Sermon for the 7th Sunday of Easter: 17 May 2015

Sermon the 7^th Sunday of Easter

17 May 2015

Psalm 1

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer,Jerusalem

The Rev. Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 1Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;

2but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night.

3They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.

4The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

6for the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

This psalm conveys a simple message: The way of the Lord leads to happiness, but the way of the wicked will perish.

It’s a simple message, but one which can seem very easy to refute. After all, some of it seems to describe an alternate universe. Do the good guys really always prosper? It seems to me the guy (or girl) with the most money and most connections has a better chance at winning, everything from elections to the better table at the restaurant. Does the way of the wicked always perish? The guy with the sword always fares better than the one who loses his head. And last time I watched the news, a certain amount of wickedness seemed not be perilous at all, but actually celebrated.

“The LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” Earlier this week, when I saw the first news reports that Nepal had suffered another devastating earthquake, I went down the hallway to the office of our bishop. I’m not sure why I felt the need to tell him right away – what could he do about it? – but it seemed important. Maybe he would have something to say which could make such a tragedy make sense. Maybe he, being a bishop, could help me understand how people who were still digging out of the rubble deserved another disaster. But when I entered his office, Bishop was sitting at his desk, shoulders heavy with other troubles—the illness of good friend Tawfiq Nasser, for one. When I told him about the earthquake, he just sighed and said, “This week, we only get bad news.”

Some weeks, it’s just difficult to read Psalm 1 with a straight face. We want to believe, of course, that if we follow the righteous path, if we turn away from the wicked, if we pray and believe and give to the poor and forgive our neighbors, that we will be happy, and we will prosper. We will not suffer earthquakes, or cancer, or persecution. The Lord will watch over our paths, and we will not perish.

And then another earthquake hits already desperate people, and the young Tawfiq dies of cancer in the very hospital where he has overseen the healing of so many others, and our Palestinian neighbors are still waiting after 67 years to return to their homes and villages.

Still, we would like to believe that Psalm 1, being the first psalm in the book, is the prescription for happiness. Being righteous equals being happy. Being wicked equals being…not happy. Isn’t that right?

We’re always hoping for that secret formula.

Some years ago, when I was trying to find ways to make a little money as a stay-at-home mom, I got involved with one of those work-from-home pyramid “businesses.” I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time, of course. It was pitched to me by someone I trusted (my midwife) and because I had just recently put the life of my baby into her hands, I figured she was telling me the truth. I trusted her when she said if we used these products, and if we sold them to friends, and if we were faithful to the business model, not only would we be happy and healthy (and wealthy), we would be godly.

You see, the especially tricky part of this particular home business was that it was couched in religious language. The company made a point of selling to people of faith who would be drawn in by the promise of getting “back to nature” and supporting healthy families. Its motto might as well have been “Happy are those who use these essential oils and sell them to their neighbors, for the Lord will watch over their bank accounts.”

What I found out, eventually, was that this little scheme did not make us happy, and in fact it mostly made our family and friends annoyed with us. It also made me embarrassed when I saw it for what it was—a false path, no better than other so-called easy routes to health, wealth, and happiness.

In our human sinfulness, we’re always looking for the one true path, the secret formula, the shortcut, the perfect diet, the best investments, and the no-fail recipe, which is how it’s possible that we are not only taken in by shady schemes and snake oil salesmen, but we can even misread the Bible.

When we read the Bible as a divine prescription for success, then we can become fundamentalists, devoted to the following of rules more than we are devoted to loving God. Alternately, having experienced a bit of the pain of life already, we may disregard the messages of Scripture like the one this psalm offers (“choose the path of the righteous, listen to God’s word”) because we don’t want to be thought a fool. What has the righteous path ever earned me, anyway?

But this psalm offers no multi-level business plan, and the Word of God is no program for success. Instead of a prescription for happiness, this psalm gives us a description of life rooted in the way of God – a way which offers no guarantees for worldly prosperity, but which promises us life, and life abundant.

Today is the 7^th Sunday of Easter, and the Ascension of Jesus was just a few days ago. Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit is just around the corner. By now, we have gotten used to our Easter “Alleluias”. By now, we are feeling quite comfortable with the empty tomb and the resurrection news. By the seventh Sunday of Easter, we’ve mostly stopped shouting the Easter proclamation:

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!

At Eastertime, it’s easy to get comfortable with the joy of the Christian message. Indeed, it’s good to bask in the glory of the empty tomb and in the gift of eternal life with God we’ve received because of the resurrection. But as Christians, we must remember that no matter what time of year it is, we’re never far from Good Friday. 

And the witness of Jesus on Good Friday shows us that the way of love, the way of love of God and love of neighbor, leads not to comfort, but to the cross. The way of Jesus leads us not to wealth, but to witness. The way of the righteous leads us not to prosperity, but to sacrifice.

This is hardly a winning sales pitch! But this truth is no deterrent to the godly path. For we know that though the way of Jesus may lead to the cross, it also leads to life. We know that though the way of the righteous may lead to persecution, or unpopularity, or struggle, it also leads ultimately to peace, and justice, and reconciliation, not only for us, but for the whole world.

There are always those who will use violence or extremism to amplify their message and to draw others to their wicked path. There will always be opportunities to follow the way of exclusion, of isolation, or of the dehumanization of others for quick experiences of wealth or power. But happy are those who know that the Word of God, the law of love, is more powerful than the messages of hatred which crowd the airways and compete for our attention. Happy are we when love, grace, mercy and forgiveness are the soundtrack of our lives.

For “they are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”

Yes, there is a way in which this could be read as “prosperity Gospel”, and some have done it (and preached it) with very little shame. There are those who still read this (and the rest of Scripture) to mean that if you do the right things, believe the right way, and follow the right path, you will yield fruit (or money, or cars, or many children.) Not only is this a tragically bad interpretation of God’s Word, but sadly when those who expect prosperity encounter trials and tribulations, they will blame God. They will blame God, and they will leave the church, and they will be left in the hands of those who are more than happy to welcome them onto a different path.

But those who meditate on Word of God, who keep the law of love on their lips and at their fingertips, embody the beautiful Arabic concept of “sumud.” Sumud is translated to something like “steadfastness in the face of oppression.” Sumud is what you have when your roots go deep into the soil. It is the kind of strength that comes, not from being the tallest or the strongest or the fastest growing, but from being close to the source of water and of life. The “way of the righteous” in Psalm 1 offers us sumud.

For our Palestinian neighbors, sumud is what has helped them not only endure and resist but flourish and live during these 67 years after the Nakba. 

For African-Americans in my home country, the United States, sumud is what gave them strength for the long struggle for civil rights. We hear it especially in one of the most famous songs of the era: “Fighting for our freedom, we shall not be moved. Fighting for our freedom, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree that’s planted by the water, we shall not be moved!”

Sisters and brothers, there are days and weeks (and years) when the promises of God are difficult to hear, much less to believe. There are times when the darkness seems to overwhelm the light of Christ, and the righteous path is not easy to see, but the way of the wicked seems to prosper.

But on these days, especially on these days, God gives us sumud--through water and the Word, through song, through bread and wine, and through the community of faith that is the church. The witness of our Lord Jesus Christ reveals that the path of the wicked , the extremist, the terrorist, the racist, will not stand. God will never allow evil to have the last word, just as Easter morning showed us that death never has the last word. The path of the wicked will not stand, because God’s love is greater. Love always wins. And happy are we when we delight in this truth. Amen.