How Deserted lies the cIty, A Hope of REturn... A Little Look At Lamentations.

I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew this week. I hope not, but I fear I may have. I want to look at the whole of the book of lamentations. Not necessarily in details so don’t worry we’re not going to be here all day. But rather because I think the way this book is woven together helps us as we wrestle with the question of evil and suffering, it helps us deal with the question “where is God when it hurts?”  Lamentations is helpful because it does not try and tie it all together and give us a solution, beautifully packaged with all the “I” dotted and the “T” crossed.  It does not provide a definitive answer. It actually honours the fact that like Philip Yancy says this is the question that will not go away.  It honours the fact that just maybe our well thought out theological arguments defending God’s Goodness and sovereignty shake and quake and fall short, and can even seem obscene, when we are confronted with the ongoing reality of suffering.

Lamentations is a series of five acrostic poems; that’s poems based on the Jewish alphabet, gathered together into one. It’s as if this very structure is an expression of the limits of our language, of the struggle language has to express and make sense of tragedy and suffering.   These poems are laments and funeral dirges expressing the sorrow and pain at the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. Old Testament scholar Miriam Bier and I remember Miriam as a teenager who attended St John’s in Rotorua, calls the book Polyphonic. That it hold together different voices, some offering a defence for what has happened and ultimately of God’s actions and others that because of their suffering see no justification for the tragedy that has befallen them, and can see no defence for both God’s sovereignty and goodness. These voices are involved in a dialogue and you can see as you read through the book how they modify as they listen to each other. It’s not often that the voice of those that suffer is given that power.  But ultimately we are left without one position holding sway. It’s left open. That’s really summed up in the last two verses which was part of our reading this morning: A plea for God to restore Jerusalem, tempered by the possibility that God just may have abandoned his people all together, full stop.

Such a dialogue is helpful for us.

It’s helpful that it gives voice to how we deal with sorrow and tragedy and faith.

One of the ways that Lamentations has been seen is that it is very much written to express the grief process.  A process where we can swing from despair to hope, anger to resignation, denial to acceptance,  darkness to the dawn of new possibilities, swing from wanting answers to the big questions and knowing that none of the answers are that satisfying. Feeling God’s presence and feeling abandoned. I had another visit from my Pilipino friend this week that perhaps summed this up well. She is an amazing woman who cares deeply for others and has a vibrant faith.  She was telling me of the good things that God had done, and at the same time would stop and remember what had transpired this week in her home country with the super typhoon. The hands that had been praising God would move heavenward in supplication, why God did you let this happen? Why are my people suffering?  It’s helpful and healthy to have this process we work through in scripture. Not with any ‘there, there’ everything’s going to be alright, but left simply as a seemingly unanswered cry to God.  It gives it voice, validity, and value. Lamentations was believed to be read out to mark the anniversary of the fall of Jerusalem, and we know today that it is read out and prayed weekly at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, what remains of the temple, giving voice to the grief at the loss of the temple and hope that God may someday restore his people.

Another way that Lamentations has been described is as a storm. These different voices wrestling with suffering, struggling to make some sense of it, despair and hope swirling round and round, and in the middle of it is a calm point the eye of the storm, the passage we read out from lamentations 3 where a person who is talking of their experience of suffering and also of God, comes to a point of stillness, this I remember and hope, that the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases his mercy never comes to an end. This quite trust and waiting founded on what we know of God’s character revealed to us, is where many laments finish. Remember from the other week it’s what Brueggemann calls a position of reorientation, it what gives people hope.  But here and in real life it is the eye of the storm and it does not stop lamentations or us from having to wrestles with and experience   the questions the consequences, emotions and anguish. It is a refuge where we can find strength to continue in the face of the storm. One of the things that sometimes happens when I pray for people is that we experience this amazing sense of God’s presence and peace. Boom, it’s like God actually turns up in a palpable, no doubting who’s here kind of way.  It may not stop the problem, or provide the instant answer that we just hope for, it’s not the cure all, it doesn’t even let God off the hook, but it lets us know that God is there with us, and that allows hope to seep into the situation. Maybe beyond the storm there is order and sunshine and calm.

Lamentations also helps us in that it opens up dialogue between our theology and suffering. Some of the voices that have been identified in this book are the lamenter, who speaks in the third person and who voices some of the prevailing wisdom of their day. The other voice that is heard is Zion, herself, who protests that there is no justification for the suffering that she is enduring.  One of the big questions for God’s people in light of the exile, is why did God allow it? One of the threads that people have identified in the Old Testament is what is called the Deuteronomic history. That is that Israel’s history is presented in terms of her keeping and not keeping her covenant relationship with God. In the book of Kings, for example, there is the epitaph of each king that they did wrong in the sight of the LORD, even with those who were seem to be reformers and call Israel back to fidelity with God there is usually an epitaph that they did not totally do away with idolatry. God had warned Israel again and again, God had been patient, and that God was right to punish first the northern kingdom and the Judah, for breaking their covenant relationship. This is some of the background to Lamentations; the lamenter hints that this is why Jerusalem has fallen. Its part of the answer to the question of evil that we live in a broken and fallen world. We even see this with the typhoon Haiyan  as being seen as a result of the effect of humans on the planets climate.  But this does not stand up when confronted with the voice of Zion herself. The one who is suffering.

