This is my first message at my New Church St Andrew's Whangarei, it is a reflection on Psalm 31... it is not designed to be a great exegetical sermon on the passage... more a chance for people to reflect on the Hope that we have in God... A hope for our lives and also the Hope we have to share in Christ.. If you do want a reasonable exegetical sermon on Psalm 31 here is a link to a sermon I preached in 2012... called Psalm 31 "When Hope and History Don't Rhyme"
This is the
Drina River house near the town of Bajina Basta in Serbia. It was built in 1969
by a group of boys who regularly sunbathed on the rock and decided they wanted
a bit more comfort and luxury. So they rowed wood, and the ingredients to make
concrete across and built this wonderful summer house. In this award winning photo
it seems such an idyllic setting, a great place to spend lazy summer days, and
long summer evenings, relaxing in a refuge and retreat from the world.
Here is
another picture of the same house during a once in fifty year flood. It’s totally different right… it’s battered
and knocked about in danger of being swept away… but it survived this event
with minimal damage and it’s still standing today.
Perhaps
when you see these pictures Jesus parable of the two builders from the end of
the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel comes to mind. The wise builder
builds his house on the rock and the rains come down and the floods come up and
the house stands. The house that Jesus says represents the person that builds
their life on the solid foundation of hearing his words and obeying them.
Well Psalm
31 comes from the midst of that torrential flood. It speaks of the faith that a
person has holding onto that firm foundation, as they weather the storms
trusting God.
Psalm 31 is
one of my favorites. I love the fact
that it declares real hope; a real hope in trusting in a real God in the midst
of real life. It says ‘my Hope is in you’.
Psalm 31
may seem like a strange place to start my preaching ministry here in Whangarei.
But the very fact that it speaks of that real Hope in the midst of real life
makes it the right place to start; it proclaims real hope in the reality of God
who sees and hears and cares and acts. It proclaims that we have a real hope to
hold on to and to offer to the world, a real hope in the love and grace and
abiding presence of God. In the face of all that life has to throw at us we
have Hope because as it said in our reading in John ‘Christ has overcome the
world”.
Psalm 31 is
a lament, its the Jewish blues. When
you read it, it feels like a roller coaster doesn't it? It oscillates between the
heights of wonderful affirmations of trust in God’s goodness and sovereignty, which
in the end is the very source of our hope… and vivid expressions of the depths
of human pain, suffering and sorrow.
I feel like refuse, like
broken pottery no good for anything except to simply be thrown on the rubbish
heap and ignored. I find refuge in you O God… you are my rock… my fortress…
I ache at the very depth of my being, I’m
wasting away. But I will trust in the Lord, Into your hands do I commit my
spirit.
My neighbours treat me with
distain, they whisper terror on every side… my times are in your
hand.
In panic I cried out I am cut
off. Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.
I don’t know about you, but
that’s often how I find myself reacting when confronted with pain or sorrow and
the fact that in this life there will be trouble. That roller coaster rocking
and rolling between it hurts God, and I trust in you. We saw some of that last
week as Elaine Holwell spoke of wrestling with isolation and loneliness as she
moved from working in a refugee camp in Thailand and going to work in Vietnam.
And knowing God’s goodness and faithfulness allowed her to face the churn and
blur of change. Like the Palmist she called us to take courage and stand strong
and be prepared to change trusting and having hope in Christ.
So no one told you life was
gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke
Your love life's D.O.A
It's like you're always stuck in second gear
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month
Or even your year, but
Your job's a joke, you're broke
Your love life's D.O.A
It's like you're always stuck in second gear
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month
Or even your year, but
I'll be there for you
(When the rain starts to pour)
I'll be there for you
(When the rain starts to pour)
I'll be there for you
While the song is about the
wonderful support for one another that comes from friends and community, support
that the psalmist specifically says he does not have… it does echo the
Psalmists trust that God is there and can be trusted as a refuge and a
deliverer.
