yesterday, we studied and sang individual songs of lament.  These are personal poems of pain that also confess an openness to God who is still at work in this world and gives thanks to the Holy who hovers in our lives.  Brokenness is not only individual, but it can also be structural and systematic.  Note that the psalmist knew both existed thousands of years ago, but often the church focuses either on the brokenness or sinfulness of the individual or the brokenness of systems ~ rather than trying to hold both.  In communal lament psalms, there is the familiar form of crying out to God, petitioning God to be God, and a commitment to stay connected to our Creator.  Some of the examples of communal experiences of lament can be found in psalms 44, 74, 79, 83, 85, and 89 ~ these are psalms of public loss including drought, famine, epidemic, national devastation, and war.  The point is not to read these psalms at arm’s length.  It isn’t just intellectual curiosity for the past, but how these psalms give us language for the present.  I’d encourage you to slowly read psalm 44 or 58 or 74 or 79.  As you open your sacred imagination to these words and your heart, how does this awaken your voice to what we experience and encounter in these days?

I encourage you to translate one of the psalms using the headlines you read this morning.  What do you lament that is happening in the world, in our country, and in our community/your neighborhood?  For our siblings in Hawaii and for creation crying out this summer along with humans.  Lament shines a light on the truth that our shared human life is not spotless and shiny (the psalms remind us that it never has been either).  We continue to be honest about this.  Where are you trusting in God’s faithfulness to guide and ground you in the face of the pain?  Remember, leaning on God keeps us from sinking into cynicism that things will never get better.  Where are you appealing for God to be God, to show you how to be in the world?  How can your praise help show a different way as you move about your day? 

Pray these questions and may God bless the living out of these questions – not necessarily with answers – but with a strength to face what is before us as August winds down and wraps up.  

Crying Out

 

As you continue to swim in the psalms, sing the psalms, and let the words settle into your soul, you will notice that many of the words are not exactly warm and fuzzy.  The more you read the psalms, the more you start to think, “Good Lord, did the editorial board of the psalms consist of Grumpy Dwarf, Eeyore, and the Sadness from the movie Inside Out?  Most research suggests that psalms of lament make up one-third of the psalms.  But lament is not just woe is me.  Rather, when you look at a lament there is anticipation for change because the author will often recall and remember how God has acted in history.  There is expectation that God will act again, even when the situation the psalmist if facing looks dire and desperate.

Hold this.  Because often our cynicism today says that hope is foolish.  Cynicism says you already know the end of the story and it isn’t good…so why bother?  Cynicism can be a cycle when we end up criticizing other’s efforts to make a difference.  Cynicism has a poor memory and thinks, “Things have never been this bad.”  I am not saying that everything is coming up roses and we should all be singing “Somewhere over the rainbow.”  But I think cynicism clogs our ears and closes our eyes to goodness and grace and love.  We end up thinking that the goodness and grace and love of God are not enough.  We end up thinking in terms of binaries, rather than complexity and contradictions that are part of life.

Psalms of lament end with hope.  These are honest and heartfelt hymns to God.  I’ve read that only a deep relationship with God will allow us to lament.  In psalms 25-28 (as well as 31, 35, 38-43 – see there really are a lot of laments), you have an example of individual laments.  These are first person accounts of crying out to God.  As you read one of these psalms lean into the description of distress.  The point is not that there will be a test to see if you can remember the pain or problem, rather the point is to find your pain in the spaces between the words.  Rather than ask, “who was the psalmist’s enemy?” ask, “who is my enemy?”  Who is that person who causes you pain?  Psalms are a permission slips to name and notice that humans can hurt one another, and we need to find a release to find relief…or cynicism will creep into our lives.