Can I say before I go on that this is rather hard stuff to talk about, because Lamentations deals with imagery of rape. That is how Zion is represented a women who has been abused and raped and thrown out for all to see. The argument that the lamenter seems to point to, is that ’The bitch had it coming’. Jerusalem had been promiscuous; flirting with other God’s, now had reaped what had been sown. Zion’s response is well yes they had done wrong but she didn’t deserve what happened to her. No women deserves that… it adds to her victimization to even say it. To the lamenters credit he agrees with her and his theology no longer fits. In fact she looks beyond her own suffering and says that even worse… it is the children that suffer, the lamenter has to agree with her that this is indefendable. Later, She points to the fact that she has been let down by her leaders and prophets who did not warn her enough, or who falsely said everything was alright. The question why have the Babylonians not been brought to justice for what they did is raised as an accusations and hope. It is what makes evil so…evil… and unjust… that the innocent and weak suffer the most for what others have done.

In New Zealand over the last few weeks we’ve had to confront many of the same questions  with the vile ‘roast busters’ episode. A group of sexual predators who gang raped drunk under-aged girls, and then boasted about it on social media.  Yes what were these children doing out drinking, but, they are the victims. They did nothing to deserve this. What we are wrestling with now is that they have been let down by society, that should be there to protect them. There is a cry that in speaking up the rape victim is victimized again.  There is a cry for justice, can I say as a man my gut reaction is its nothing that two bricks wouldn’t fix. But I know that’s not the case there is also the cry that goes beyond that to ask how our society could see boys grow up to think such behaviour was alright.

Lamentations also helps us grapple with holding our faith and our protest together. The problem of evil, suffering can turn people against God; it can be a stumbling block to faith. In the Ancient Near East, if me and my army come and destroy your city then it is a sign that my god is greater. But the writers of lamentations cannot do that, it just maybe the ultimate despair, what makes their suffering and struggle harder is that maintain the sovereignty of God, you reign forever, they hope in a just God, remember us Lord restore us to yourself. To wrestle with this question of evil, to doubt and to even shout at heaven, or even in the face of suffering to wonder if it is empty is not wrong, we stand with God’s people who have wrestled with that. But also to still trust and hope in God means we also stand with people of faith down through the years.  There is an amazing play called ‘God on Trial’ made into a TV movie by the BBC, set in Auschwitz, where Jews awaiting death in the gas chamber put God on trial for breaking his covenant with them. I wonder if there isn’t this kind of thing happening in lamentations. I don’t want to spoil it for you, if you haven’t seen the play, it’s on YouTube, but it ends in the gas chamber, where after having found God guilty of breaking his covenant, the men die praying. It finishes in the gas chamber, as group of Jews had come to Auschwitz, to remember and as they leave, one of them asks if God answered the prayers of the dying men, to which an older man, the narrator, says ‘We are still here’. The story does not finish at the end of lamentations. In the fire and stench of death in Jerusalem, the history of God’s people goes on; the remnant comes back to Jerusalem.

Finally in lamentations there is one voice that is missing. It’s God’s voice. The voice we long to hear. Yes our theology tries to make sense of this and we can see God’s answer in this case in the fact that he did not abandon his people. But it’s the question that will not go away, that gets asked again and again, where is God when it hurts? Being a minister of the gospel I want to say that God’s answer is found in Jesus Christ. In Jesus who entered into our world our darkness our suffering, whose birth is accompanied by the echoes of women crying for their dead children. That it is answered in the cross. AS we are going to look at next week in Jesus identifying with us in our pain and suffering, taking it and our sin upon himself, quoting psalm 22 “my God, my God why have you forsaken me’. That it is answered in Paul’s affirmation in Romans 8 that amidst a list of brutality and suffering that nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. That new creation has broken into a fallen world that the Kingdom of God has dawned for those who live in darkness. Having said all that I find myself having to sit with these poets of long ago and people of faith down through the ages and put my trust in what I know of God, and lament ‘How Long!’  ‘How Long!’ Maybe part of the gift of lamentations is that it gives permission for that polyphonic voice we find ourselves with in the face of suffering and evil. 

A prayer based on Psalm 5 1-3 (As a call to worship), the hymn 'Holy Holy Holy' and Walter Brueggermann's understanding or Psalms of orientation, disorientation and reorientation

This prayer is has come out of several things...
...looking at laments in the Hebrew Scriptures
... Walter Brueggemann's wonderful categorizing of the psalms as Psalms of orientation (when it feels the way its supposed to be) Disorientation (To use Bono's words 'when hope and history don't rhyme) and re-orientation (when we find a deeper understanding of  and trust in God), which has been of great help to me.
... choosing Psalm 5:1-3 as a call to worship (if its helpful here  are the slides I used for it

...followed by that wonderful hymn and treasure of our tradition 'Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God almighty'.

I've tried to capture all this by saying in all circumstances we say Holy, Holy, Holy LORD God almighty. We acknowledge your sovereignty and your goodness.

Hopefully I've also picked up something of the fact that people coming to worship find them selves in many different places and give voice to those places. feel free to use any of this that you feel would e helpful.

 

 

Lord God to you this morning we lift our prayers and give thanks.

