I love the sea and living on the coast. Maybe it is having surfed or that my fondest childhood memories are trips to French bay for a swim after school. later in life I lived for five
year at Westshore in Napier and when there wasn’t off key drunken karaoke from
the pub across the road we would fall asleep to the sound of the surf hitting
the shingle beach. I’d wake up and go for a ride at sunrise along the
waterfront and as I looked at the Sea my prayer would be ‘Thank you Lord that
your love surrounds us like the sea surrounds our Island home. It is a love
like the sea vast and reaching out beyond the horizon of our ability to see it
or comprehend it. It is eternal and its depths cannot be fathomed. When we moved to Auckland it was easy to lose
sight of the fact that we still lived by the coast. Literally you could lose
sight of it amidst the high rises and constantly moving cityscapes blocking the
line of sight and you could also forget to look up and around under the
pressure of work and family, stress and deadlines. But just occasionally I’d be
surprised by the sea. As I went around a corner or went about my business as I
went about life I’d be surprised by a flash of blue or that silvery grey and
I’d become aware again of the sea. I’d stop and I’d Pray in the middle of all that
was going on ‘Thank you Lord that your love surrounds us like the sea surrounds
our island home.’ Then I’d go on aware again of God’s presence and his constant
faithful love. We’ve moved recently and were we live now in Onehunga we have a
view out our kitchen window of the Manukau and I find myself looking out at it
first thing in the morning and last thing at night… a constant reminder of
God’s consistent love.
Psalm 125 uses a similar but different image to speak of
God’s faithful love for those who trust in him. It’s one that comes from the
geography of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is built on Mt Zion which is a medium sized
hill surrounded by hills higher than it is that act like sentinels around
it.
Just as Jerusalem is surrounded by
these higher peaks so God surrounds his people with his love. Just as those
mountains are solid and always there so is God’s presence unshakable and
enduring.
Psalm 125 is a psalm of ascent, of coming to worship God. scholars
say is a communal lament. It is a pouring out of the concerns of God’s people
for the way things are. It was written in the post exilic times as the exiles
had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem and had started to rebuild their society
around worship and keeping the Law of Moses (in a good way) and they had found
themselves as part of the Persian empire. Still under foreign rule, still not
able to be independent. struggling to fulfill their vision of being God’s
people. aware that some amongst them
were drawn away from the faith by the dominant society. Aware that some of
their own people opposed what they were doing, you can a feel for that in books
like Nehemiah. That is what is behind the lines we find hard to relate to it
this Psalm about wanting those who have turned to crooked way to be banished
with the evildoers. It is the language of an occupied people wanting the
occupying power and those who have collaborated with them to be sent packing.
As a nation, they are
caught between wanting to be God’s people and being pushed to conform to the
dominant culture. It is a challenge that successive generations of pilgrims
could identify with, as there was a growing desire for Israel to be an independent
nation. They could identify with it in their own lives living in the diaspora as
well, if you remember the psalms of ascent start in Psalm 120 with a discontent
about living among the tents of those who do not desire peace; people with
different values and ambitions, People whose aspirations were based solely in
economic prosperity and security by military power. God’s people can identify down
through history with this tension between what is going on around them and
their desire to worship and live for God. The dominant Ideologies and the call
to live out the gospel.
Psalm 125 is also a communal affirmation of faith and
trust. It starts with that wonderful
image of God’s sovereignty and power, God’s presence and protection of his
people, just like the mountains surround Jerusalem. This is what enables them
to bring their concerns and worries to God. That tust results in prayer for God
help and assistance. They acknowledge God’s sovereignty as the reason that the
sceptre of the wicked will not remain. The sovereignty of God will outlast the
rule of any empire or nation. Any dominant ideology that does not reflect the
love and the justice of God. In their
own experience, they now that meant even their own nation had to suffer defeat
and exile to learn about living as God’s people. But God’s love outlasts them like the
mountains.
It is a psalm that finishes with a benediction, an answer to
their prayers by a priest. A statement of Peace on Israel. Peace in Jewish thinking is not just the end
of conflict or war, let’s face it they had that because of the Persian Empire,
but rather of right relationships. Peace is right Relationship with God, with
each other, those in need, even those who would be our enemies, with created
order, with man made things like their possessions and wealth. That is peace.
So it’s a psalm that points towards Jesus coming as the
prince of peace, the one who would establish God’s kingdom and God’s rule, not
as they may have hoped for by defeating occupying forces, in the time of Jesus
that is the Romans. But by defeating sin and death and calling and enabling by
the presence of the Holy Spirit for us to live as a community that reflects
God’s peace, love and justice.
So how does this passage relate to us? Well Commentator
Leslie Allen says it calls us to be candid about our fears, but secure in our
trust’ to live in that tension between the reality of the world is with its
pressures and difficulties and temptations and wrongdoings, and the reality of
God’s sovereignty, God’s constant love and God abiding presence. To join the
pilgrims in bringing our fears and concerns for the world to God in prayer.
Our New testament reading gives us the hope of
the benediction in Psalm 125 that hope with Jesus saying my peace I leave with
you, a peace that the world cannot take away because it did not give it to you.
It’s the same sermon where Jesus says ‘in your life there will be trouble, but
do not worry I have overcome the world’. That peace that comes in the abiding
presence of our God whose love is faith and endures for ever. Psalm 125 also
gives us a very practical way of remembering that peace and presence in
associating it with things around you the hills the sea, maybe even trees;
psalm 1 says we are like trees planted by a water source that will not dry up,
maybe even having someone having to help you walk or get around, the way the
Holy Spirit guides us and how God will not let our foot slip in psalm 121. Of
course we turn to Jesus reminder of his great sacrificial love his abiding
presence and the hope of his return in the bread and the wine. 
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