Sermon Cloud

Its good to see everyone this morning, this is our second week in the book of Psalms which we’ll be hanging in through some of the summer this year.  If you’re not familiar with the Psalms here’s a little runown on this book

-Essentially a book of poems and songs that were written and sung by the people of Israel during the time recorded in the Hebrew Bible.

-King David, who is a pretty big deal in the scriptures, wrote a lot of the more known Psalms, though he’s not the only one that wrote them. 

-They’re often quoted throughout the rest of scripture, a lot of what Jesus had to say could be traced back to the Psalms.

-Also, it says something about God that in the book we get that tells us the story of our world and God’s making an interaction with it, we get a whole lot of poems.  This book is way way bigger than any other books in scripture.  Think about that for a while…

There’s a few Psalms that have some pretty violent language that has freaked some people out causing them to ask, or at least feel like, whether or not God condones crazy violent angry feelings.  But to be frank I can see some pretty violent feelings coming around when my 1 ½ year old daughter gets to be a teenager, my pacifistic tendencies can go little haywire thinking about that one. 

But I digress, the answer to that previous question is that God does not condone crazy angry violence, but God absolutely condones writing poetry about those feelings! 

That’s one of the reasons the Psalms are so important to our spirituality, they cover a really wide spectrum of emotions and situations.  Chances are you won’t have an enemy army led by family members following you around to try and kill you, but you’ll most certainly be able to relate to feelings of isolation/frustration/anger/betrayal etc.  There’s also psalms of joy that are pretty sappy if you’re a cynic, but if you allow your heart to be softened by some of these sentiments you’ll find that phrases like “Praise the Lord!” are extremely profound.  All right, let’s get to work

1-3

This Psalm is written by a guy name Asaph who was in the Israelite tribe of Levi, they were in charge of making sure the tabernacle, the spiritual center for the Israelites, was taken care of.  He starts things off pretty grim

 1 I cry out to God; yes, I shout.

      Oh, that God would listen to me!

 2 When I was in deep trouble,

      I searched for the Lord.

   All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven,

      but my soul was not comforted.

 3 I think of God, and I moan,

      overwhelmed with longing for his help.

Have any of you, seriously, prayed like this?  If you have then I applaud you, if you’re anything like me your tendency is to give up after a while and just take things as they are.  Move slowly, keep things manageable.  Not asaph, he’s staying up all night with his hands in the air praying and its not even ‘working.’ 

The imagery here is so heavy, “I think of God and I moan.”  There’s a few relationships in our life with family, friends, people we’ve come in contact with over the years that even thinking about them at the right (or wrong) time and bring a physical moan. 

Reading ahead gives a bit clearer picture of how/why Asaph would be up all night holding his hands out, shouting, searching, begging with the entirety of his self including his body. 

 4 You don’t let me sleep.
      I am too distressed even to pray!

It seems as though Asaph feels like God won’t even give him enough God juice to even sleep.  Its like he’s pulling the “Throw me a frickin bone!”  Just help a brother out!  I could use some sleep!  You gotta admit though, there’s something that feels really really healthy about writing a prayer/poem about how you’re so messed up you can’t even pray. 

 5 I think of the good old days,
      long since ended,
 6 when my nights were filled with joyful songs.
      I search my soul and ponder the difference now.
 7 Has the Lord rejected me forever?
      Will he never again be kind to me?
 8 Is his unfailing love gone forever?
      Have his promises permanently failed?
 9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
      Has he slammed the door on his compassion?

Now asaph goes into an even more emo moment when he remembers the good ol’ days, you know, the ones your parents told you about.  They never had to lock their doors, movies were a nickel etc.  Nostalgia like this never gets you anywhere, it doesn’t really get Asaph anywhere.  It always ignores the sadness or injustice of the times, chances are if you remember the fifties fondly then you got to sit at the front of the bus and use the nice water fountain.  See what I mean?  They may have been good in part to you, but we’ll often forget the whole story making our current circumstance look really bleak in comparison.  I’m probably way closer to this than I want to admit, being pretty convinced that no video game system will ever top the Super Nintendo.

 10 And I said, “This is my fate;
      the Most High has turned his hand against me.”

Why do you think Asaph goes here? 

-discussion

Now asaph works his way into fear that God may have actually rejected him.   Is that what’s wrong?  I guess that makes sense, considering I did so and so so and so or with so and so and now x has happened.  Yep, that makes sense.  Crap. 

God, are you as passive aggressive as me? J 

We often mistakenly thing that God has the same flaws as us.

Are you seeing how much we can learn from these Psalms?!  They’re deep, they’re theological in the best, most robust sense of the term.  Its like we get to read the accounts of a romance, its up and downs, its joys, its anger, and we get to learn from it.  We see our own story in the stories that we read here.

So its important that we pray these, we study them, we spend time in them so that when they  tell our story we can see ourselves and move away from the whirlpool of our self deprication and depression an towards the airy environment, worldview/state of mind that is grounded in the grace of God. 

If we never name where we’re at, we probably won’t get much out of anything we experience.  That goes for the times of total happiness where all the puzzle seems to make a great fragile picture, and all the times where it just doesn’t look good at all. 

Having actual joy or peace is really good, realizing that right now, this moment, is peaceful, is really really good. 