In all circumstances we say Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty

 

We thank you when life feels right and proper

When dawn has come and the sun shines

We thank you for the beauty of your creation,

For your provision for all our needs

We thank you for your grace and love in Jesus Christ

For sins forgiven

For the wholeness you are weaving into our lives

For leading and guiding us by your spirit and your word

For holding our times in your hands

For working your purposes for good

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty.

 

We thank you when it feels all chaotic and churned up

When it’s as if night has won

We thank you for your reality,

Even when we cannot see you

We thank you for your constant presence,

Even when it feels beyond our grasp

We thank you that our prayers reach your ear

Even when it feels as if they simply echo off the ceiling

We thank you for your goodness even in the face of suffering

Our hallelujah’s  will still ring in this night

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty

 

We thank you as we find a new sense of trust and hope

We thank you that you are here with us

We thank you that you are sovereign

That you hold sway over all our turmoil

We thank you for stepping into our world

In Christ you shared all our suffering and pain

We thank you in Christ there is the hope of a new day

New creation, restoration, abundant life

We thank you for storms calmed, prayers answered

We say ‘your grace is sufficient for us’

Holy, Holy Holy, Lord God almighty

 

We come today and confess our sin

We have done wrong

We have left the good you call us to do, undone,

Forgive us Lord

We give you thanks for fresh starts and clean slates

We ask that you might renew us by your Spirit

Fill us afresh to praise your name

Enable us to live for you

Empower us to witness to the hope we have in Christ

That you may be glorified, Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Holy, Holy Holy, Lord God almighty

 

Lord God to you this morning we lift our prayers and give thanks.

In all circumstances we say Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God almighty

 

 

Feeling Like Refuse And Finding Refuge: Psalm 31 and Trusting in God in the Face of Suffering...

  
“Where is God when it hurts?” is what Philip Yancy calls the question that will not go away.  It’s a theological question… In the face of evil, how can God be both all-powerful and good? It’s a justice question, ’Why do bad things happen to good people?’, it’s a faith question and it’s a life question, as we confront suffering and sorrow, tragedy and trauma. AS I said last week we could address it at an intellectual level, maybe reduce it to a series of bullet points on a PowerPoint slide, but It does not honour how all of who we are can get caught up with this question, and neither does it do justice to how Scripture deals with it. Scripture handles it in poem and prayer, in lament, in crying out to God. Over this month of November we are going to look at some of these laments and hopefully as we explore these treasures that have given voice to both suffering and hope, we will know more fully “where is God when it hurts?”

Today we are going to look at Psalm 31. And I love this psalm because it expresses the reality of the human condition and the life of people of faith; It captures both the Psalmists emotional reaction to suffering, and his assertion of trust in God. When you read it, it feels like a roller coaster. It oscillates between acknowledging God’s goodness and sovereignty, which speaks to that Theological Question we have, but also vividly expresses the depths of human suffering and sorrow. I feel like refuse, like broken pottery no good for anything simply thrown on the rubbish heap, and I find refuge in you O God… But I will trust in the Lord, In to your hands do I commit my spirit, my times are in your hand.  I don’t know about you, but that’s often how I find myself reacting when confronted with pain or sorrow.

The Psalm’s heading says it’s a psalm of David, we don’t know when it relates to in his life.. The suffering that the psalmist is going through seems to be physical, and emotional and in regards to his relationship with the people round him.  In verse 9-13 he pours out his suffering to God. It has the feeling of physical illness, or even the aging process, eyes weakening, joint pain, failing strength. It is exacerbated by the way people react. His enemies have seen this as a sign of God disfavour, and so he is gossiped about and shunned.  In the Ancient Near East, the prevailing wisdom was that if you did something wrong or sinned against God that God would punish you.  That’s what people are saying about the psalmist. The whole book of Job, is a polemic against that way of thinking. It is actually one of those questions we ask ourselves isn’t it that like with the psalmist saps our strength… “What did I do to deserve this?’”  For David it also has political ramifications, just like today, when someone in power, has done something wrong the knives come out, in David’s case they were often real knives, that is part of the psalmist’s distress.

It is easy for us to get caught up in some of the same thinking of the people in David’s day.  Our western society is built round the pursuit of Wealth, Health and Happiness. We are often influenced to think that this is the norm. This is what we should expect all the time, that we have missed the fall  and gone hang gliding instead. There is also a popular stream of theology that backs this up, what’s called prosperity Gospel.  That God wants to give us those things, and if we don’t have them well maybe our faith isn’t strong enough, maybe we are not doing what God wants… Like giving enough.. Strangely that one comes up all the time.  It easy for us to forget that just like we had read from John’s gospel today, that Jesus said  in life there will be trouble … but find peace in the fact that I have overcome the world’. In fact in the world today the majority of Christians live in poverty and the majority are in danger of persecution. It is so I found out on Friday, an international day of prayer today for Christians being persecuted for their faith. We live in what some Jewish scholars are calling the worst genocide since the holocaust, Christians dying in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere because of their faith. 

