Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista UCC (276 F St)

“Praying When Wrong”

A meditation based on Psalm 51:1-12

March 18, 2018

Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista

Dr. Sharon R. Graff

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                   Today we turn our attention to how we can pray when we’re in the wrong.  And it’s probably best to begin with a joke.  This old joke about making mistakes was credited to Charles M. Schulz.  Remember he gave us that wonderful Peanuts comic strip for so many years.  Mr. Schulz once said, “I never made a mistake in my life.  I thought I did once, but I was wrong.”

                   The truth of the matter is we each make mistakes.  And spoiler alert: God is not at all surprised when we do…and has a path already paved and prepared for us when we goof up.  Now lest we get too daring or cavalier about those mistakes, remember what the Apostle Paul once wrote: don’t just keep sinning so that God’s grace may abound!  No!  However, when we do make mistakes—the large public ones and the small often unnoticed—today’s psalm offers us a healthy way forward.  Let’s look at it a bit more closely.

                   Eugene Peterson’s modern-language translation of the Bible entitled, The Message, translates the Psalm reading for today in the following way:

Generous in love—God, give grace!  Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.

Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry.

I know how bad I’ve been; my sins are staring me down.

You’re the One I’ve violated, and you’ve seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil.

You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair.

I’ve been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born.

What you’re after is truth from the inside out.  Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life.

Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.

Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing.

Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health.

God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.

                   The phrase “a Genesis week” leapt off the page when I first read this particular translation.  What is “a Genesis week” and what might it teach us about praying when we’ve sinned?  I imagine that the translator was thinking of the first two chapters of Genesis, when order is brought out of chaos, where breathtaking beauty springs up with just a word or two from the divine voice, when God looks around on a daily basis, and says with pride, “It is good…It is very good…!” 

                   Yes, this is the kind of Genesis week we want and need.  A week of decluttering the messes, a week of bringing order out of chaos, a week when all that is planned actually goes as planned, a week with no shocks, no unexpected challenges, a week of unparalleled beauty.  As the comics often say, “I’d like to live on that planet!”  That kind of Genesis week, as we well know, is simply unattainable and unrealistic.  To expect it is to set ourselves up for failure and disappointment.  For we know that, as when Jacob wrestled with those angels, out of struggle comes certainty.  Wrestling with ideas and dreams and plans and, yes, even wrestling with people, can result in a blessing or two…a new direction perhaps, or a new way of thinking about life.  In Jacob’s case, his struggling netted him a brand new name: Israel, “the one who strives with God.”

                   Several years ago, the Christian Century magazine reported that a church youth group was discussing how 9/11 affected their prayer life.  One young man said he’s not been able to pray since that event, for he assumes that many of the people in those planes and buildings were praying that God would spare them, and their prayers were not answered.  Another fellow

said he cannot pray either, but for a different reason: he assumes that the terrorists were praying to their God for courage to follow through on their plans, and their prayers were answered.  Then a young woman quietly admitted that she is still praying.  She is an artist, and she went on to say that, as an artist, she tends to pray with images.  In her images, the victims and the perpetrators of 9/11 are sitting around a table in heaven, trying to figure out together what happened on that day.  What an incredible image!  What an amazing gift from the heart and mind of an artist!  Centered in the beauty of God, this young woman holds out for us a powerful model of prayer.

                   If the essence of God is beauty and love—not power or authority or dominance or anger or vengeance or any of the other traditional characteristics often ascribed to the divine—if the essence of God is beauty and love, then friends, the essence of our praying, even and especially when we are wrong, is prayer that is steeped in the assurance that God loves us dearly.

                   In this Psalm we read together this morning, God’s love takes the form of forgiveness,

and it’s a pretty healthy dose of forgiveness at that!  By my count, David had broken five of the Ten Commandments including murdering the husband of his mistress, yet none of that kept him from experiencing God’s love full force.  Three profound Hebrew words are used

by the psalmist to describe God’s grace: they are ?anan, ?esed, and ra?amim.  The first translates to “be gracious;” the second “steadfast love;” and the third “compassion” or more accurately, “motherly compassion.” 

                   These three words for God’s grace are found throughout the Hebrew scriptures, as God repeatedly welcomes back those who have strayed and tirelessly seeks out those who are lost.  As one commentary writer has forcefully stated, “…the reality of God’s steadfast love

is more fundamental than the reality of human sinfulness…In short, God forgives sinners.”

                   God’s heart is very large, large enough to accommodate all, even when all have sinned.  As the Apostle Paul so eloquently wrote, “there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God…”  Nothing can stop God from loving us…not even your worst sin on your most challenging day of life.  Given the unmistakable reality of God’s ?anan—gracious character,

of God’s ?esed—steadfast love, and of God’s ra?amim—compassion, it follows that we are to extend that same graciousness, that same motherly compassion, that same forgiveness to all. 

