Psalm 134..."Journeys end: a life of praise".

I’m not a great tramper, hours of hiking through the bush with a pack on my back to get to some location or other is not really my thing. But one tramp sticks in my mind from when I was younger.

I was in the South Island with some friends of mine and we visited the Okarito lagoon on the west coast, that is the place where Kotuku (white herons) nest in New Zealand.

We decided we would go up to the Okarito trig. It was about an hours walk, but of course being the trig it was a solid hour walking up hill. It was the middle of summer and while the temperatures were not the records we are getting this year it was hot. My friends who were all fitter than me, could have run the track, but I had to slowly plod up the hill, my head down breathing hard. It wasn’t a really long tramp, but it was a hard uphill journey.

When I got to the top the trig was in a clearing in the lush South Island forest, with a panoramic view. You looked left and north and the you could see the pale blue of the Tasman sea disappearing off to the horizon, the west coast stretching in a straight line marking the change from sea blue to forest green. The deeper blue of the Okarito lagoon was right there below you. But your eyes were drawn to the amazing vista of the southern Alpes snow capped even in the heat of summer that lined the horizon straight ahead, from the heat haze in the north to beyond your eye sight in the south, solid, towering and majestic, then as you turned right the rich green of the forest again stretching from those mountains down to the sea. Like a sapphire nestled in it was the oval three-mile lagoon. Then your eyes were drawn out again over the Tasman sea to the south, till it joined the sky.  I was filled with wonder and awe, it was a special place in God’s creation. Well worth the up hill trek… When I left I was invigorated and refreshed.

Psalm 134 is like that, this brief psalm is the conclusion, to the psalms of ascent… the end of the pilgrims’ journey to festivals at the temple and the high point of the journey of faith. It invites and commands the pilgrim to come and to worship God at the temple… to ‘Bless the Lord’ as God’s people gathered together to encounter and know God’s presence.

The journey that started way back in Psalm 120 with a sense of discontent now concludes by finding ones contentment in encountering knowing and worshipping God.  The Psalms of ascent had prepared us for this as we had seen our communal reliance on God for salvation and guidance and protection as we’d looked and seen that every gift came from his hand. Our eyes had become filled and focused on the goodness and the greatness of God, his abiding presence, his covenant faithfulness to his people even in the midst of hardship and suffering, and us individually as we had identified our journey with theirs. We look back and see the saving grace of Jesus Christ and his life death and resurrection, the presence of his Holy Spirit, the vitality of creation. Eugene Peterson sums this up by saying that ‘the way of discipleship that started with repentance concludes in a life of praise.’ The shorter Westminster catechism sums it up in the answer to its first question what is the chief end of humanity?’ by replying ‘to Glorify God and enjoy God always.’

The first two verses of this psalm form a call to worship and it says some practical things about praising God. In the temple priests were rostered on to worship God 24/7. This call to worship probably originated as an encouragement for the priests who had the night watch. You could imagine them flagging and trying to remain awake or focused on the task. While it may seem like an invitation to worship, it is also a command for us to do so as well. We may not feel like worshipping or giving thanks to God. Pilgrims may still have been sweaty and tired from the journey, like me at the trig, more interested in a sip from the water bottle than the wonder before me, or still focused on where they had come from and its sorrows and problems . But worship is not about emotion it is an invite to look and to see and know the goodness of God. It’s as we do that its as we start to recount what God has done and who God is, that our heart and our minds are lifted and filled with awe and wonder.  The sorrows and the difficulties and the pain and suffering are still there but they can be put into perspective, when we see the faithfulness of God, when we see how the God who is high and almighty and seated on high has stoops down to see as it said in psalm 113. Who emptied himself and took on human form and the form of a servant, obedient even unto death, death on a cross’ to pay the price for what we have done wrong and bring us back to know God as our loving father. Who is working in human history to bring al things to himself.  The Psalm commands us to worship not as an emotional response but as an action, a conscious posture… to raise our hands.

The third verse of this psalm is a benediction a blessing on the pilgrims as they leave. It is that the God who they have blessed with worship, who they have praised, whose power and grace they have acknowledged would go with them and bless them as they go. Leslie Allen calls it a circle of blessing, we draw near to God and God draws near to us, or perhaps more so we become aware of God’s continued presence with us. God’s continued provision and protection God’s continued forgiveness and his guidance and help. We come to worship to give thanks to God out of gratitude for what he has done and we leave strengthened by the reality of those things in our lives. We come to worship, and we go back changed, and as agents of change, with fresh vision and purpose, strengthened for the ongoing pilgrims journey.

Psalm 133 and the ellusive delight of unity.

Just over a year ago Psalm 133 was used as a devotion at the local minister’s association. It seemed relevant and poignant as here were a widely diverse group of church leaders gathering together, meeting regularly for fellowship over lunch…

It got me thinking, is this really what the Psalm is saying is the unity that commands God’s blessing? Or does it call for something deeper? It got me thinking about the psalms of ascent and what they might have to say, how they build to the point where this psalm about unity and community is the last, the climax, before there is a benediction and the collection finishes. They are important questions because as EM Blaiklock says, ‘humanity has seldom known Unity.’