I

n his book about wrestling with unanswered prayer and serious illness, ‘God on Mute” Pete Grieg includes an appendix called “heroes of the faith and unanswered prayer” which lists quotes from biblical and historical heroes of the faith as they have wrestled with suffering and the seeming silence of heaven. Missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, on hearing about the massacre of 58 of his missionaries and 21 children… ‘I cannot read; I cannot think; I cannot even pray; but I can trust”  St john of the Cross “the Dark Night of the Soul… in this time of dryness, spiritual people undergo great trials… they believe that spiritual blessings are a thing of the past and that God has abandoned them”. Mother Theresa “ I feel that God does not want me, that God is not God, and that God does not exist.” CS Lewis reflecting on when his wife had died… “what chokes every prayer and every hope is the memory of all the prayers Joy and I offered and all the false hopes we had…  step by step we were led up the garden path.’ Time after time, when he seemed most gracious he was really preparing the next torture.”  Despite this they are still people of faith and trust in God.

What suffering and sorrow and pain and loss can do is that they can consume our lives. I wonder if the Psalmists description of his suffering isn’t also a record of what it is doing to his Spiritual life as well. It can weaken out eye sight, it can become the focus of our lives, it can mean that we cannot see beyond it. It can sap our strength. The psalmist uses the metaphor of running from a hunter, avoiding this trap and that trap and longing for a place just to rest and catch his breath. We can be on the move all the time and not be able to find the source of life giving water we need that we looked at last week.  I read a couple of books recently about the SAS during the Second World War, they talked of being chased while operating behind enemy lines and how it drove these most resilient and tough men to the point of exhaustion and beyond. That’s what sorrow and suffering can do.   In the end we are creatures of time, we find it hard to look beyond what is happening in the here and now. That’s what suffering and pain can do. It can capture us in a dark place a dark time under siege and feeling abandoned by God.

What makes this psalm hope filled is that the psalmist brackets his pouring out of woe by extending his vision, from the here and now, from the dark valley of his suffering, and that is what gives him hope. He looks back, he remembers how God had answered prayer and been a refuge in the past:  His own past and in the past of his people. David’s trust in God when facing Goliath was based on God helping him face the wolf and lion, not from the absence of Trouble, but God’s help in trouble.

In verse 6-8 he says that unlike the worthless idols that people worship round him, he is aware that God sees, that God hears, that God cares and that God can act. One commentator said that for Israel to remember was to have faith and believe. It’s why the psalms are full of poems and prayers remembering what God has done for Israel in the past. God bringing them out of Egypt, God’s doing that as a result of God’s promise to their ancestors, Gods leading through the wilderness, God remembering them while they were in exile and bringing them home (psalm 107). In fact I couldn’t read these verses  without thinking of the burning bush.’ I have heard the cries of my people, I have seen their affliction… I will deliver them… by the way I’m sending you Moses.”

It provides hope and trust in God because we start to see the longer picture.  Right in the middle of his list of woes and worries, there is a change. The psalmist joins his story his times and suffering with what has gone before with what he knows of God and says  “BUT I” two small words  but a big change. But I will trust in the Lord I say “you are in My God” My time is in your hand.” There is an acknowledgment of that just like in the past God had answered prayer and bought the psalmist and his people through, that God can be trusted to do it again.

One of the answers that people give to the question of evil, is time, it’s there again and again in the scriptures, that the eternal God will make all things right, will bring justice in his time. It does not always help us because we are temporal beings, creatures of time. But the psalmist finds  his refuge in God’s sovereignty, that yes despite the fact that things are not good now and may not be in the long term that God is in control of eternity and because of what they have experienced of God in the past that God is Good, so can be trusted with the future as well.  We don’t know whether everything came up roses for the psalmist. But we do know that they found a hope and the truth about God that was able to give them the refuge they needed even when they felt like refuse.  We can just want the rubbish to go away, but this lament perhaps gives us something better, something of more value that God can be trusted in the long haul.

One of the things that make this psalm so memorable is that Jesus quotes it on the cross. In fact in Luke’s gospel it’s his last audible words… ‘into you hands do I commend my spirit”… Jesus displays the kind of trust that the Psalmist is talking about. A faith and a trust in God that despite the fact the it seems like death has won, that he will trust in the sovereignty of God and he will trust in the goodness of God.  Ultimately that is where we look to give us the hope we need to persevere as well. We look back to the cross of Christ and we see that in that most horrific of situations, that miscarriage of justice, that seeming ignominious defeat, that God can be trusted to work out his purposes for his people.  That death bought us life that death made it possible for us to have our sins forgiven. That death and resurrection was a sign of God seeing, God knowing and God acting. That death and resurrection is the hint of dawn, the promise of a new world coming that puts our suffering into that eternal perspective. That even raises the possibility of healing and wholeness. In a couple of weeks we are going to look at Psalm 22 and the fact that ultimate answer of the question of where is God when it hurts? Is that God is with us, God went before us, and will come and get us, the answer is that God’s son  went to the cross.