Note that some of the individual laments say that the problem isn’t only “out there” but it can also be within the human heart, within you and me and us.  An example of this is Psalm 32.  As you read a few of these psalms notice how the crying out weaves in confessions of trust in God ~ that God will be God.  The Psalmist asks for God to intervene and intercede.  How do you want God to step into the stress and strain, the hurt and heartbreak you carry today?  Finally, the psalmist gives praise to God, not because the problem has been instantly and immediately resolved, but because when we are honest about the pain – rather that pushing it to the cobweb corner of our souls – we are inviting God into one of the most intimate places of our lives (what we don’t usually show on social media).  Prayer is giving access to God, even when we are not sure we fully know all we are carrying with us.

Pray a few of the psalms I listed above with me today…and may you discover healing and hope and wholeness and yourself in these words.  Amen.   

The Structure of Psalms

 

When we read the psalms there is an underlying story you are entering.  Often, we view the psalms as individual and isolated and not really related or connected one to another.  To be sure, the beauty of the psalms is you can skip around. But, as you heard last week, there is profound power in praying and singing Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and in the next breath singing out with Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd.”  To be sure, this is complex, complicated, competing, even contradictory emotions.  We can treat our emotions like we are in middle school, where if you were friends with one person then clearly you cannot be friends with this other person.  But adult-sized emotions can co-exist and contradict.  Unfortunately, we don’t always outgrow that middle school ideal of thinking, “Well if I am happy than I can’t be sad.”  Until you go to a funeral where gratitude for loving the person and grief for the person’s death sit side-by-side in your soul.  Part of the reason why we are so uncomfortable at funerals is that the emotions are raw and open and even in tension, we ping from one to another quickly, in ways we don’t understand and can’t explain.

The psalms invite us into the messiness of human emotions.  I want to share a few ideas about the structure of the psalms.  Please note, these are human concepts that may or may not have been intended by our Hebrew ancestors who put together the psalm hymnal.  Scholar Walter Bruggemann said that one structure of the psalms is as a process of order to disorder to reorder.  You have heard this in the psalms we’ve read thus far.  Psalm 1 presents an order that you are a tree planted by the river of God where you grow good fruit, not like those people who race and run after idols!  But turn the page to Psalm 2 where the psalmist asks, “Why then do people rate and rank others?  Why do the nations flex their muscles?”  Do you hear the disorder and deconstruction between the two psalms? There is a tension linking the two psalms.  In the first one there is an order given ~ root yourself in God and all will be well.  Then, Psalm 2, after reading the newspaper, “Wait, this isn’t right.”  The movement from order to disorder can happen even within a psalm.  Where the psalmist starts by singing the blues about being surrounded by enemies (which is disorder!), only a few verses in says, “But I trust in God,” which is a movement to reorder, a new way of being.  Wait, our middle school emotions object, which is it?  Is life going to you know where in a handbasket OR is God good and present?  You must choose.

But life, friends, is not a multiple-choice test where you fill in the bubble with your #2 pencil. Life is a mystery.   Life is not a puzzle to be solved or a math problem where there is only one right answer.  Life is complex and beautiful and holy and messy and more words than I could ever write. 

The psalms give voice to this.  Invite you to read Psalm 25.  If you read this in the Voice translation, you will notice that what the poet psalm writer was trying to do was use all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the Voice translation does a beautiful job of showing this intention in our alphabet.  May these words awaken you to God who is the witness to your beautifully messy life every moment this day. Amen.

Psalm 24

 