                   If we see God this way, as the force of love in the world, then when we act contrary to love, we are acting against God.  Hence the psalmist prays honestly, and in a spirit of confession:

1. God, I messed up
2. God, I am in need of your mercy
3. God, I am in need of cleansing in your love
4. My wrongs are against you, for you only act in love…I did not…please forget that and help me move on with your love as my cover
5. And then those beautifully familiar hopeful words: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Or, as The Message Bible translates this last thought: “God, make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.”

                   Imagine how your life would be different if, the next time you really mess up, instead of beating yourself for what you did, imagine how it would feel to say those words instead… “God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.”

Short.  Simple.  Honest.  Confessing.  Admitting. 

Not trying to hide, yet also recognizing that God’s love is greater than your sin. 

                   God’s love is bigger than any wrong you can even imagine committing.  God’s love is a cover that cloaks you and protects you and forgives you and releases you so that you can live in that love of God and reflect that love of God better tomorrow than you did today.  Beating yourself for your wrongs does nobody any good, least of all you.  Beating yourself for messing up doesn’t please God, nor is it required by God as a step toward God’s forgiveness of us.  What the psalmist today offers is a path much more profound and healthy.  It is a path that says, simply, directly, and with hope more than despair, “God, make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.”  And as we pray in this way, may we hear also God’s loving Genesis voice assure us, “You are good…you are very good…”  For from love, and love only, we move forward in more healthy ways.

 

Amen and Blessed Be

“Praying With Nature”

A meditation based on Psalm 19

March 11, 2018

Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista

Dr. Sharon R. Graff

* * * * *

                   Once upon a time there was a man who loved God.  Very much.  He was not unlike most of you.  He lived faithfully.  He chose community as his teacher.  This man was asked one day about his journey of faith, and he mused that he could have chosen any path, for humbly he confessed, he had many gifts from God and many opportunities to use them. In the next breath, and with a wink and a smile, he admitted he was very grateful for the path he was on.  Did I mention he was not unlike most of you?!  The questioner asked him another question…why do you do what you do?  And the man who loved God very much replied, “I do it because it is hard…”  The questioner was startled.  Rarely does someone say with a grin that they chose a path in life because it is hard to do, and even more rarely do they admit to that with another!  But the man said it again…”I chose this path because it is hard.”  Then, with a lovely flow, like something let loose from a dam after a long time pooling behind it, the man explained:

“Because I am not sure I can do it all, let alone do it well, and do it for years and years, perhaps for my whole life…I cannot think that way.  I try to be good [at what I do] for a week at a time. Walking helps greatly, I find.  Also birds.  We have a resident heron here who has been a great help to me.  Sometimes he or she is right there by the reeds when I am in pressing need of a heron.  I have come to think that the birds are shared of faith themselves in mysterious ways.  You could spend a whole life contemplating birds and never come to the end of the amazing things they do.  There are many swallows here and I spend hours at a time watching them conduct their intricate maneuvers.  They have the loveliest gentle chitter with which they speak to each other in the air.  Remarkable creatures altogether…”

                   This man who loves God very much, sounds a lot like today’s psalmist, doesn’t he?  The psalmist nearly overflows with enthusiasm as he or she looks up and sees God in the starry heavens; and looks back in time and sees God in the days and the nights; and looks out and sees God through the rising sun and the creatures of earth and the green plants and tall trees and the budding flowers.  A breathtaking moment, to realize that God’s own words are heard through and in and with nature.  The psalmist declares, “Day to day pours forth speech…night to night declares knowledge…yet there is no literal speech…nor are there really words…there is no audible voice…yet God’s voice goes out through all the earth and God’s words to the end of the earth.”  Said simply, God is experienced in and through the beauty of nature. 

                   Friends, this stream of understanding has always been a part of the Christian tradition, albeit sometimes it has been underground and protected from the dominant religious language.  Yet, season by season, century by century, the Divine has continued to shine light through each rising sun and setting moon; and the Divine has continued to reflect vibrancy through growing forests and blooming deserts; and the Divine has continued to speak knowledge through lion’s roar and otter’s chirp and whale singing.  This does not mean that these parts of nature are God.  It does mean that God is capable of speaking love and compassion and truth and even messages of challenge through all of the natural world, including us.  Day to day pours forth speech and night to night declares knowledge. 

                   Today’s psalm is a wonderful example of the type of prayer that is built on this truth…that God can be experienced deeply through nature.  I call this type of prayer “gazing prayer.”  It usually has few words, if any at all.  It is quiet and simple and anyone can do it. 