The underlying image for unity in the first line of Psalm 133 is adult brothers with their own families living together, working the family farm, tending the family flocks. That was the corner stone of the Jewish agrarian society…  But even then, scripture tells us that this image of brothers together isn’t always ideal. Just think of  Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, joseph and his brothers, even Jesus had his brothers and family come and try and take him away from his messianic ministry, as they were concerned about his mental health.

At the heart of it of course is the realisation that our faith is not a private individual thing, rather that being called into a relationship with God is being called into community. Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, to which he replied to love the Lord Your God, with all our hearts and minds and souls, and was quick to add, before anyone could make it a private devotional thing, and love your neighbour as yourself. We proclaim that each time we gather together for worship, and demonstrate it as we show love to each other between times.

When you look at the Psalms of ascent there is a progression, a spiritual journey that lays the basis for that picture of unity amongst God’s people. It starts with a common discontent. A common journey, taken with the common protection and guidance of God. The realisation that we individually share the common experience of dependence on God, on his saving us from the traps and trials, We share common pains and sorrows and the common hope of God’s abiding presence and grace, that all good gifts come from God and his providence. Eugene Peterson sums it up by saying “how great to have everyone sharing a common purpose, travelling a common path striving towards a common Goal, that path and purpose being God.’

AS Christians we share a common spiritual poverty, a common saviour, in Christ we from all over and everywhere have become sons and daughters of the most high God,  we are filled by the same spirit, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done.’

Of course, you just have to look at Church history to see that keeping that pleasant living together in unity takes hard and arduous work. Paul writes to the church in Corinth, which is beset by divisions and factions, He writes to the church in Philippi in part to encourage two church leaders who have fallen out to be reconciled. The Epistle to Philemon is asking for a runway salve to be reconciled to his master, because know both are beloved brothers and partners in the gospel. The rest of church history seems to follow a similar pattern and struggle.

Eugene Peterson suggests the two word pictures that psalm 133 uses to describe God’s people living together in unity give us insight in how to hold on and work at that Unity…

The image of oil being poured over the head of Aaron comes from Exodus 29, and is Aaron being ordained and anointed as a priest. We are a priesthood of all believers When we view the other person as a priest set aside for God and as God’s anointed our relationship is profoundly changed. They become people that God has bought into our lives to minister God’s grace and word to us. A source of God’s grace given in Christ.

If you’ve woken up on a camping trip and unzipped the tent and every blade of grass glistens and shines with the dew that has fallen over night, you are aware of the freshness and newness that the image of dew falling on Mt Hermon has. When we have the expectation that God will do new things in people’s lives there is the ability to have unity. In Christ’s abiding presence by the Holy Spirit that God is moving, making it possible to produce Christlike fruit, just as the dew on Hebron provides the water for the fertile parts of Israel.

The final line of this Psalm says the lord bestows his blessing even life for evermore… in our community of love in Christ we can catch a glimpse of life lived in eternity with God. We read the conclusion to Acts chapter 2 and the coming of the Holy Spirit and the result was a community where peace was established because right priorities and relationships were established. There was no want, there was shared joy and hospitality, God moved in their midst and people from outside came to know Christ. It’s a glimpse a foretaste of what eternal life is like. The best way to describe our triune God, our three in one, is as a community of love, three beings so in unity they can only be described as one, and salvation and eternal life is that we are welcomed into that community of love, with God and with each other, here on earth and for all time.

So my prayer is that we may grow in our love for one another as we grow in our love for Christ, and people will catch the vision of the kingdom of heaven in our midst.

A belated New Years Prayer

Loving God

You hold our times in your hands

We thank you for being with us this last year

For your leading and guidance

For your abiding presence in the good and bad

Your care in the mundane and the crisis

For your provision and protection

For what we have learned and how we have grown

We acknowledge your goodness at the dawn of this new year

With the hope of fresh start and clean slate we confess our sin

 Forgive us for the things we have done wrong

Forgive us for the relationships that lie broken around us

Restore us to you and reconcile us to each other

Thank you that you hear our prayer and are faithful and just

That

you forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness

Gracious God

We stand at the start of this new year with both expectation and trust

Aware of the challenges and opportunities before us 

Aware of the possibility of both sadness and joy

New starts and fresh vision and vigour

Aware of the ongoing  continuity and commitments  of the past

We know you will be with us as we face the unknown horizon

Lead us into a deeper and deeper love with you

As we become aware of all you have done for us in Christ Jesus

As you open up your scriptures and speak into our lives

Fill our lives afresh with your Holy Spirit

Thank you that what you have started in us

You will bring to completion in your time

You will drawn it all together in you when you return

To your Glory. Father, son and Holy Spirit