First Presbyterian Church, Cottonwood Falls, KS

The Challenge of Faith:  Psalm 27

Lent 2:  February 28, 2010

Rev. Pat Ireland, Pastor

Psalm 27

¹The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

²When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh— my adversaries and foes

— they shall stumble and fall.

³Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear;

Though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.

⁴One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:

to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

⁵For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.

⁶Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me,

and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;

I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

⁷Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!

⁸“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”

Your face, Lord, do I seek.

⁹Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help.

Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!

¹⁰If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.

¹¹Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

¹²Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,

for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence.

¹³I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

¹⁴Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Our book of Psalms was, for Jesus and other faithful Jews, a Book of Common Worship.  The psalms are heart felt-prayers expressing universal emotions.  These raw prayers have been shaped over the centuries by the community of faith to become almost universal expressions of the mortal’s relationship with the divine.

Psalm 27 includes a song of trust, prayers for deliverance, and a lament.  The rapid-fire movement among these responses to God makes clear the challenge of faith.

Let us Pray:  Sheltering Spirit guide the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts that we might trust and follow your leading.  Amen

We began our Lenten study of the Lord’s Prayer on last Wednesday and learned that all prayer starts with relationship.  This psalm is no exception.  The prayer is based on relationship; the Lord is my light.  God has chosen to be in relationship with mortals through the covenant with Abraham and all the generations that followed.  God is ever faithful to that covenant.

Until we respond, God is like the waiting father at the end of the lane, watching and waiting for the prodigal’s return.  When we return and/or respond the result is a song of praise.  The Lord is my Light… my light and my salvation.

Living in a world filled with all kinds of artificial light, it’s hard to appreciate the full impact of light on the human soul.  When fire was the only defense from the darkness, light was truly a salvation; driving away the wild animals of the night, exposing the dangers of the road, opening the world to heaven.

One of my stranger but more useful college classes was in History of Horror films.  I took it to accumulate hours and because it was offered at a time I could attend while juggling full time employment and a family.  What I learned is that the fear is greatest before we see the horror.   Fear mounts when you cannot see the danger.  Once the monster is exposed we know the story will rush forward to a successful conclusion.  I have found this is no less true when waiting for a diagnosis or word of a loved one, than it is of waiting to see Jaws break through the surface of the ocean.   From this perspective, the God of Light in a world of darkness is truly salvation.  The God of light exposes and overcomes all that is hidden from us.  We can walk on in trust.

Let us join in the ancient prayer, singing as Mike leads us.  The words are printed in the bulletin.  We’ll join on the 2^nd time around and continue unitl word gets from your head (voice/ear) into your heart.

The Lord is my light, my light and my salvation: in God I trust, in God I trust.

²When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh— my adversaries and foes—

they shall stumble and fall.  (Because God is my light and salvation)

³Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear;

though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.

⁴One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after:

to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in God’s temple.

⁵For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble;

he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.

I wonder if this image was resonating in Jesus’ mind when he stood on that hill overlooking Jerusalem, longing to gather God’s children in the shelter of his arms.  In the day of trouble- and don’t we all have those occasionally – in the day of trouble the divine lover is calling us into the shelter of love.  The ancient Hebrews would have envisioned the Tabernacle Tent of worship that covered the Ark of the Covenant.  Where is your safe place?  Where are God’s arms/wings for you?   (Pause)

⁶Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

We sing songs of praise and offer shouts of Joy – if only in our hearts- from that place of trust and safety.   But here is there irony; those moments are short lived.  The eternal moments, the transcendent moments that lift you above your enemies and fill you will trust and light, are gone all too quickly, like the mountain transfiguration of Jesus.  Too soon we are back in the valley and the eternal moment is only a faint memory.

I learned to love the Taize form of worship, the singing prayer, when I was in seminary.  There was a service every Wednesday evening.   We used many chants, but the one that spoke most to me was, “O Lord, here my prayer.”

Verse seven reads: “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!” The sentiment is echoed in many of the Psalms.  The way they sing it at Taize, an ecumenical worship community in France, is printed in your bulletins.  I sang with vehemence, almost as a challenge:  Oh Lord, hear my prayer, when I pray- answer me!  O Lord, hear my prayer, come and listen to me!   Week after week I would sing- feeling like God was way out there someplace, far, far away.

Then one day as I was singing my demands, the voice inside my head changed the words, and it became, “O Pat, I am here, O Pat, I am here, When you pray I am here.  Stop and listen to me. I laughed when I heard it and still giggle inside at the reassurance that God who is beyond our wildest imaginings is also deep within us.

Paul says it is the Spirit who prayers for us with sighs too deep for words.  It is that same Spirit who cries out “Abba, father.”  Our experiences of that response are as unique and varied as are our lives, but I hope and pray that every one of us has at least one eternal moment stored in memory that reminds you that God does listen, does hear and does answer us when we call.

Let us sing, again joining Mike as comfortable and continuing for some time.

O Lord hear my prayer, O Lord hear my prayer: when I call answer me.

O Lord hear my prayer, O Lord hear my prayer: come and listen to me.

Finally, sooner or later the inner voice responds:

⁸“Come,” my heart says, “seek God’s face!”

And the self responds:

Your face, Lord, do I seek. ⁹Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help.

Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!

¹⁰If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.

¹¹Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.

¹²Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,

for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence.

¹³I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

The challenge of faith is to again and again come into the presence of the living God.  Our faith is not to return to an ancient time, or even a future time, but to be in God’s presence in this time, this place, this circumstance.  Our longing is always to see the face of God, right in the midst of the here and now, to see the banquet spread in the ‘presence of my enemies.’ ^{Ps 23} Love does not take us out of the struggle, but sustains us in the midst of it.  Even in the midst of lies and violence, the psalmist expresses a trust that God’s goodness will break through.

As I was writing on Thursday, I heard from the downstairs hallway pounding on what I guessed was a cooking pan, and the improvised song of a 2 year old, and then the graveling voice of a grandpa picking up his “little buddy” and the verse echoed, “I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  Your hospitality to the preschool enables daily glimpses of God’s kingdom of wonder and mutual support.

Similarly, one has only to notice a gathering of mourners, to see countless acts of comfort and grace, even among those who don’t speak the language of the church.  It comes instinctively for those who love, for those made in the image of the first Love.  The challenge of faith is to notice and to name it as divine for the living God is in our midst- if we open our eyes and hearts to the divine presence.

The art, the challenge of faith is to expect, to wait, to hope.  The psalm concludes:

¹⁴Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord! The word translated wait in verse 14 literally means hope.  Hope in the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; hope for the Lord! This is not just an urging of patience.   It focuses the hope in the Lord.  Even as we trust in the Lord we still hope for what is not yet seen.   Scholar James Mays, referring to the cry to God for help, points out the close relationship between trust and need.  When our need is most obvious, we turn to the Lord.  We learn to trust when we have not other hope.

As Paul writes in Romans 8:  “In hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what is seen?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” ^8:24-25

And so the psalmist, having moved from praise to lament, from confidence to doubt, rests finally in hope.   The affirmation is made: ¹³I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And the response comes:  Wait for it, hope in it.  God’s goodness is near, be strong, have courage.

As we respond, let us continue in prayer as before, joining Mike in the chant as soon as it is familiar.

Wait for the Lord, his day is near. Wait for the Lord, be strong, take heart.