The Waking Dreamer: Book of Psalms

Showing posts with label Book of Psalms. Show all posts

Thursday, June 11, 2026

The Power of God's Love

The Power of God’s Love

Psalm 8, Matthew 28:16-20[1]

We have a complicated relationship with power. On the one hand, we seem to be fascinated with those whom we consider to be the most “powerful” people. Even to the point that our admiration can at times approach a kind of “worship.” There are many powerful people in this world who have an almost “cult” like following among their fans. On the other hand, we seem to be inherently distrusting of power. Especially when we believe someone is abusing their power. Anytime someone in power “bullies” those who are more vulnerable, we think of it as an abuse of power. And in our world we may see that kind of thing so often that we become distrusting of all power, regardless of how it’s used.

Our Scripture lessons for today speak to us about God’s power. The creation story in Genesis portrays God’s power to simply “speak” all things into existence. That’s a kind of power that most of us may want, but I dare say none of us would use well. But God most certainly used it well. That’s the point of the refrain that occurs throughout the creation story: “and God saw that it was good.” God used his extraordinary power to create a world and all the living things in it that was not only “good,” but indeed “very good,” as God observes at the end of the process (Gen 1:31). It may be hard for some people to imagine even God using that magnitude of power for good, but that’s precisely what the Bible teaches us! God always uses his power for good!

In our reading from the Psalms, we find this perspective on God’s power confirmed. Like many of us, the Psalmsinger found himself confronted by the majestic power of the God who created all the heavens and the earth simply with a word. I would say that the more we understand about how vast this cosmos really is, the more we are confronted by God’s majesty and power in creation. Even in ancient times, a simple glance at the night sky led the Psalmsinger to wonder, “what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:4). And yet, despite the fact that he frames his faith in the form of a question, we shouldn’t overlook the affirmation that lies behind it: God is mindful of us all; God does care for us, both deeply and continually. That is also the nature of God’s power!

The Psalmsinger had good reason to believe this. It’s the heart of what Hebrew Bible affirms about God: “I am the Lord God. I am merciful and very patient with my people. I show great love, and I can be trusted” (Exodus 34:6, CEV). It is the revelation God gave to Moses in the “cleft of the rock” when he asked to see God’s glory. And it echoes like a refrain throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, because it is the truth that serves as the foundation for biblical faith. The message of the Scriptures is that God’s power points us to the fact that God loves us with a love that will never let us go. It may be difficult for us to grasp, but the truth of our Scripture lesson is that we are constantly surrounded by the love of the God who is powerful enough to create all things simply by speaking the word. As one of our affirmations of faith puts it, the Bible leads us to believe in a God whose love for us is “powerful beyond measure.”

We see this theme of power reflected a little differently in our Gospel reading for today. It’s the story of Jesus’ final appearance to his disciples according to Matthew. When he appeared to them on a mountain in Galilee, he said something that would have been startling for them. And it should still catch our attention today: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18). We’re used to hearing that language because it’s part of the “Great Commission.” But in that day, “all authority” belonged to God. Any human being claiming “all authority in heaven and on earth” would have been viewed as directly contradicting God’s authority. In fact, there are many in our world to this day who struggle with the image Jesus as having “all authority in heaven and on earth.”

I think what made the difference is that it was the risen and living Jesus who made this startling claim. They had seen him die, and they had seen him alive more than once after he rose from the dead. It was the resurrection that confirmed that this authority had come from God. I think we could say that Jesus received this authority in response to the fact that he had “fulfilled all righteousness” as Matthew’s Gospel puts it (Mt 3:15), or in other words that he had carried out God’s plan to “set right” all things and all people by his death and resurrection. Because of that, God himself gave this authority to Jesus. So it is that, in the New Testament, there is no contradiction whatsoever between the affirmation that all authority belongs to God, and that God has given that authority to Jesus Christ.

One reason for that is because Jesus uses that authority to carry out God’s purpose in the world. That’s not something we expect these days. It goes against the norm in our day. In our world, “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[2] That’s the way we view power. Many of those who have the most power in our day use it to benefit themselves. But Jesus used the authority given to him by God not for his own benefit, but to extend the peace, justice, and freedom of God’s kingdom to all people. And he continues to use that authority to fulfill God’s work of “making all things new” (Rev 21:5). And at the end of it all, Paul said that Jesus would surrender all authority back to God, so that God “will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere” (1 Cor 15:28, NLT), bringing the new life of God’s kingdom to everyone and everything!

I think the point of all this was to inspire confidence in those of us who follow Jesus in a world that is set against God’s authority and power, in a world that remains set against the peace, justice, and freedom of God’s kingdom to this day. We see that opposition almost daily. Part of the assurance that God’s love triumphs in this world through Jesus lies in the promise that “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). Yes, we live in a world where the work of God’s kingdom isn’t complete. Yes, we live in a world where people continue to abuse power for their own benefit, and they hurt innocent people in the process. But rather than letting that cause us to doubt God’s purpose, or cause us to question Jesus’ power and authority, we can be confident because Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord is the one to whom God has entrusted “authority, honor, and sovereignty over all the nations of the world” (Dan 7:13, NLT). And with that authority, Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord rules right now over “everything in heaven and on earth, everything seen and unseen” (Col 1:16, NLT). And the promise is that “His rule is eternal—it will never end” (Dan 7:14, NLT).