Here is what spiritual teacher, author and UCC minister Jane Vennard, says about gazing prayer:

Many of us were taught to close our eyes when we pray.  To gaze is to fix one’s attention in one place, but in a relaxed way.  Praying by gazing is an ancient prayer practice that involves keeping our eyes wide open, taking into our heart what the image visually communicates.  We focus not on what is seen in the photo or item, but rather on what is seen through it – the love of God expressed through God’s creatures.  This is prayer without words, where the focus is on being in God’s presence rather than performing in God’s presence.  It is a right-brain experience of touching and feeling what is holy…Praying by gaze can be practiced in community by gazing at one object together…or alone by gazing at the created world in the midst of our busy lives. Gazing helps us attend to the holy that surrounds us in art, nature, and other people.  Like other methods of prayer, gazing brings us into a deeper and more intimate relationship with God and opens the possibility of union with our Maker, the ultimate goal of the Christian spiritual life…[these] are doorways into stillness, into closeness with God.  If we sit with them, we just may discern the voice of God.

I have practiced gazing prayer in museums when I sense a connection with a particular treasure or painting; also in gardens large and small, manicured and wild; most recently on the Strand just last week, gazing at the waves rushing the shore. 

                   Gazing prayer can really be practiced anywhere you can slow down for just a bit, and take some time and attention to notice your surroundings.  Gazing prayer begins with your choosing such a place or a scene in the natural world, and traveling there, either in real time or in your imagination.  And when you arrive at that place where God is displayed, you stop.  You stop your distracting thoughts.  You stop your worrying.  You stop your physical movement.  You take a rather large pause from your usual routine.  And then, as you are stopped, you gaze at God as God is displayed and real in that place of nature. 

                   One of my colleagues speaks of this type of prayer as “noticing prayer,” where you stop long enough to really notice the ways God is telling you something through that tree, or that rosebush or those gentle waves rushing the shore.  You see, in our tradition of being part of the United Church of Christ, we already are inclined in this direction to gaze upon God through nature.  One of our slogans is that God is still speaking…and by that we mean that God speaks beyond scripture and beyond the tradition and beyond the stories of the saints.  When we affirm that God is not confined to the past, but is in fact still speaking, we lay the groundwork for this gazing prayer to make a real difference in our spiritual lives.  For we understand that we are not gazing at the tree, as if that tree is God.  No.  We are gazing at the tree because God can and will speak through it, without actual words and devoid of human speech, yet God will make God’s message to you known in and through that tree as you gaze upon it.  This I can promise! 

                   Gazing prayer does take some practice, so I thought today would be a great time for that!  When you entered worship, you were invited to select a photo from nature.  Bring that photo out now, and hold it where you can easily see it, and I’ll talk you through this first time.  Does anyone need a photo?

                   To begin your gazing prayer, you may want to focus a moment on the candles up front, for flame is a metaphor for prayer, inviting us into the presence of the holy.  Now look at your chosen photo.  See it as a point of connection with Jesus, with God, with Spirit, with the community of faith, with that which you call holy.  Try extending your hands and turning your palms upward, a gesture both of openness to God’s grace and the gift of your hands to God.  Continue to gaze at your chosen photo.  Even though you may feel pressured by the demands of your life right now, try not to hurry this gazing prayer.  Better to gaze for a short time with quiet attention.  As you gaze, be aware of your breathing.  You are breathing in life itself, breathing in God’s peace.  You are breathing out praise and gratitude, breathing out your appeals for help, breathing out your pain and your worries.  Continue gazing at your chosen photo.  And as you gaze, listen.  God is not an idea; gazing praying is not an exercise to improve our idea of God.  Gazing prayer is cultivating your awareness of God’s actual presence.  All you have to do is look—with attention and with intention—and be open to God speaking to you.  As you gaze, rest your eyes on what you see, what draws you, and let it still you.  Though your eyes and thoughts may be drawn elsewhere, bring them back to the picture or image that is the focus of your gazing prayer as often as you need.  Continue gazing and continue to listen.  As you continue gazing, let’s take a moment or two of silence now together…

                   What words of God do you hear? [share aloud]

                   “Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge…God’s voice goes out through all the earth, and God’s words to the end of the world.”  Remember, the psalmist’s world was flat (that’s what science said at that time), and so the message in this psalm is that all beings and elements and particles of nature are mouthpieces for the Divine.  From one end of the earth to the other, day and night, high and low, tiny and magnificent…God’s messages are there for our noticing.  And gazing prayer helps us notice.  Product warning here: I suggest you not practice gazing prayer while you’re driving J, but do find ways to practice one or two stealth gazing prayer sessions this week.  Maybe on a walk, or while seated at a window in a restaurant waiting for your meal, or in the middle of your work day.  Take a deep breath.  Look around you and fix your gaze on something that catches hold of your soul.  Then gaze.  And listen.  And gaze some more.  Breathe in and out and attend to God’s message for you.