Psalm 31 is anything but
flippant. In fact it has been seen down through the ages as a model prayer for
people of faith of what it means to trust in God and to have hope. A hope that Biblical
scholar James Mays, not James May of top gear fame says “is dependent not on
the virtue of the one praying, , rather that is based on the character of the
one to whom the prayer is made…”
There are two unique
declarations of hope in God in this psalm “my times are in your hand” in verse
15, and “into your hand’s do I commit my spirit” in verse 5, they are used
nowhere else in the psalms or the Old Testament. But into your hands do I
commit my spirit sounds familiar because Luke records it as Jesus last audible
prayer on the cross. In facing immanent death Jesus uses it to declare his
trust in God’s goodness and sovereignty. In the midst of all his pain and
suffering, which this psalm along with others such as psalm 22 foretold, he can
look to God trusting, He can have hope that looks beyond the cross to the
resurrection.
In fact Jesus coming, his
life, death and resurrection are the ultimate response of God to the prayer and
the cry of the psalmist for help and deliverance and salvation and the
continued abiding presence of God with and for his people. They are the
breaking in of God’s kingdom into this world…the dawn of a new day and new
creation, the real possibility of forgiveness, healing and wholeness for this
fallen world and the subsequent troubles of life. It is in You, O Christ that
we have hope”
The psalm finishes by giving
praise to God for his faithfulness and also with the psalmist turning to his
hearers and listeners and through the written scriptures to us well over two
thousand years later, and encouraging us exhorting us to kia kaha to stand
strong and to take heart all who trust in the Lord… and I want to finish today
by reflecting on what that may mean for us. I want to do it by using two images
that I’ve taken.
The first is this one I took
last year.
On a day off I went up to
bastion point in Auckland and walked round the savage memorial. I came across
this damaged flax seed head. At some stage it had been broken, maybe in a wild
storm that came sweeping across the Waitamata harbour when it was younger, or
it was as a act of vandalism, someone had deliberately bent it. But here it was
still standing. The damage hadn’t stopped it growing or producing flowers and
seed heads. In fact to my eye there was some beauty in it…
It is a picture for me of the
hope we have in Christ. Of new life and fruitfulness even amidst life’s
troubles and storms… because Christ has overcome the world…We can trust God to
be with us and for us and to bring us through the storms and difficulties of
life. To be fruitful and stand strong trusting in Christ.
In fact, Old Testament
scholar Walter Breuggermann says he has detected a process of spiritual growth and
maturation in the psalms. He says that there are three types of psalms. Psalms
of orientation, that’s the happy clappies, that give thanks to God because
everything is going as it should be, life is blessed, and it’s the psalms of
the long idyllic summer days at the beach. The focus is on giving thanks for
what God has done and what we have. Then he sees psalms of disorientation,
where it’s like a storm has risen on that summer day and we’ve been caught out in the ocean and wave
after wave have come and spun us round and round and we are gasping for air and
can’t find the way up. Where is God in this turmoil. Then Breuggerman detects a
third type what he calls psalms of reorientation, where the psalmist has
learned to simply trust in God, the
focus changes to being aware and trusting in the abiding presence of God. My
last Sunday at St peter’s was mother’s day and we had a café service and
instead of a sermon we simply reflected on passages that contained maternal
images of God. The one we used for our call to worship was psalm 131 that like psalm
31 is psalm of reorientation and it puts
that spiritual growth like this… I have learned to be content, like a weaned
child on its mother lap… no longer demanding help and assistance and feeding,
but being aware that God is there and that is sufficient, knowing God will care
and provide and hold us.
The second image was one I
took as I was coming out of the Church on Friday. There were these black clouds
rolling in over the city. Which looked very much like snow clouds… It fact they
caused me to have a Tui billboard moment ... welcome to the winterless north
“yeah Right”… and it got cold, but not cold enough so it only started to rain.
Then at the same time the sun low over the western hills came out and I looked
up and I saw the cross on top of St Andrew’s lit up and shining like a beacon
against the black dark storm. The cross as a light of hope in the dark of the
world. I thought what a great picture of God’s call on us as a church to be
Hope, to bring the Hope of Christ to this city and beyond.
Like the psalmist as we have
experienced the hope and grace and love of God in the midst of our real lives,
with its real pains and troubles we are to turn and proclaim, in word and deed,
that people can find the same hope to kia kaha stand strong and take
heart… as they trust in the Lord.
Church stand strong and take
heart those who hope in the Lord…
In this Life you will have trouble, but do not be afraid, for Christ has overcome the world.... Amen!
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