I want to finish by quoting Gerald Wilson… “like Jesus , we cannot assume that committing our spirit into the hand of the God of truth will result in deliverance from suffering and death indeed, to commit ones spirit in this way is to give up control or expectation over the outcome of our life and to trust in the redemptive love of God, come what may. It is this giving up that makes in possible in the final analysis to enter the refuge of God. “

Be strong and take hart all you who hope in the Lord

Why Are You So Downcast O My Soul (psalm 42 & 43)... How Deserted Lies The City :Lament and Where is God When It Hurts?(Part 1)

Philip Yancy calls it the question that will not go away: ‘Where Is God When It Hurts?’, or to give it its theological name ‘the problem of evil’:  if evil exists, in the face of suffering, can God be both all-powerful and all loving. When I sat down to plan out the year I had originally thought I’d handle that topic as one of several burning questions in a series on apologetics for November. Apologetics is providing a reasoned argument for our faith in God, and there is polemic (logical argument) and propositional truth about God, which offers solutions to this issue…on one level. But one of the reasons it is the question that will not go away is that it’s not just an intellectual conundrum, it’s not all up here. It is a question that confronts us again and again in different forms, in the ebb and flow of life, and it reaches down to the very depth of our being. 

For example…After many trials and tribulations in his life, and  few years before his death reformer and theologian Martin Luther’s thirteen year old daughter died and he said “how sick at heart it has left me, so much do I grieve for her… even the death of Christ is unable to take all this away as it should.”

When you look at how it is handled in scripture, you see that it is not wrestled with through polemic and proposition but in poem and prayer, though lament or Jewish blues as bono calls them. I want, through some of these laments, to look at the question ‘Where is God when it hurts?’, and hopefully be able to address that question that will not go away theologically and pastorally and today also in terms of spiritual formation.  

 The Bible reading we had this morning was Psalm 42 & 43. In our bibles it is two psalms but there is much evidence for it being considered one Psalm… There is no heading for Psalm 43, similar to Psalm 10, which is seen as the second half of Psalm 9.   The language and theme is constant and of course there is that haunting refrain running through both… “Why are you so downcast O my soul”.

The setting for this Psalm seems to be the exile from Jerusalem. A worship leader a musician or singer is dragged off across the Golan Heights into exile by the Babylonians. The city that was the centre of his faith is desolate and destroyed. He looks back and its only memories of what was, that he can see, at first he is unable to look forwards. This is a good place for us to start looking at the question of where is God when it hurts because that is a focus of the Psalmist lament.  In the midst of this tragedy the things that seems to hurt the most is the taunt “where is Your God?”  It’s in the first stanza, and it finishes off the second one. On a personal level he calls out “why have you forgotten me God? Even in the midst of the more hope filled psalm 43 is the phrase, “How long will you reject me?”  Times of trouble suffering tragedy can make us feel cut off from God. John Perowne summed it up like this “there are hours when physical suffering darkens the windows of the Soul; days in which shattered nerves make life simply endurance; months and years in which intellectual difficulties, pressing for solution, shut out God.” This can turn us away from God, but like with the psalm he does not stop there Perowne goes on “then faith must be replaced by hope.” The question, suffering invites us to seek deeper and to know more fully Where God is, that is the journey of the Psalm.

The Psalm follows a process, a journey that Walter Brueggemann sees running through all the psalms. In stanza one there is a sense of the psalmist looking back to the way things were. In what Brueggemann calls a psalm of orientation, the psalmist remembers when it all made sense. When things were the way they were supposed to be. God was blessing his people, there was a vibrant and joy filled worship life at the Temple in Jerusalem. The writer of this Psalm is identified as the Sons of Korah, who are probably Levite musicians. For this person the way he felt the presence of God was in the midst of music and worship.  There was meaning and purpose and order to his life. It revolved round a place, Jerusalem, ritual, festivals the Jewish calendar, activity, worship and music and singing.  There is the truth of the fact that God inhabits the praise of his people. We looked at Psalm 104 last week which epitomises a psalm of orientation because it was an enthronement Psalm; remember the whole of creation was in place and in order because YHWH, Israel’s God was on the throne.

Now, suffering tragedy trauma have taken that away from him. He expresses that reality in that wonderful metaphor at the beginning of the Psalm. “as the deer pants for water so my soul longs after you”. Maybe we look at that from a European or even Kiwi understanding of deer as forest dwellers beside a calm lake or tentatively coming out of lush vegetation to a babbling brook. But the image is a desert one. The image is a deer in a time of drought, desperately searching for water to save its life. Water that may have been there yesterday is not there anymore.  It’s just sand and dust.  For the psalmist the things that had connected him with God have been taken away and he goes looking for a new and reliable water source. Greif, loss, suffering tragedy can dry up those water sources that keep us in times of orientation. The idea of living water, the metaphor that Jesus used of himself in John’s gospel, comes from a water source, a life giving source, that does not run dry even in severe drought. This is what the Psalmist goes looking for. He no longer has place and ritual even identity where will he find the living God now.

Brueggemann calls the psalms from these times of suffering, when it seems as if God has gone, when it’s not the way it should be when it’s dark and sorrow filled Psalms of disorientation. The water metaphor in the second stanza of Psalm 42 encapsulates that disorientation very well. Instead of streams of life giving water, the water wants to take the Psalmists life. Deep calls to Deep, there is the boom and roar of the waterfall and rapids, the head waters of the Jordan river as it rushes down the slopes of Mt Hermon. Then the response the crash of waves, Mediterranean storms like we encountered in Psalm 29 , and they can’t shelter in the temple this time. Or storm fuelled waves on  the lake of Galilee like the ones in the gospel narratives, that threatened to swamp the boat.  If you've ever gone to the beach and been caught by a wave and tossed over and over you'll understand, with thoughts of ...which way is up, which way is the way to go, how do we get out of here with our lives.   