 

Amen and Blessed Be

“Praying as Fools”

A meditation based on Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

March 4, 2018

Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista

Dr. Sharon R. Graff

* * * * *

                   Remember last week’s Psalm?  It began with “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?”  Quoted by Jesus while he was dying and providing a model for us of how to pray when we feel so alone that God seems absent.  Today’s psalm picks up where that one left off.  With God’s steadfast love.  Through every season of each of our lives.  God is there with us.  Period.  And that presence—that ongoing ever-loving presence—is what the Bible calls “hesed” the Hebrew words for steadfast love. 

                   But as is often the case in biblical translation, the phrase “steadfast love” doesn’t begin to describe the “hesed” quality of God.  Think of hesed more as “loving-kindness” “kindness” or “love.”  Hesed is the central value in Jewish ethics and Jewish theology, as well as being a common description of God’s love for humanity.  Hesed is understood to be the foundation from which we—and God—acts in faithfulness.  So, if you see God at work in your own life—past or present—you can be assured that hesed is at the core of God’s actions toward you.  Whatever God does for you and with you and because of you is done from the foundation of hesed.  And, by extension, since we are created in God’s image, our actions to help make the world a better place, those actions are also to be rooted in hesed.  Loving-kindness.  Compassion.  Love that neither wants nor expects anything in return.  Love that is solely for the benefit of the other. 

                   In the traditional ethical literature of Jewish thought, hesed is one of the three primary virtures.  One famous Rabbi taught, “The world rests upon three things: Torah, service to God, and bestowing kindness.”  Another Rabbi stated, “The Torah begins with hesed and ends with hesed.”  When one is working and thinking and acting from a place of hesed, they: 

• love God so completely that they never forsake God’s service for any reason
• they provide a child with all the necessities of sustenance, and they love that child
• they visit and heal the sick
• they give charity to the poor
• they offer hospitality to strangers
• they attend to the dead
• they make peace between enemies

Hesed, as practiced by humans, is a very tall order!  Hesed, as seen in God, is what we have come to appreciate and expect in the Divine!

                   So this psalm we’ve read today begins with hesed.    God’s steadfast love.  Let’s look at it once again on the screen.  From there, the psalmist reminds the people of God that they aren’t the only ones whom God loves.  People from east and west, from north and south, all of those are God’s daughters and God’s sons.  Often when the Bible is expansive like this, using hyperbole to make its point, we can understand that the scripture writer really really REALLY wants us to get this point.  God loves ALL people.  Just as much as God loves you.  That truth is as difficult to swallow today as it was several thousand years ago when it was first heard.  God doesn’t have favorites.  Not even Christians.  God loves the people who live in the north and in the south and in the east and in the west.  There is no place on earth where God’s hesed is not present.  That hard truth is followed by a lighter one. 

                   The psalmist calls us all “fools!”  Not fools as though we are intentionally dumb.  Fools in the sense of ignorant, limited in what we can see and what we can accomplish, but also fools in the sense of being light-hearted and maybe even a bit self-absorbed.  So the psalmist says we are fools because we bring a lot of our troubles on ourselves, then we cry out to God to save us, then God swoops in to heal and to save us, and then we start the same foolish pattern all over again.  Notice that we fools are not ridiculed for such foolish repetitive behavior.  No, rather, the psalmist returns to hesed—God’s loving-kindness toward all of humanity.  And the psalmist invites us to move away from our foolish patterning, and instead to thank God for saving us once again.  By doing so, we just might not repeat that foolish cycle again, or at least we might take longer this time!  Thank God for God’s hesed…thank God for God’s wonderful works toward humanity…thank God with your sacrifices…and tell with your words and with your actions and even with your singing, tell of God’s deeds with joy!

                   When I study these words of Psalm 107, it brings to mind a type of praying we usually understand to be for others’ benefit.  That is intercessory prayer…when we pray to God for the needs of another person.  Intercession has a stubborn quality to it.  We think of intercessory prayer like that parable of the woman who, late at night, went to the judge to plead her case.  She knocked on his door.  He ignored her.  She kept knocking.  The servants ignored her.  She knocked more and louder and kept banging on that door until her need was addressed. 

                   I think of the young survivors of the recent Florida school shooting.  The very next day, many of them were on a bus to their state’s capital, and within a week, some sat in the White House with our nation’s leaders.  These kids are not going to quit knocking.  And we shouldn’t either.  Whether we’re talking about reasonable gun control or peace in war-torn countries or safe drinking water for Puerto Rico or decent immigration policies for those who simply want a better life for themselves and their families. 

