Waiting and Watching
John Wilkinson
Third Presbyterian Church June 29, 2003
Psalm 130
“Are you getting away this summer?” That question has seemed
to replace, if only for the briefest of moments, questions inquiring
about our feelings regarding the snow. Though it seems like
the last snowflake melted only days ago, and the next is just
around the corner, inquiries about summer plans are in order.
School’s out, surf’s up, Seabreeze and its hundreds of counterparts
are open for business.
It is a theological question as well as a mannered one, and
that’s the origin of this morning’s conversation. Inquiring
about one’s summer plans demonstrates a hint of interest in
another’s well-being, coupling that with hopes that a little
“R and R,” as it were, will benefit the body, mind and soul.
Ministers seem anxious about the summer plans of others because
they want to make sure that their own are blessed! Plus, they
don’t want to feel so guilty abut beginning to schedule committee
meetings in the fall, as if time in the Smoky Mountains or Disney
World can gird anyone for a committee meeting, regardless of
your level of rejuvenation.
But it is more theological than that. It is biblical. Our two
best models for it are clear and powerful. God created the world
in six days and then rested on the seventh – as Jesus would
tell us later, not because God needed the resting but because
God sought to model for us creatures the necessity to take a
break from it all. Sabbath, it was called, and still is.
We have, for the most part, lost its sense. Some of us grew
up with “blue laws,” when things closed on Sundays. Now you
can buy pretty much everything pretty much anytime, an example
that I, as one who gets annoyed when one can’t, should not feel
quite so pleased with.
Even Jesus needed Sabbath. Many of the key Gospel moments happen
just after Jesus had retreated for a brief while. He went away
to pray, to contemplate, to become renewed for the work to which
he was called. Perhaps that’s why a holiday should really be
a holy day.
One of the lessons in all this, of course, is that Sabbath
needs to come on a regular basis, and not just once a year in
something called “vacation.” The human life was created by its
creator with a sense of rhythm about it. We are not Energizer
bunnies. We are “frail children of dust,” as the old hymn goes,
and such frailty needs tending to, despite our Type A, hyper-Calvinist
tendencies.
And we are Calvinists. We do have work to do – serious, important,
demanding work – that seeks to make the sovereign God known
in a broken and fearful world. But such work cannot be done
faithfully, effectively and with integrity if the workers have
not their stamina renewed, and if their lives do not reflect
the very rhythm of creation that God called into being.
And so, whatever your summer plans, I hope that they bring
a sense of recreation and re-creation, that the garden of your
own soul is nurtured in some way, that it may blossom and thrive,
all to God’s glory.
This morning’s appointed psalm, Psalm 130, suggests that kind
of rhythm, and so much more. Psalm 130 offers an extraordinary
witness to the human spirit and to God’s steadfast love. The
biblical scholars are in general agreement that this poetic
hymn, or “hymnic” poem, is a “song of ascent,” sung by the Israelite
people as they approached Jerusalem. It suggests the very rhythm
of life itself, order from chaos, healing from pain, love from
hate, life from death. It is a demonstration of the human spirit,
of perseverance and hope.
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.” Out of the depths.
We can only imagine what those depths might have been, but we
can certainly imagine that the psalmist spoke with an authority
greater than merely one voice.
Out of the depths. Clinton McCann (New Interpreter’s Bible,
page 1204 and ff.) reminds us that all of this had something
to do with “chaotic forces,” destruction and devastation, death
even. The Psalmist speaks with one voice and yet speaks for
many voices. “I cry to you” means “I cry to you,” but it also
means “I cry to you on behalf of this people,” each of whom
has their own chaotic situation which serves as a microcosm
of humanity’s chaotic situation.
We could spend more than a little time exploring what those
depths might be – such would be a healthy enterprise. Perhaps
they would include those things for which we need Sabbath. The
overwhelming nature of our work. The ever-present challenges
of our physical health or our mental well-being. The very real
demands of parenthood. The current state of our emotions about
the current state of the world, plagued as it is by violence
and fracturing. The grief we feel about the death of a loved
one.
Out of the depths I cry, we cry, to God. This is perhaps the
best news of the day, of our very lives. Not that chaotic forces
are an every-day and fully anticipated aspect of our life, and
our life together, but that we have the ability and are offered
the invitation to articulate our pain, our heartache, our anxiety
and fear, even our despair for the world.
“Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice.”
And God does hear our voice. The psalmist believes that with
the deepest belief imaginable, and we do the same.
O God, you will open your ears to me, to us. You will listen
to what we have to say, and receive it. And rather than judge
us or dismiss us, you will forgive us and seek to redeem us.