The Psalmists response is this feeling of being abandoned and being downcast. It is the emotional response that the body makes to loss, or suffering or trauma, or stress, It’s depression and sorrow or grief. “why are you so down cast O my Soul’ Why so disturbed within me. We need to realise that depression and grief are physical ways in which our bodies responds and adjusts to tragedy and suffering.  Almost as if to protect ourselves we shut down, and in doing that we can shut God out.Sometimes however, it can be triggered by an imbalance in our system somewhere, it is a medical condition. But for the Psalmist it’s not the end. He speaks to his down cast spirit and offers hope, hope based on knowing who God is rather than where God is, and this is the way out of the darkness, this is the rock in the midst of the rapids and crashing waves.

Brueggemann then talks of Psalms of reorientation. Psalms that express a new understanding of God, one that still wrestles with suffering and pain, but one that encounters the reality of God. There are elements of this in Psalm 42 and 43.

It may not be that striking a contrast in our English translation, but all the way through this psalm and for most of the psalms in the second book of psalms 42-73, the word for God used most often is El Elohim, God most God, But right in the middle of this Psalm in verse 8. The Psalmist find a glimmer of hope. He uses that name of God given to Moses YHWH, the name that carries with it the idea of  God’s covenant love and relationship with Israel. That evokes, Gods mercy and God’s saving actions in the past. In the first stanza he had talked about remembering the good times, but know he says I will remember you, I will remember the good God. He had looked for living water and now he prays to the God of his life. All the other stuff has been stripped away, the means by which the psalmist had met with God, but that did not mean God had disappeared. He remembers God’s salvation, just as we can look to the cross and see God’s salvation in Christ.

I love the line right at the middle of this psalm “at night his song came to me”  for a musician a singer  that is a great way for God would speak: A song that reminded them of God’s love, God’s goodness in the past even when it seemed dark and hopeless that God was Israel’s saviour. Maybe they got past missing the tunes and got to the lyrics. Through it the Psalmist remembered God’s promise that he would send his people off into exile if they did not keep their covenant relationship with God but that he would also bring them back. Because in Psalm 43 we have this renewed hope of once again returning to Jerusalem, which is rather an amazing admission of hope and of God’s greatness in the face of such total defeat.

It’s not that this is a panacea, that suddenly it’s all good. While the Psalmist is in the midst of the turmoil he is aware that God is with him. He uses that more intimate name for God. He still suffering, he is still in that place of turmoil, it’s still dark, But there is hope. In who God is he sees a way forwards. He remembers God and God’s word; it’s no longer just that response of the soul but one that beginning to be shaped by the knowledge of God.  So in psalm 43 he is able to call out send your truth and your light to guide me.

The refrain why are you so downcast O my Soul, is the Psalmists self-speak in response to what he is feeling. It’s as if each time it is used, he is listening to the truth about who God is, and the emphasis is more and more on the hope rather than the downcast soul. One of the emphases of his memory of the temple worship and the hope of the future is being with the congregation and hearing them tell of the things that God has done. Often it’s hard for us to hear our own self speak, we need to hear the hope, the goodness of God through the lives of our brothers and sisters. Tuesday was a bit of a black dog day for me, as Winston Churchill used to call his down days. And God sent someone through the door of the church to speak encouragement into my life. I likened it to an undercover angel. I couldn't hear above the deep booming of those turbulent waters in my life, it took having to listen carefully to God’s word spoken in broken English to move me from the down cast soul to the put your hope in him. We need to do that for each other. To speak hope and what we know of God.

Orientation, disorientation, reorientation is the process suffering can take us through. Not everyone makes it through but it is one of the ways we mature spiritually. Reorientation, is the discovery of God’s presence with us in a new and profound way even in the face of suffering. Where is God when it hurts? The psalmist found God singing love songs in the dark, dark night: As a rock in the midst of the torrents.  Desmond Tutu, a man acquainted with suffer and a man of Hope, tells the story of a Jew in a concentration camp who had been forced to clean toilets. The man knelt with his hands immersed, swabbing and scrubbing away the filth, as he did this, his Nazi guard sought to humiliate him further. “Where is your God now?” he sneered. Quietly without removing his hands from the toilet, the prisoner replied, ”He is right here with me in the muck”. (from Pete Greig's book God on Mute). Jesus last words to us were lo I am with you till the end of the age...even in the muck 

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Saviour and my God.

Encouragement... God Sends an Unlikely Angel On A Morning When I could Simply Pack It All In...

AS Monday is my day off Tuesday's are my Monday mornings, and today I was full of the "not another week syndrome". . And its not the greatest way to start the week either...Tuesday Morning Starts with me taking the rubbish out at Church. I was rather down about stuff and feeling like I could easily pack it all in... It was a whats the point kind of point.

Outside my door appears a very unlikely angel with words of encouragement and solace. A Filipino women who has a wonderful ministry of prayer and care. She does home care for people suffering with age and dementia. We meet one time out on the street out side church. The week I was going into hospital for surgery. We talked and prayer for each other. Today she simply appeared outside my office. She asked me to pray for her and then started bring words of encouragement. Speaking straight into my situation and where my heart was at. Even addressing a part of my life where there is a big scar on my soul.