                   The psalmist today invites us to base our prayers in hesed…in loving-kindness, in compassion, base our prayers in love that cares for the other enough to go out of our way to work with them to improve their own situation.  In other words, to be that judge, but without the long wait and the loud banging on the downstairs door.  We can begin to be that embodiment of hesed simply through our prayers of intercession.  Intercession is prayer that pleads with God for the needs of others.  Intercession involves taking hold of God’s will—which we know from today’s psalm to be hesed—and refusing to let go until hesed comes to pass.

                   Yes, intercessory prayer is praying for others.  It is also loving yourself enough to plead to God for your own needs.  Let’s look at that understanding a bit more.  The word “intercede” actually means to intervene, which itself originates from two Latin words that mean “between” and “go.”  Now, as we’re thinking about prayer, we can understand that as “go-between” in the traditional sense of us standing between our loved one and God, praying to God on their behalf, and becoming a sort of bridge for God’s love to pass through us to them.  That is the usual understanding of intercessory prayer. 

                   But through those originating Latin words, we can also understand intercessory prayer as “between…go.”  Two separate actions of placing ourselves in prayer between God and our own needs, talking to God about those needs, and then putting our feet and hands to the work of “go…”  Act.  Move.  Do.  Get up and get going and become part of the embodiment of God’s answer to your own prayer.  This type of self-focused intercessory prayer is particularly effective, I think, when we are trying to rid ourselves of emotional pain or grief or when we’ve hung onto some wrong done to us far too long ago.  You know as well as I do that such hanging on to pain does more damage to us than to anyone else.  But such foolishness can also do serious damage to others.  So interceding, or praying between God and our needs to be pain free, and then getting off our knees and doing something about our situation, that is the kind of intercessory prayer that moves us beyond the traditional and into some new spiritual territory.  Between…Go…in that order!

                   Here, at this table each month we practice such praying…maybe not with prayer words per se…but certainly with our actions.  We say and we hear that, through bread and cup, God is present.  But we don’t leave it at that.  We don’t leave and go home after just hearing those words.  We get out of our seats, we walk a few steps, and we take and dip and eat.  Prayer for nourishment put into action by our own doing.  Between…Go…And in and through both our spoken prayers and our doing prayers—through them all is God’s hesed, God’s steadfast love, God’s loving-kindness, God’s compassion—urging us foolish, light-hearted folk on, to take and eat and become God’s-hesed-flesh-and-blood embodiments right here in San Diego County.

Amen and Blessed Be

“Praying When You Are Alone”

A meditation based on Psalm 22:1-11

February 25, 2018

Community Congregational Church of Chula Vista

Dr. Sharon R. Graff

* * * * *

                   “ELI ELI LAMA SABACHTHANI”

                   These words rang out, dramatically, through the baritone voice of the reader that night long ago.  It was Holy Thursday and a meal had been shared.  Flickering candles extinguished one by one, representing the fleeing disciples of Jesus, as familiar scriptures described that first night when Jesus was left alone.  Friendless.  Beaten.  Abandoned.  One candle only remained lit.  “ELI ELI LAMA SABACHTHANI”  The deep voice rang out a second time, more anguished than the first, and there was absolute stunned silence in that dinner room.  It was as if we, too, were at the foot of the cross, looking up at the withering life of Jesus, feeling his pain as our own, hearing his cries for help from a God who seemed very far away. 

                   Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani.  The echoes of that stark phrase hung in the air that night in a way I hope I will never forget.  Jesus was dying.  God was absent.  And the world, for a moment, stood absolutely deathly still. 

                   How do we pray when we are alone?  Alone, as Jesus was when his friends fled.  Alone, as Jesus was when the deck was clearly stacked against him.  Alone, as Jesus was, save for the frame of the two criminals executed either side of him.  Alone, when it seemed as if God was absent and God’s beloved abandoned. 

                   We pray, no doubt, as Jesus did.  Honest.  Blunt.  No holed barred.  Raw.  More sighs than words.  Tears followed by sobs followed by that same deathly silence.  Being alone, like this, is not pretty.  When we are there, we feel as if there is no relationship—divine or human—that can lift us out of those depths. 

                   Friends, we’ve all been there.  It might have been when the doctor says, “Nothing more we can do…”  Or the phone call comes bearing still more bad news.  Or the son or daughter tells you they have little time left to live.  The aloneness of Jesus on the cross, an aloneness that brought him to the point of quoting Psalm 22, is a state of utter abandonment that is part of the human condition.  And when we are in that state, we pray much like Jesus did. 

