Psalm 123
Preaching
A Journey Through the Psalms: Reflections for Worried Hearts and Troubled Times
Preaching the Psalms Cycles A, B, C
Object:
A wise preacher once said that original sin did not involve an apple or a big snake. He said that original sin was really humanity's obsessive need to be in charge of things. He also added that after all these millennia, it could hardly be called "original." There is truth in these words. The despoiling of our planet is the result of our inability to discern the difference between stewardship and being in charge. The millions of people who suffer from the horrors of war are the result of people insisting that they are in charge. The grinding poverty that poisons the planet emerges from the notion that some people are in charge and have a right to more food and money than other people have. Who can do anything but throw up their hands in despair when they recount the struggles in church communities that come from people wanting to be ... in charge?
The preacher had it right. Human beings find it next to impossible to simply fall to their knees and offer themselves in submission to the one who is greater. Nothing is more healing than being able to give all our struggles and pain -- all our brokenhearted yearnings and woes over to God. It is to this kind of submission that this beautiful psalm speaks.
Here, in a few verses, is a scene of glory. This isn't the glory of the battlefield or the victory ring of the stock market bell. This is God's glory. It is that moment of truth that somehow comes so rarely. On bended knee with eyes lifted upward, the need to control and be in charge is finally relinquished in this prayer for mercy. All pretense has been dropped. All bets are off. Now the power arrangement is understood; embraced. Like a servant waiting for the master or a maid waiting for her mistress, this person waits now for God.
The almost-comic part of it all is that an integral part of our human control issue is that we hate waiting. Whether it's supermarket checkout lines or the harvest of seasonal fruit, we simply do not like to wait. Yet wait we must.
On our knees, having given all to God, we submit finally to God's timing and wait on God's mercy. This is the beginning of wisdom. This is the edge of salvation.
The preacher had it right. Human beings find it next to impossible to simply fall to their knees and offer themselves in submission to the one who is greater. Nothing is more healing than being able to give all our struggles and pain -- all our brokenhearted yearnings and woes over to God. It is to this kind of submission that this beautiful psalm speaks.
Here, in a few verses, is a scene of glory. This isn't the glory of the battlefield or the victory ring of the stock market bell. This is God's glory. It is that moment of truth that somehow comes so rarely. On bended knee with eyes lifted upward, the need to control and be in charge is finally relinquished in this prayer for mercy. All pretense has been dropped. All bets are off. Now the power arrangement is understood; embraced. Like a servant waiting for the master or a maid waiting for her mistress, this person waits now for God.
The almost-comic part of it all is that an integral part of our human control issue is that we hate waiting. Whether it's supermarket checkout lines or the harvest of seasonal fruit, we simply do not like to wait. Yet wait we must.
On our knees, having given all to God, we submit finally to God's timing and wait on God's mercy. This is the beginning of wisdom. This is the edge of salvation.