For me the Kereru ( New Zealand native wood pigeon) is a sign of the Holy Spirit and while it would have been amazing to have one fly into the church at that moment. It didn't, but there lying on the pool table outside my office. Yes I have a pool table outside my office... and in typical Church manner its got a table cloth and lace covering on it to hide it... but on that table was the news sheet from the weekend with a Kereru on the cover looking straight at me.

Thank you God, thank you that you speak into our lives at the right time, in the right way, to bring encouragement and correction.
To let us know you are about and your care... more than we realise...
and that you ordain our time.
We can forget the joy of the Lord,
we can forget the wonder of  not being anxious but being able to bring it all to you in Prayer,
 it is easy to forget your hand on our lives even from our mothers womb,
 it is easy to forget he great source of life we have in your word that we can read each day.
Thank you for your angels, both those we cannot see who are creatures of light and travel across the universe...
and the unlikely and unexpected that bring your word in broken English and arrive in old green cars.

Habitat and Bio-diversity: Dwelling in the Providence of God in Psalm 104

This is the third in a series on Nature Psalms. In as eries Called Theo-cology: The breath print of God and renewal of care for creation in the nature Psalms. The other two are Psalm 8 and Psalm 19 . Psalm 148 was used as a call to worship.

James Mays, no not the top gear presenter, says ‘Contemporary people have a variety of ways of viewing and speaking of the world and the forms of life it sustains-scientific, economic, aesthetic, re-creational. This Psalm (Psalm 104) offers the view and language that is appropriate for faith.” It’s insistence that creation calls forth awe and wonder transcends the barrier of time and is as relevant to moderns and post moderns today as it was for those who heard it so long ago. Our understanding of how it all fits together and works may be fuller and more mechanical, but I don’t know about you but it simply increases the wow factor.

More than any other, Psalm 104, stimulates ecological awareness, it paints the picture of our interdependence and how it all works. That the world with all its bio- diversity, its life giving elements, all its habitats and food is a gift of God’s creative power and  a sign of his prevenient grace: that he cares and provides for the whole of creation. Leslie Allen says “Divine activity systematically integrates every aspect of life on this planet, including trudging to work in the morning.’ In the psalm humans are not above creation, but like all creation dependant on God for our life and sustenance, Allen continues “human preoccupations are framed with an enormous landscape and seascape designed by God”… and can I add for which he cares and in which he delights.

Historically the psalm was seen as a solo song of praise, the worship leader would sing it, Which is why It starts with the personal ‘Praise the Lord O my Soul’ and the congregation would add the hallelujah or Praise the Lord! that seems to sit out of place at the end of the psalm.

It is seen as an enthronement Psalm, possibly used at New Year festivals, to acknowledge and reaffirm YHWH’s sovereignty over all the earth, over all he had made. The opening verses are full of royal imagery, God clothed in light, establishing his dwelling pitching his royal tent above the heavens and that the elements are simply his household staff. Like a conquering King he has vanquished his enemies and bought peace and order. For the people of the ancient near east water was a sign of chaos, and in ancient near eastern religions it was the battle between forces of chaos that resulted in the world being created but the Psalmist acknowledges that this was not the case it was God who created everything, who bought order. The psalm tells the story of how God changed water from being a force of chaos to be a life giving source, fulfilling his purposes for it. That like a benevolent ruler, God has provided for all his subjects.

The psalm speaks of God’s provision shown in habitats being created for different creatures. There was Land that can be used for human purposes, crops and grazing, wine and oil. But also land that was for other creatures to live in: The birds have trees in which to roost. The Hebrews were essentially desert people and  for them trees planted by reliable sources of water were seen as a real blessing from God. The high mountains were set aside for the mountain goats.

Even this wonderful furry little creature (see right) gets a mention. The Hyrax, had crags in which to hide. The rock hyrax is a major source of food for leopards in Africa and the black eagle, so for the ancient Hebrew’s it was a sign of God’s care that they had shelter from the air.

The hyrax may look like a Guinea pig  and you’d be forgiven to think of it as member of the rodent family, however it is its own genus, and its closest living relative is the… elephant. Maybe it’s the dim dark secret of the elephant family, the cousin they never acknowledge, unless it’s to scrape them off their hooves. The psalmist probably didn’t know the biological stuff about the hyrax, but it is both a sign of the wonder of the diversity of creation and God’ providence to see that this insignificant animal is acknowledged as being gifted a place to live on God’s earth.

Our modern understanding of evolution would want to talk about mutation and adaptation as to how the hyrax can flourish where it does. I’m happy to see that as the mechanism by which God has provided for this creature. This Psalm does not see God as an absentee landlord, or a designer who simply started it all and walked away but actively involved in the care of his creation.

Even time says the psalmist is a sign of God’s provision and grace. In Hebrew thought the day started at dusk, and in verses 19-23 you get, like time-lapse photography in words and phrases, a portrait of an average twenty four hours: The sun setting at the time that has been appointed to it…The forest and countryside becoming alive with creatures that roam and stalk the night… In the darkness the lion roars, and in the psalmist understanding this is not something to be feared but rather it is a prayer to God for its food, its saying grace… giving thanks for its place in God’s created order and that its an object of  Gods care… The psalmist says the night is thei

r time… In our house we have a saying, “that black cats (our cat is black) rule the night, except if they sit in the shadows outside the toilet door.” … The sun rises, again at its appointed times with the seasons, and those animal give way to the day animals and the trudging labour of humans.  Primarily the Hebrew’s were rural folk, attuned to the rhythm of creation, in that they saw God’s order and room for all.