As Asaph did, as this Psalm does (notice that its in the past tense) we’re going to sing a bit about sentiments similar to these.  You may not feel all down and groggy and overwhelmed, but enter into that space if you can.  You have felt that way, an chances are that you’re closer to feeling it again than you realize.  You may be surprised at what you find if you enter that space.  Let’s sing.

The second half of this psalm takes quite a different turn

He had been moaning about how in the good old days he never had to lock his door and neighbors knew each other and kids played outside.

These are the sob stories we tell ourselves, we remember them because we miss them and have a feeling we won’t ever feel that way again. 

But now look what Asaph does, let’s read verse 11

 11 But then I recall all you have done, O Lord;
      I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.
 12 They are constantly in my thoughts.
      I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.

Interesting, he replaces nostalgia with memories of God’s work from ‘long ago.’  You may or may not remember a few times ago when I taught I referred to what a great old Christian dude named A.W. Tozer called ‘the gaze of the soul.’  It was basically the idea that our soul is always looking, fixing itself on something.  When we fix our gaze on God, it simply works on us.  Let’s read on

 13 O God, your ways are holy.
      Is there any god as mighty as you?
 14 You are the God of great wonders!
      You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.
 15 By your strong arm, you redeemed your people,
      the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
                         Interlude

 16 When the Red Sea[a] saw you, O God,
      its waters looked and trembled!
      The sea quaked to its very depths.
 17 The clouds poured down rain;
      the thunder rumbled in the sky.
      Your arrows of lightning flashed.
 18 Your thunder roared from the whirlwind;
      the lightning lit up the world!
      The earth trembled and shook.
 19 Your road led through the sea,
      your pathway through the mighty waters—
      a pathway no one knew was there!
 20 You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep,
      with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.

he remembers the story of the exodus.  God moving his people from slavery to freedom.  The story of the exodus is beautiful, a band of crazy warriors following this oppressed people and God saves them.  God uses a guy with underdeveloped self esteem and a speech impediment, and his cousin.  He actually does something impossible and make a sea break up and lets this people walk through it so that they can be free.  God does what no one had ever done before, for a group of people that had been hopelessly oppressed for 400 years (America is half that old, mind you), and as Asaph says

‘by your strong arm you redeemed your people’

Let’s read that story real quick

 5 When word reached the king of Egypt that the Israelites had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds. “What have we done, letting all those Israelite slaves get away?” they asked. 6 So Pharaoh harnessed his chariot and called up his troops. 7 He took with him 600 of Egypt’s best chariots, along with the rest of the chariots of Egypt, each with its commander. 8 The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, so he chased after the people of Israel, who had left with fists raised in defiance. 9 The Egyptians chased after them with all the forces in Pharaoh’s army—all his horses and chariots, his charioteers, and his troops. The Egyptians caught up with the people of Israel as they were camped beside the shore near Pi-hahiroth, across from Baal-zephon.

 10 As Pharaoh approached, the people of Israel looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them. They cried out to the Lord, 11 and they said to Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren’t there enough graves for us in Egypt? What have you done to us? Why did you make us leave Egypt? 12 Didn’t we tell you this would happen while we were still in Egypt? We said, ‘Leave us alone! Let us be slaves to the Egyptians. It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!’”

-note:  real quick does that tone sound familiar? J

 13 But Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. 14 The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.”

Anyone have a different translation for that last verse?  “Be Still.”  Great language there. 

“You only need to be still.”  Why would he go there?  What’s with that?

People are bonded, slaves, and Moses tells them that God will intervene miraculously on their behalf. 

Let’s read the next piece of the Exodus story

 21 Then Moses raised his hand over the sea, and the Lord opened up a path through the water with a strong east wind. The wind blew all that night, turning the seabed into dry land. 22 So the people of Israel walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground, with walls of water on each side!

There are a few other stories in the Bible where God does something we feel is impossible, there’s also a few in this community.  Its possible that what has happened in some lives of our friends is quite a bit more difficult to imagine that water splitting up and leaving walkable dry ground.  Science could probably do something like that sooner or later, but ask around and I think you’ll hear some impossible stories. 

When we do this, these stories of how God worked in history past, it works on us.  It changes us. 

Once you start thinking about this it just keeps going, these stories touch the core of what we see that is right in the world.  Slaves are free, what’s broken in the world gets mended, justice is seen and felt.  Individuals are freed from the whirlpool of their own broken-ness. 

It feels.  So.  Good. 

This story, of slavery to freedom is ultimately pointing to the story of Jesus.  Jesus does in his life, his death, and his resurrection (notice that pattern in most stories all throughout scripture?  Actually, in most good stories?) we could never picture being possible.  Not only did a man who couldn’t walk stand up an go away, but everything that stained him, everything that hurt him and those he loved, was forgiven, erased.  His identity lied in what Jesus thought of him, not what he or anyone else thought of him. 

Its truly A PATHWAY NO ONE KNEW WAS THERE

You see how this idea of redemption shows up so loudly here!?  Not long ago we had a service that mourned the death of Jesus on what we now call Good Friday.  We sat in the place the disciples presumably felt when they didn’t know what was going to happen next.  You and I can see Jesus all throughout the Hebrew Testament but at the time those that followed him hadn’t really had that moment where it all fits together.  Like the moment they realize who Kaizer Soze is in The Usual Suspects.  We know what happened. 

God takes a pathway to redeeming this world from the brokenness that keeps it going at the rate its going.  Who knows what God will do next? 

We don’t, but we do know what He’s done.  Let’s sing