When you read the Psalms, there is an unfolding story.  I hope you have heard that this week.  We started with talking about God’s address being at the end of a rope ~ the rope of our own self-sufficiency, the rope of our own independence and I don’t need nothing from no one, the rope of success and looking good to others.  We prayed for leaders, who help to tend the ropes of our collective life.  Leaders who are called to tether and tie our ropes together and mend the safety nets that catch our siblings who fall.  We prayed and sang about moments when we fall because all of us do!  We all stumble and bumble and make mistakes.  We are human size and there is no cure for being human.  We cried out to God for help because God can at times feel distant, and we remember that this is not unique to us.  Jesus felt this on the cross.  Our ancestors felt this and felt God’s love too.  So, we prayed Psalm 23 with all our hearts.  Psalm 24 then sings out to Creation as God’s first testament.  That it isn’t just human beings who are told to be fruitful and multiply (although we tend to over emphasize that part of Genesis).  God left God’s fingerprints on all creation.  From the mountains to the valleys to the oceans to the Gulf waters of Sarasota.  Creation is preaching and teaching and we are creation’s students.  Yet, we don’t always listen or learn.  We tend to think that we are the smartest ones in the class, rather than the ones who need remedial help.  Creation has something to tell you that is new every day. God’s creation continues to evolve and expand, just like your soul.  Creation is proclaiming God’s presence, are we paying attention?  Listen today to the birds, the grass slowly growing, the sun shining, the trees swaying.  Listen, listen, listen, and be transformed that God isn’t just interested in orderly theology, God cares about the whole world.  May this psalm inspire our living this day and for countess days to come.  Amen. 

Psalm 23

 

Psalm 23 is the Amazing Grace of the Hebrew Hymnal.

Do you remember when/where/how you learned it?  Who taught the words to you?  Was it in Sunday School?  Or maybe you have just caught the psalm through osmosis over countless times of hearing it.  Lean in and listen anew/afresh/again to the words with some commentary by me.

“The Lord is my shepherd.”  The Lord is my guide…my GPS…my compass…my companion.

“I shall not want.”  What I have is enough.  This daily bread, these friends, this church, this house, this moment, all that is in this moment is enough, because God is enough.

“God leads us in green fields…by soothing baptismal waters…soothes our fears…makes us whole.”  You are enough.  You don’t need the latest fashion or to earn God’s love or to prove that you are the smartest person in the room.  You are enough, because God is enough, God crafts You day-by-day in God’s image.

“Even when the shadows creep and crawl, like monsters under your bed.  Even when the headlines scream the world is going to hell and there is nothing you can do.  Even when we struggle, God is there.  God is there in the midnight of your soul.  Perhaps not with a magic potion to drink or wand to wave to make everything perfect, but with a love that enfolds and holds you.”  Please God, meet every person reading these words by the pools of tears in our lives.

God feeds us physically and emotionally and spiritually.  God calls us to a table, where all are welcome and there is room to spare if you have the courage to pull up a chair rather than evaluate who is on the guest list.

God anoints us with a lavish love that drenches us and runs down our chins soaking our clothes and saturating our souls.

Wherever you are, God is.  God is a circle whose love stretches to the furthest unknown galaxy and is as close to where you are right now.

May these words be encountered and experienced in your life this day.  Amen.

Psalm 22

 

Psalm 22 is what Jesus quotes on the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken/ turned Your back/ walked out on me?” 

When we feel God is distant or disconnected, Psalm 22 is our prayer.

When we feel isolated and alone, Jesus invites us to open our hymnal to Psalm 22 and sing the blues.

When the last fiber of the rope we’ve been clinging to snaps and there is no safety net below, we cry honest, heartfelt, raw, and real tears.

If you keep reading Psalm 22, the hymn writer preaches and prays about how our parents trusted God.  Sometimes our ancestors lend us their faith.  The great cloud of witnesses reminds you of the trials and tribulations they faced.  Paused with me, what did you learn about faith in the storm from your parents, grandparents, relatives, deacons, elders, and neighbors growing up?  What wisdom did you learn?  What actions did you see?  When I sing, Great is Thy Faithfulness, I know that is both a tribute to God’s faithfulness to us and the faithfulness of those who left fingerprints upon my heart.

Rewind and remember those from whom you were taught and caught the faith.  Celebrate how you were shaped by those who paved the path of faith before us.  We are singing a song to God that began long before any of us were born and we are singing to others right now the song of faith that will continue when we are no longer here.  How are we teaching the song to the next generation and to those around us?  Yes, we can lament.  Yes, we can question God.  Yes, we can tell the old, old story of God’s love that is so elastic and expansive that God holds the brokenness and beauty of life, yours and mine and this world, all in God’s care.  Amen.