The sea, whose depth was impenetrable till last century, is also viewed as God’s provision, and under God’s control. WE are still are discovering new life forms in the waters but unlike the psalm are becoming aware of the limits of life in the sea. It’s not beyond number. But again there is a sense that there is a balance between human use, those who go out in ships, and its enjoyment as a habitat for sea creatures. The word leviathan is used to denote some sort of sea monster, in canaanite thought they were to be feared, be it whales or crocodiles or something else, But in this psalm you get the idea of animals playing and delighting in what God has made for them.

Then the Psalmist turns to talk of Gods provision of food and that the rise and fall of generations is also part of God’s provision, of refreshing the earth. If you’re a fan of Disney’s Lion King you may be familiar with the song’ the circle of life and Mufasa trying to explain to the young Kimba, that the antelope eat the grass and the lions eat the antelope, but when the lions die they feed the grass. Again the Psalmist acknowledges this is part of God’s providence and care.

The psalmist then gives praise to God for all his works. Even the earthquake and volcano are seen as a manifestation of God’s power. The wonder of what God has created, the abundance and balance of God’s provision inspire the psalmist to praise and to give thanks. To lift up his voice and join creation in singing Gods praise. Bio diversity and the habitat’s for different animals and interdependence and the splendour of it all are to fill us with awe and wonder. The secularist will say isn’t nature great, where as we turn and acknowledge that God is good. In the genesis creation story when God says that ‘it was good’ you get the idea of the creation showing the mastery of its creator.

The palmist also responses by desiring that his meditation, the way that he thinks and acts would be pleasing to God. Worship is not just song and standing with one’s mouth open in gob smacked amazement, it calls us to right thought and right action, it is life’s work. Ethics how we live is an essential part of our worship. It is like that in terms of creation. The psalmist may be way ahead of his time, he sees that human sin can impact and unset that balance. That’s the call for all sinners to be removed from the earth.

How does this psalm speak to us today…

Firstly, It calls us to live thankfully, to see it all as gift. To see everything we have and use and consume as God’s providence; God’s provision. To be treasured and used sparingly. Modern western society is built on consuming and on a particular standard of living that is not sustainable anymore. That has a negative impact on the balance in nature that was a reflection of God’s creativity and goodness. To see it as gift, to live knowing that God provides calls us to simplify our lives. It’s interesting that people often point to the population explosion as to the main cause of pollution and animals habitats disappearing into housing and food production. But when you have a look at food consumption and consuming of energy resources, you see that it is a few nations that consumer more than their population should. We live in one of those nations.

It calls us to be part of an alternative vision for life. I think it’s a vision that the church has often found its self on the wrong side of. It’s a vision that calls us to see our fellow creatures as objects of God’s grace and love, that their part in creation is a gift from God. I know a few Christians who see their Sunday worship as going and being involved in replanting some of our Hauraki Gulf Islands for example. It calls us to be at the forefront of movements like the community garden movement. In Europe monasteries, faith communities were the centre for learning about local food production, reconnecting us with soil and place..

Secondly, I want to make one comment about how I feel this psalm speaks to us. Because of the reference to the spirit giving life in verse 30 in the Christian church this psalm is often used at Pentecost. As I was reflecting on this passage I had a conversation with Forbes Worn who works here at the presbytery Office. Forbes told me to speak about spring. He’d been up to Helensville and come down through the kumeu area and seen people whose fields had been planted. Maybe strawberries, and other wonderful summer fruit. he said That this, St Peter’s is a spring church, the winter is going and spring is coming. I wanted to pass that on to you as encouragement, because I know many of you have been toiling through what must feel like a long winter, and you have been faithful and planted seeds, and the sovereign God who orders the seasons is able to bring new life. We are a Spring Church AMEN.

LASTLY, I went to Pukematekeo, on Thursday evening, which is the northern summit in the Waitakere rangers. I stood there for about forty minutes. It put things into perspective. My soul again rejoiced, I caught a glimpse of how awesome and big God is in his creation. The skyscraper canyons look so small from up there. The sound of traffic was drowned out by wind sweeping across the bush and the sound of birds, there was the smell of native clematis (I think) in the air. It was afternoon so the green carpet of the rangers was lined by the silver gleam of the Tasman Sea.  And I caught something of the awe and wonder of what the psalm 104 says. It invoked a hallelujah. But also I became aware of just how much impact humans have had. While the bush is tall and full, I know that the big trees are not there, they’ve been felled. The streams that flow to the coast are in places choked with the remains of logs that had been flooded out to the beach as the first step on their journey to the mills. The calm blue jewel like lake in the bush was behind a damn, and the water fall was the run off down its face.  I got home and a friend had posted on facebook an article about floating masses of litter in the pacific and that sullied my view of the pristine nature of the ocean. Along with Psalm 104 I couldn’t help but think of Paul in Romans talking of creation groaning as if in pain. I realised that we live in the tension between the wonder and awe of psalm 104 and the challenge of Romans. And there we need the grace, provision and renewal of God’ spirit in Christ.