                   Eli Eli Lama Sabachthani.  Which translates, from his mother tongue, Aramaic, into these words, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?”  The first words of the psalm we read together just a few minutes ago.  There it is.  Bold.  Bald.  Blunt.  Here, the one praying is left utterly alone, by others—friends and enemies alike—and by God, or so it seems.  And he, or she, prays with a level of courageous honesty right out of the gate.  No “Good Morning, God” or “Blessed Creator” or “Thank you for this day.”  No theological platitudes.  Raw honesty is what God gets from the psalmist today.  And from that raw honesty emerges the pathway that eventually winds around to something that looks like faith and something that sounds a bit like hope.  But faith and hope are not the vehicles this time.  They are the byproduct, and brutal honest prayer the courageous vehicle. 

                   I always find it worthy of note when a person is willing to admit that they get angry with God.  That takes courage…first to be angry…second to admit it.  It’s not that God might not be able to handle our anger—for God certainly can.  It’s that most of us have been taught to be pleasant and proper and polite in the presence of the Creator of the universe.  Yet, it has been my experience, and more importantly, the experience of women and men throughout scripture, that when we feel alone and we are willing to abandon politeness in favor of honesty in our praying, then it is that God ceases feeling so very far away from us. 

                   We can imagine that when Jesus quoted Psalm 22 that day on the cross, it was such an experience. 

My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?  Why are you so far away from helping me?  Why do you not even listen to my groans?  I’m crying out to you each day, and there is no answer from you…I’m crying out to you each night, and yet there is no rest. 

Friends, this is stark praying at its finest.  And from that point of brutal honesty, the psalmist—and Jesus—both show us what it looks like to move forward.  Moving from abandonment to cynicism, the psalmist reminds the seemingly absent God that, in fact, God was present long ago, yet not (apparently) now…  The psalmist, emboldened, claims God is an egotist: holy, sitting on a throne caked with praises, entrusted by the ancestors, saved them even, but not now swooping to save this struggling human.  The psalmist concludes, in that moment of starkly felt abandonment, that he or she must be a worm, unfit for God’s attention.  Oh, he’s getting the attention of others…like Jesus, the psalmist is mocked by all who are there; and having felt this same mockery ourselves, we can well imagine the wagging fingers and the wagging tongues, “Well, if God is any kind of God, where is God now to save you?” 

                   You know, there are many times in the scriptures when God is put to the test of responding to human need in an immediate and specific way.  Now, God, save me now and do the saving this way.  Again, we’ve been there.  We’ve tried, time and time again, to snap our fingers and wave God into action on our behalf and, more immediately and with more passion, we’ve tried to snap God into action for those we love.  Those first eight verses of Psalm 22—quoted by Jesus from the cross, and quoted countless times over the centuries since they were first written—they are all about praying while abandoned, praying when we are alone.  And these prayers include brutal honesty, bold cynicism, courageous anger, righteous resentment, and even abject self-loathing. 

                   But that is not the end of the prayer when we feel alone.  For after that display of brutal honesty, as the psalmist calls out God for God’s seeming absence and lack of caring, I can imagine between verses eight and nine a very long pause.  Another sort of deathly silence, in which the death of self-loathing and the death of God’s absence and the death of the power of public mocking are themselves abandoned. 

                   For the psalm turns at that point. 

“You reached into the womb and brought me to birth…You kept me safe and nourished as a baby at my mother’s breast…and ever since my birth, you have been my God…” 

These are such tender images, powerfully life-giving descriptions of this same God who, a moment ago seemed absent, and now is as close as our own mother’s heartbeat gently lulling us to sleep as we eat.  To that God—Mother, Father, Holy Presence—the psalmist then whispers, “Do not be far from me.  Trouble is near.  There is no one else to help.” 

                   Again, imagine Jesus, willing to call God out for leaving him alone on the cross, willing to courageously pray through the aloneness, willing to pause, and in that pause, willing to entertain images of a God who was and may be again, present even in the aloneness.  That is powerful, honest, courageous praying.  It is praying that keeps praying through the pain and with the voice of pain.  It is praying that allows silence to do the heavy lifting.  And on the other side of that silence, on the other side of those sobs, on the other side of that cynicism, on the other side of even calling out God for God’s seeming absence, this is praying that moves us forward on our journeys of faith. 

                   Every time I’ve prayed like this, something good has followed.  Something so good I could not even have imagined it, nor could I have brought it into being.  Every time in scripture when we encounter this type of praying, something good follows.  Something healthy.  Something unpredictably surprising and life-giving. 

                   Today, the psalmist teaches us a stark and real part of the human condition.  Bad things happen to good people.  And when they do, we good people sometimes blame God, even as we look to God to save us.  We are not to be faulted for being this human.  We are to be kind to one another and, most especially, kind to ourselves.  For everyone in this room—and everyone out there—is carrying some sort of burden that makes them, at times, feel abandoned by God and alone in the world.  And when we feel that sense of aloneness, we can turn our anger toward the One who has promised to love us no matter what and no matter where and no matter who we are in that raging moment.  God can handle my anger and yours, my sisters and brothers.  And God can make of that anger a passionate tapestry of our memories…a tapestry of scene after scene from our own lives when God has been there for us and with us. 