Psalm 21

 

Psalm 21 is a prayer for the leaders of the world.  It is a prayer that those who govern us and to whom we give/grant power act with justice, kindness, humility, gentleness, and compassion.  Of course, that doesn’t always happen.  And it didn’t happen in the Hebrew Scriptures either.  If you read 1 and 2 Kings (or you can just take my word for it), time and time and time again a king comes to power over God’s people and the king isn’t just or kind or humble.  In fact, in the book of Judges, the people keep asking for a king and God says, “Um, I don’t think that is such a good idea.”  God gives judges, who are leaders like Moses, Miriam, and Aaron, to help the people navigate the troubles of the world, relationships, and when two people are arguing over where the property line is at so they can build a fence (see sermon from July 23rd).  From the beginning humans have organized ourselves to appoint leaders and then been disappointed when the leaders act out of self-interest rather than self-lessness.  Right now, in the news this is a story as old as time and listening to a song as old as rhyme.  When people cling to power, yup that is in the book of Kings.  When leaders build large homes to impress others, yup that is in the book of Kings.  When leaders are more like Scrooge and no matter how many ghosts visit them, they keep doubling down and claiming to be the victim.  Yup, all there from the earliest stories in Scripture.  As Katie Bower says, “There is no cure for being human.”  There is something in our condition that clings to power, prestige, and privilege.  So, when Psalm 21 prays for the leaders to do justice, show loving kindness and be humble (or human size rather than thinking they are gods), it is a prayer we pray today.  I encourage you to pray for our leaders today, all of them.  I pray for the light of God’s love to transform their hearts and set a new song in their hearts.  While I am not saying this will magically happen, I know that grumbling and mumbling isn’t exactly changing the system either.  And perhaps the prayer is for us, you and me, in our world to step up and step forward to embrace and embody a different way of living and caring and leading others around us.  May you and I find our way through the wilderness today. Amen. 

Psalm 20

 

You are invited to read Psalm 20

For me, the opening line of Psalm 20 is a powerful and profound prayer.  Here are a few translations of the first verse.  

 

May the Eternal’s answer find you, come to rescue you, when you desperately cling to the end of your rope. (The Voice)

 

God answer you on the day you crash, the name God-of-Jacob put you out of harm’s reach. (The Message)

 

I pray that the Lord answers you whenever you are in trouble. Let the name of Jacob’s God protect you. (The Common English)

 

The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee; (King James Version)

Where do you feel like you are hanging on to a thin fiber of rope that is stretched and strained and threatening to snap any second now?  Where do you need God to be present to you today?  Name and claim these places.  The Psalms are raw and honest, inviting us to bring our less-than-perfect/polished/put together self into the presence of the Holy.  God doesn’t need or desire our facades, God longs for authentic and earnest and from our heart words. 

After you pray the places you are at the end of your rope, the trouble that rumbles within and around you, the places of pain and heartbreak and soul ache, I encourage you to listen.  I don’t believe that God swoops in and saves the day and restores everything back to the way we want it.  But I do experience and encounter God’s presence that is enough.  Enough strength for this moment.  Enough love for me to face the day.  Enough grace to find joy and enough joy to laugh.  God doesn’t magically make the hurt disappear, God’s gift is a presence that stirs and supports and strengthens us.  We know that God loves us enough to become us.  God became human and faced death to show us a love that never lets us go (Philippians 2:6-11), especially when we are at the end of our ropes or everything is crashing/crumbling down.  I trust this day that troubles of the world won’t have the final say.  May this promise and God’s presence meet you, especially when you are at the end of the rope (which is often God’s address).  Amen.

