Sermon on Psalm 85 for Sunday, August 10, 2014
Sermon
for Sunday, August 10, 2014
The
Rev. Carrie B. Smith
Grace
and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don’t mind telling you
that I was unreasonably excited to see such a colorful and familiar Gospel text
on the lectionary calendar for this, my first Sunday with you as pastor. What’s
not to like about Matthew chapter 14, after all? Here we have Jesus on the
mountain, praying by himself while the disciples’ boat is being tossed about in
the storm; and then there’s Jesus walking on water; not to mention Peter’s disturbing
lack of faith and that dramatic moment when Jesus lifts him out of the sea to
save him from drowning. These are rich images, full of possibility for
preaching! Potential homerun material, in fact, just perfect for a first sermon
in a new congregation.
However, in spite of the
richness of this familiar Matthew text, it’s the psalm which has grabbed my
attention and my imagination this week. Hear again the appointed verses from
Psalm 85, beginning with verse 8:
8Let
me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he
will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him
in their hearts.
9Surely
his salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in
our land.
10Steadfast
love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness
and peace will kiss each other.
11Faithfulness
will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.
12The
Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.
13Righteousness
will go before him, and will make a path for his steps.
“God
will speak peace to his people.”
The psalmist proclaims this so confidently! “Of course, peace is coming”, he seems
to be saying. I’ve been in Jerusalem just six short days, but it doesn’t take
long in this place to realize the word “peace” cannot and should not be thrown
around casually. I would guess that many of you, when you moved here, heard a
version of one of these phrases from friends or family:
“That’s great that you’re going over there, you can bring
peace to the Middle East.”
Or…“We just need to pray for peace in our hearts first.”
Or…“You know, peace will come only when Jesus comes back”
Or, my personal favorite, a Facebook gem shared with me
just the other day:
“I just think the Muslims and the Jews should sit down
and talk it out in a Christian way.”
Of course, everyone wants peace—for Jerusalem, for
Palestine, for Israel, for the entire region. But for whom? On whose terms? And
at what cost? And what about justice?
Peace is no simple matter.
Still, the psalmist insists, with confidence: “God will speak peace to God’s people.” It
may help to remember that this psalm is a song sung from the other side, post-exile,
from a place and time where peace now reigns, but the memory of struggle and oppression remains. The psalmist is
confident that peace will come because, for him and his community, it already
has.
However, for those of us today who are living in this
particular place and in the midst of this nasty conflict, these words may seem a
hollow promise, or at best a rosy-eyed vision of the future. Like me, you may
be more drawn to the first seven verses of this psalm (which the lectionary
compilers conveniently left out for today).
Verses 1-7 of psalm 85 read like this:
1Lord,
you were favorable to your land; you
restored the fortunes of Jacob.
2You
forgave the iniquity of your people; you pardoned all their sin. Selah
3You
withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger.
4Restore
us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us.
5Will
you be angry with us forever? Will
you prolong your anger to all
generations?
6Will
you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?
7Show
us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.
Here, now, are words with which we may more easily
identify! Where the final verses of this psalm are sung in thanksgiving for a
peace already won, these first seven verses could be written from the middle of
the struggle. These are the words of the father in Gaza, surveying his family’s
destroyed house and neighborhood. These are the words of the Christian
refugees, streaming out of Iraq. These are the words of the parents watching
their children wracked by the Ebola virus.
The psalmist cries out with them (and with us), reminding
God of God’s own identity and nature and history:
“Hey, God! Don’t you remember? You saved us! Don’t you
remember, God? You’re the one who’s slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love! Don’t you remember? You helped us before. You forgave us before.
How long can this go on? Surely, 30 days in Gaza is enough;
surely 60 years of occupation is enough; surely 400 lost children are
enough…show us your love, your salvation, your peace…”
Psalm 85, then, is a song of both praise and lament, of
both thanksgiving and of pleading. In this way, the entirety of Psalm 85 very
well captures the both/and, now and not yet situation in which we as Christians
in Jerusalem find ourselves today. We of this congregation are here largely by
choice, many of us precisely because
of the presence of this enduring conflict. And, at the same time, we live in confident
hope that peace will indeed reign,
in this land and in the world, through the love of God we have seen in Christ
Jesus. We share this hope because each of us, like Peter, has been lifted out
of the water and given new life, and peace with God, through baptism into
Christ.
Therefore, this morning we confidently sing with the
psalmist: “God will speak peace to
God’s people—righteousness and peace will
kiss each other!”
And the peace for which we pray and trust hope? It’s not
just a wish for a less awful tomorrow (I’m pretty sure the politicians have
that covered.)
When we gather to pray for peace (as we did on Friday
evening), we pray, with confidence and with a living hope, for the peace that
only God can give.
We pray not just for the absence of rockets, but for the
presence of gardens and trees, schools repaired, and houses rebuilt.
We pray not just for checkpoints opened, but for doors of
opportunity flung open wide.
We pray not just for a fragile truce or a momentary
ceasefire, but for families reunited, neighbors reconciled, and a fractured
land healed.
We pray—and we trust—that God will speak peace to all of God’s people. Righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
But trusting God is hard. Having faith when you’re in the
middle of a storm—or the middle of the sea—is hard work. Just ask Peter!
Like Peter, we don’t know exactly how we’re getting to the
other side, or how we will withstand the storm. All we know is that God has
called us here. Like Peter, we only know that Jesus has asked us to get out of
the boat and to follow.
And thanks be to God, when we need courage for the walk, Jesus
invites us not only to step out of the boat, but to step up to the table. Jesus
invites us to the place where steadfast love and faithfulness do meet, where righteousness
and peace do kiss each other. The presence of Christ in the bread and the wine,
broken and shared here—and in Ramallah, in Gaza City, in Crystal Lake, Illinois,
and in your home countries and home churches far away—gives us the strength and
confidence to remain on the path to peace. Come, one and all, and receive the One
in whose name we gather, our Lord Jesus Christ, prince of peace. Amen.
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| Jerusalem evening, Saturday, August 9, 2014. Photo by Carrie Smith. |
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