                   God can make of our honest praying a whisper that dares to be heard, “Do not be far from me.  Trouble is near.  There is no one else to help.”  And from that whisper we begin to hear the sounds of resurrection once again.

 

Amen and Blessed Be

 

“Mountain Climbing”
A meditation based on Mark 9:2-9 (NRSV)
February 11, 2018
Rev. Victoria Freiheit
This is the day in the Christian year set aside for mountain climbing—I’ll bet you didn’t
know that. This is the day we set aside to climb Mount Sinai with Moses and the
Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and three of his disciples. Are there any
mountain climbers in the congregation today? Many people are into mountain
climbing and claim it is quite exhilarating. Other, however, have a fear of heights and
say, “I wouldn’t go mountain-climbing for love nor money.”
Willie and I recently read Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods.” His description of
walking the Appalachian Trail left us wondering why anyone would do it. After only a
couple of days he compares hiking with a 40-pound pack to the time you were at the
zoo and little Jimmy was too tired to walk so you put him up on your shoulders. For a
couple of minutes it is actually fun—you pretend like you are going to tip him off, or
you walk his head toward some low-lying object before veering off at the last instant.
But then, little Jimmy starts getting heavy. You feel a twinge in your neck, a
tightening between your shoulder blades, and the sensation seeps and spreads until it
is decidedly uncomfortable, and you announce to little Jimmy that you’re going to
have to put him down for awhile. The 40-lb. pack is like two little Jimmys, but inert. I
remember when I was going down the Grand Canyon with the Sierra Club, and I
practiced with every heavy thing I could think of in my backpack. When I would get
back to the car after a hour or so of practice, I’d lift that pack off and I felt like I could
fly—that burden off my back was wonderful.
People go mountain climbing all the time—even higher than the Appalachians.
Leonardo Diaz was climbing at 12,000 feet in the Andes when got stranded in a
blizzard near the top. True story—he tried to call out , but couldn’t as he had already
used up all his prepaid minutes on his cell phone. But he was saved two hours later
when his cell phone company called him to ask if he would like to buy some more
prepaid minutes. “It was the work of angels,” he said–he was rescued 7 hours later.
Few scenes are more dramatic in the Bible than the one about Moses’ journey to the
mountain where he received the Ten Commandments. The writer of Exodus says it
like this: “Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.
The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on
the seventh day God called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the
glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the
people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was
on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.” 60 years ago Cecil B. DeMille’s 10
Commandments movie was pretty graphic. But, I wonder what a modern film-maker
could do with that scene, given all the special effects that film-makers use today.
Many years later Moses makes another appearance on another mountain. It is the
Mount of Transfiguration. This time it is Jesus who is mountain climbing. He takes
with him Peter, James and his brother John. When they get to the top of the
mountain the Gospel of Mark tells us “that Jesus was transfigured before them. And
his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And
there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
“Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three
dwellings, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say
for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them and from the cloud there
came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’ Suddenly, when they
looked around, they saw no one with them any move, but only Jesus. As they were
coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen,
until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”
I’ll bet, in all your mountain-climbing days, you never had an experience quite like this.
Yes, I know, you have had mountain-top experiences—so have I. Maybe even not on
a mountain-top, but at the beach, or at a sunset, or at a time of deep prayer while
driving in the car on a lonely road. Those times were times of worship for you, for me.
The Transfiguration was a time of worship. Mark tells us that the disciples were
terrified. And why not? They had known Jesus as their good buddy, their rabbi, their
teacher. Suddenly they discovered they hadn’t even scratched the surface of who
Jesus is. They were standing in the presence of God, and did not know what to say,
for they were terrified. I imagine this was particularly hard for Peter, as he usually had
something to say about everything. And Peter doesn’t disappoint this time either—he
said that whole thing about the three dwellings.
In the Bible it says that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Do you
think it means that we should be cowering in fear? I think fear, in this case, is more of
a feeling of awe, of knowing that we may be made in the image of God, but we are
not God. And never will be. As humans, we can do wondrous things—we can land
on the moon, build dams to hold back millions of gallons of water, communicate with
each other across the world in seconds. But we are not God. And never will be.
We can go up a mountain and have a wonderful experience. We may even want to
build something on that mountain to commemorate our experience. And if we are
wise, we will worship God on that mountaintop. The fear of the Lord is when we know
we are so powerfully in God’s presence that we are awed, and we feel unworthy.