Your Love for God

 

Psalm 18 begins playfully and prayerfully, “I love you, O God, my strength.” (NRSV) Or, “I love You, Eternal One, source of my power.” (The Voice translation).  Or, “I love you, God – You make me strong.”  I invite you to savor this and pray these intimate words.  We often talk about God’s love for us, but what about our love ~ and particularly YOUR love ~ for God.  How do you express your love for God?  Reminds me of the idea of five love languages which are: words of affirmation/compliments, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.  Usually, we think of these are between two humans.  But there is crossover into how we express our love for God.  Some people want to offer beautiful words to God (this resonates with me).  Some want to spend time in quiet contemplation with God.  Some want to give to God financially.  Some want to give of talents and time.  Others want to dance with God or experience God out in creation with the taste of salt on the tip of their tongue as they walk on the beach.  Maybe you found yourself in two or three of those “languages.”  I invite you to hold your love for God and to be held by the love of God this day.  I pray that you might even add a sixth love language ~ go play with God and laugh with God and rejoice with God.  As the mystics have said, “The glory/deepest prayer/expression of love to God is a human being fully alive.”  May you be alive in God and let God’s life be fully in you this day and in the days to come.  Amen. 

God Before Us

 

Show me the path of life, Psalm 16:11 preaches and teaches.  Reveal the way toward light and love and life, the Psalmist prays.  For we, like Robert Frost, often find ourselves on a path in a wood/forest that diverges.  How do we decide which ways to go?  The well-worn pathways of life are often to go with the flow, to go along to get along, to not make waves and stay under the radar.  It takes courage to talk about fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control/managing our energy with wisdom ~ Galatians 5:22-23).  The Psalmist says, “I keep the Lord always before me”. (16:8) Wait.  Hold that.  Go back and pray that verse again…and again…and again throughout the day.  “I keep the Lord always before me.” It takes courage to live this way, to let God’s wisdom (not the internet or politics or social commentary of the day) be our guide on the roads of life. 

There is a thread and theme that connects Psalm 13 through 16 ~ we began the week with being open to God’s spark, then asked God to deliver us from the midnight of our souls, then we prayed we would abide/rest in God, and today for God to guide our feet while we run this race of life.  This isn’t either or, rather, it is all the above!  We need that spark of God’s energy.  We need to be released from the heartbreak and soul ache defining our lives.  We feel drawn to make our home in God ~ and a home for God in us.  So that God can be our GPS in life.  If you turn to Psalm 17:6 (which is okay to look ahead!), the Psalmist sings out with gusto, “I call upon You, for You will answer me, O God” (note the change in language from Monday, note that in scripture there is space for you to pray, “Where are you God?!?” as well as to pray, “God, you are right here, thank you!”  Both are true). 

Continuing to 17:8, “Guard me as the apple of thine eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings.”  I love here the metaphor of flying, soaring, kissing the sky, and feeling the wind in our hair with God!  Reminds me of that great spiritual, Some Glad Morning, “Some glad morning, when this life is o’er— I’ll fly away.  To a Home of God’s celestial shore. I’ll fly away. I’ll fly away, O Glory, I’ll fly away— When I die, Hallelujah, by-and-by, I’ll fly away.”  And the promise of God is that we fly away, not only when we breathe our last, but when we set aside the ego or needing to prove we are the smartest person in the room or the desire to earn/deserve approval ~ when we die to the false self ~ we are reborn with God in a new way.  For me, this happens slowly, day-by-day.  It is my prayer that you will soar with the sacred this day in ways that you feel the cool rush of angel’s wings on your face.  Amen.

Abide

 

One of my favorite words in scripture is, “Abide” ~ I also like its linguistic cousin, “Abode” meaning “home”.  Where do you abide, where is your home?  Psalm 15 talks about residing in God’s tent or presence or dwelling.  Our Jewish siblings talk about four levels of interpretation.  

The first level is the literal.  In Psalm 15, that would mean your home.  The roof over your head, the carpet under your feet, the walls that keep the rain outside and shade from the sun.  Your home is where God dwells ~ hold this interpretation ~ where do you encounter God in your home?