Discovering true worship is one of the great needs that each of us has whether we
are conscious of it or not.
I’ll tell you a story about worship. Craig Larson remembers when “the world watched
as three gray whales were icebound off Point Barrow, Alaska. Under the ice, they
floated, battered and bloody, gasping for breath at a hole in the ice. Their only hope:
somehow to be transported five miles past the ice pack to the open sea. Rescuers
began cutting a string of holes for them to breathe—about 20 yards apart in the sixinch-
thick ice.”
Can’t you just visualize those three whales seeing light and going toward it to breathe,
over and over again, mile after mile. One didn’t make it. But the whales Puto and
Siku swam to freedom with the help of the Russian icebreakers. In a way, Craig
Larson reminds us, “worship is like a string of breathing holes that God provides
God’s people. Battered and bruised in a world frozen over with greed, selfishness,
and hatred, we rise for air in church, a place to breathe again, to be loved and
encouraged, until that day when the Lord shatters forever that ice cap.” What is your
personal experience of breathing feely in church, like nowhere else you have ever
been? What is your experience of worship, of awe, of the fear of the Lord?
The Transfiguration was not only a time of worship, it was a time of discovery. A
time of discovery for the disciples, when they had a whole new understanding of who
Jesus is. He had been their teacher, their friend, their inspiration. But nothing could
have prepared them for this experience on the mountain. You know that it is always
difficult to judge a person by a casual relationship with them. People can fool you.
An illustration of this is about a businessman who checked into a fancy hotel in a big
city. The next morning, the maid came to clean his room. He was brusque, almost
unkind with her. He felt justified, after all, he was well paid and successful; and she
was just the maid—poorly educated, poorly paid—a lowly hotel maid. What he didn’t
know was that this maid spoke five languages. She had her Ph.D. She had friends
back in her home country who were outstanding people in government and the arts.
But she was forced to flee her country and seek asylum in this land. And the only
place she could find employment was as a maid in this hotel. This businessman, who
was treating her like a mere object, could not touch her intellect or her abilities. We
make superficial judgments about people without knowing the whole story. The
disciples were still learning who Jesus was. They were on the mountain with their
friend Jesus, but amazingly also with them was Moses and Elijah. Then they heard,
“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” This was a time of discovery for them.
The three disciples were confronted by Christ’s deity. They knew they were on holy
ground. It was a time of discovery and a time of worship. And one thing more: it was
a time of defining who they were and what they were all about. Peter wanted to
build three dwellings, one for Christ, one for Moses and one for Elijah, and stay there
on the mountain. We can appreciate that. What a grand experience—a tough act to
follow, as they say. Who would wish for the madness of the world after being in the
splendor of the divine presence?
When I first met Willie he told me about a retreat he went on in the mountains north of
Los Angeles. It was a silent retreat in a monastery. He said how hard it was to come
down to the city and be in the traffic, the noise, the workaday world of conflict–major
and minor. He wanted to turn around and go back up the mountain.
You and I face the same temptation. We might prefer to spend all our time here in the
house of God where we are loved and where we feel the assurance that comes from
faith in God. But that is not who we are and it is not what we are called to do. Jesus
led the disciples back off the mountain and into a life of service—a service of teaching
and healing and showing compassion for all people.
It is easy to delude ourselves that by coming to worship once a week, we have
fulfilled our commitment to Christ. Worship is where we prepare ourselves for service
outside these walls. In 2001, Allison Levine led the first all-woman team to climb Mt.
Everest. The reason Allison is such an inspiring leader is that for most of her life she
was unable to take on physical challenges. She was born with a heart defect. She
never played sports because any exertion would cause her heart to jump out of its
regular rhythm. But she became a dedicated athlete after surgery at the age of 30
when they repaired that heart defect.
Allison agreed to lead the Mt. Everest expedition on one condition, that it be a fundraiser
for good causes, like cancer research or building girls’ schools in Nepal. She
didn’t want to climb Mt. Everest for her own or the team’s glory; she wanted to give
back to the less fortunate. She said, “What’s the point of taking risks if nothing
changes on the earth below.”
I couldn’t have said it better. What’s the use of climbing mountains if when we come
down we are still the self-absorbed jerks as we were when we went up? Jesus is calling
us to leave this worship service committed to living a life of service. He does not
call us to come out of the world, but to serve the world even as he served the world.
An old story tells of a Congregational man who visited a Quaker meeting. People
were sitting in silence. He whispered to the person next to him, “When will the service
start?” The person replied, “After the meeting is over.” The time spent on the
mountain was a time of discovery for the disciples. It was also a time of worship—a
time of meeting God. After the meeting was over though, it was time for the service to
begin–as it is with us. Our time of worship is nearly over. Let the service begin.