The second level is the hint or suggestion, go a bit deeper than the initial surface interpretation.  The word “Abide” or “Dwelling” here might mean wherever I go, God is there.  When I go to the store, God dwells there, probably in the ice cream aisle.  When I go to a friend’s house, that too is God’s house.  When I step in the doctor’s office God is there too. 

The third level is that of insight and the fourth level is that of mystery.  In the case of Psalm 15, to dwell with God can also mean to dwell in God and God to dwell in me.  There is a wonderful dance that I feel sometimes with the Divine where I am not sure where I end, and God begins.  We are intimately interwoven and interconnected.  Dwelling is a dance between you and God, God and others; others and you ~ which is the mystery of the Trinity. 

May you experience and encounter God’s abiding dance that puts a spark of life in your eyes and gives you deliverance/strength for today, bright hope for tomorrow.  Amen. 

A New Day

 

This week we are playing whilst praying the Psalms.  I am inviting you to find places in each Psalm where there is a light and life, and your soul feels a spark of light.  Yesterday, I said, this may not always be easy.  And if you read Psalm 14, you might think, “Good Lord, who wrote this Psalm?  Grumpy Dwarf from Snow White?  This is about has happy as a Steven King novel.”  This is a psalm of lament and a prayer full of raw emotions.  These are the words of a person who is looking at the scoreboard of life and it reads, “Enemies ~ 110 points…Home Team negative 10 points.”  Not sure how you scored negative 10 points, but the point is that things have gone from bad to worse to oh my word, make it stop dear Lord!  I do find it fascinating that apparently humans in all times and places have sometimes concluded that they are living in the worst time ever.  That something in our brain wiring causes synapses to fire and I sound like my parents, “You think you had it bad!  Let me tell you about pain and struggle.”  Perhaps part of this is the human condition to compare and compete?  Part of this is that life has moments of hurt and there is no cure for being human (thanks to Kate Bowler for that phrase). 

Yesterday I said that sometimes we need to process the pain, release it, to make space for God to enter in and redeem the ache with a spark of light.  To be sure, this doesn’t happen instantaneously or automatically.  Like fruit slowly ripening on the vine, the Spirit moves at a different pace.  Perhaps you need to pray the first 6 verses of Psalm 14 several days in a row. 

And then you arrive at verse 7, “May a new day, a day of deliverance, come”.  Sometimes it is when we are at the end of our rope and we can no longer rely on our own salvation plans, that we must let go and let God’s embrace be our strength.  We need help, not in the form of another vacation or swipe of the credit card or fancy meal or new shirt or bottle of wine, we need deliverance from ourselves and the brokenness of this world.  This is a new day.  You have never experienced this day before.  What do you need deliverance from?  Who do you need deliverance from?  What would that look like?  How might you collaborate with God today in moving toward God’s name for you, which is always, “Beloved”?  May these questions provoke, evoke, and provide you with a sense of grace and love this day and this week. Amen.

Spark to rekindle your heart

 

Last week, we let the psalms inspire and infuse our imaginations in ways that (hopefully) helped you find your voice as you translated what you read into your own words.  The Psalms lend us a religious language, we can borrow the imagery from the words ~ adopting and adapting the words to what is in our hearts/souls/minds in the moment.  The Psalms warm up our souls, give us permission to be honest ~ raw and real with God about our thoughts and emotions.  Our prayers don’t have to be polished perfectly.  In fact, God isn’t sitting around waiting for you to make sure your verb tenses agree.  God isn’t watching to make sure you don’t end your prayer with a preposition ~ I can feel my 3^rd grade teacher shutter from such a thought!  This week, as you read Psalms 13-20, I invite you to find words that are playful.  To be clear, this will be challenging in some of the psalms you will be reading.  You might even hear the Mission Impossible music playing in the background.  For example, Psalm 13 starts out, “How long, O Eternal One?  How long will you forget me?  Forever?” (The Voice translation).

I can hear you thinking, “Welp, thanks for that uplifting verse of scripture, Pastor Eeyore!”  How can we be playful when God feels distant, or our energy is drained, or we just want God to swoop in like Wonder Woman to save the day?  I am glad you asked!  Not every verse of Scripture will warm your heart this week.  What I am asking and inviting is for you to search for playful verbs in each Psalm.  Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and search for the wildness of the sacredness right there in each psalm. 

For me, in Psalm 13 verse 3, the Psalmist say, “Put a spark of life in my eyes.”  What a wonderful prayer petition to God.  Put a spark, rekindle the fire of my soul, light a match in the midnight moments of this week, O God.  Let Your light, O God, be what draws me in like a moth to a flame.  Let Your presence be bright when all else is bleak.  Let my soul be warmed and my heart ablaze because You are God.  Where is God putting a spark in your life today?  Notice and name this.  Where is the sacred stirring and swirling?  Sometimes, we need to cry out, to release the pain to open space for God to enter in and redeem the ache with a spark that rekindles your heart.  May this truth open you this day and week as we play with and pray the words of the Psalms.  Amen.

Enough

 

We close out the week with Psalm 12.  As you have all week long, read this psalm in two or three versions of the Bible.  Play with the words like you would sand in a sandbox.  Let loose Your sacred imagination in ways that are playful and prayerful and holy. 

I might summarize Psalm 12 in one word: “Enough!”

Why I love that word it might mean, “enough” as my mother used to say, “I’ve had it up to here.”  This meant I was skating on thin ice and might find myself in deep trouble if I kept on arguing or annoying my mom.  It could also mean, “enough” as in God is enough.  I don’t need to keep my eye on some imaginary scoreboard of life, I don’t need to keep pushing myself to prove myself, I don’t need to keep stuffing my life with stuff.  God is always enough.  This doesn’t mean life is fair (another mom-ism was, “The only fair I know is the Iowa State Fair and that’s only a week in August”.  Ahhh, good times).  But God’s presence fills in the gaps, covers the hurt, and keeps whispering the word, “Beloved” even when others want to call me by other names.  Enough.  You are enough, as you are at this moment.  Enough.  This moment is enough because God is with us.  Enough.  May each of us hold this word, let it sink and sing to our lives this day.  Amen.  

Here ~ Psalm 11

 

You are encouraged to read Psalm 11.  Often, we don’t need to translate every single line word-for-word.  Sometimes we can summarize in a few simple words or a single statement.  Here is my bummer sticker theological take on Psalm 11.

No matter where I run, O God, You are already there.

Now, if I will hold this truth, trust this truth, live this truth, be open to many serendipitous ways God shows up disguised as my ordinary life this day, there is quite enough love and grace.  If I trust and stay open to God who can work through people I love to people as well as those whose voice is like nails on the chalk board, then the above eleven words are a prayer for every minute this day.  Amen. 

Help

 

You are invited to read Psalm 10, then try to see what pours forth from your heart, what is stirred up in prayer to God from this hymn to the Holy?  Here are my thoughts:

Help, God!!  I need to know that You are here because the world is in all kinds of trouble.  Help God!!  

Why can’t we have a bat signal like Gotham to call on You to swoop in and save the day when people’s words hurt and harm, when discrimination is written into legislation, when what unites us is hatred and love seems too wishy-washy or idealistic or simplistic or scoffed at as un-enlightened.  

I long to let the words of Micah, to do justice, show loving-kindness, and walk humbly with You be my mission, vision, core values statement.  But most days, the words and actions of others make me wonder if I have the energy or if love/justice/human-size-ness can really make a difference?  

God, I long for a world where those who are hurting find healing; where those who have no home find shelter; where hungry bellies are filled; where those with wealth are the first to show up with gifts and the last to leave until all are cared for.  

But instead, we still cling to scarcity and see the economy as a leaky faucet where some will trickle down to the least and lonely while we jet off to another vacation.  

Help us, O God, we have so many idols that lure us astray and away from You.  Show us, Your way, smooth out the rough places of our jagged souls, and hold us with a strength to be Your people in the face of what we encounter in this day.  Amen.