When we get caught up in what’s happening around us in this world, we can easily lose sight of all this. We can wonder where God’s rule, God’s power, and God’s authority are in this world. It’s still there! Jesus the Christ and our Savior and Lord is reigning with “all authority” at the right hand of God, right now! And he promised that he would be with us until the end of the age, continuing to fulfill the promise of God’s kingdom with the authority and power that God has given him. And part of the promise is that the power of God’s love will never fade. The promise is that the rule of love that Jesus carries out in our lives now will never end. One day, the power of God’s love, the rule of love that Jesus carries out in our lives now will extend to all people and encompass everything. On that day, then the whole creation will return to where it was in the beginning, when God “spoke” it into being, and everything was “very good.”

[2] Famously penned by Lord John Dalberg-Acton, Letter to Mandell Creighton (5 April 1887), referring to the declaration by Pope Pius IX of the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility. He said, “I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. … Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. … There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which … the end learns to justify the means.” Cf. Historical Essays and Studies, by John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (1907), edited by John Neville Figgis and Reginald Vere Laurence, Appendix, p. 504. Accessed at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_Acton.

Through Fire and Water

Psalm 66[1]

I find it interesting how popular music changes. What was edgy and “out there” when it first came out becomes more “mainstream” over time. When I was younger, “protest songs” and “rock music” were viewed as “edgy” and “out there.” Definitely so by my parents! But I find it interesting and almost amusing how the “edgy” music of my generation became the “oldies” of my children’s generation, and now some of it is so “tame” it gets played as “elevator music.” One of my favorite musicians from those days is James Taylor. Of course, he’s still around, still making music. But if you look at the progression of his album covers, his image has undergone quite a change. In the beginning, he was something of a defiant representative of the “hippy” counterculture. These days, he looks like any other “Baby Boomer,” and looks like he could be anybody’s grampa! I’m not sure what the James Taylor of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s would have thought of that!

One of my favorite “JT” songs is “Fire and Rain,” which was his first big hit in 1970. It’s a bittersweet song about coming through hardships, including the death of a childhood friend and his problems with addiction, to get to the other side and finding peace and even success. There’s a twinge of regret in the lyrics that I think many of us might be able to resonate with. Life is full of choices that we make, and the longer we live the more we have the chance to reflect on the path that has brought us to where we are. Hopefully, we find peace with that path. But at the same time, we always feel the losses we go through along the way.

Our Psalm reading for today reminded me of “Fire and Rain.” The psalmsinger looks back over the history of Israel’s interactions with God. And, although they had to go through some deeply troubling experiences, including slavery in Egypt, and their oppression at the hands of powerful nations like the Babylonians, they knew God was with them through it all. More than that, they knew God had brought them through it all. In fact, the psalmsinger uses language reminiscent of James Taylor’s song: “we’ve been through fire and water. But you brought us out to freedom” (Ps 66:12, CEB). As a result, the psalmsinger worships God for the “awesome works” he does for us (Ps 66:3-5). More than that, the psalmsinger worships God because his “awesome works” point to the awe-inspiring quality of God’s character. God is the one who “turns the sea into dry land,” so they could cross over from danger into safety. God is the one who reigns over all the nations, and he does so in a way that continues to draw “all the earth” into the song of praise.

This is the God who remains with us to this very day. This is the God who brings us through all that we may have to go through in this life. This God is the one who always hears our prayers, and the one whose “faithful love” for us never fails (Ps 66:20). But as with psalmsinger, it’s not only what God does for us that gives us this assurance, it’s also who God is. A similar passage from the prophet Isaiah expresses it well. It’s Isaiah 43:1-3. The prophet was speaking to the people of Israel while they were still in exile in Babylon. They had not yet come through the “fire and water” into freedom. It may have been all too easy for them to think that God had forgotten about them there (Isa 40:27-31)! But the prophet reminds them that God not only had not forgotten them, but he was with them. Hear how Isaiah says it:

“now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isa 43:1-3).

The God who created them just the way they were, the God who chose them just the way they were, was the same God who was with them wherever they went, and who would bring them through whatever they might have to endure. Even through the fires of adversity, even through the floodwaters of loss and suffering!

That promise through the prophet Isaiah demonstrates the same character of God the psalmsinger celebrates. He’s the one who reigns over all the nations, over all peoples, with “wisdom, power, and love,” as the song says it. And because that is the God who made us all, and the God who chose us all, that God is the one who will draw all the peoples of the earth to worship him for the awesome and awe-inspiring things he has done and continues to do (cf. Rev 15:3!). I realize this is a different way to talk about God. For centuries, the church presented God more as one who threatens to strike us in his anger than as one who promises to bless us with his love. The church has been more interested in detailing exactly what you have to do to “make it” into heaven than in worshipping God in such a way as to draw all people to join in the celebration. The psalmsinger’s words, “All the earth worships you” (Ps 66:4) are both true now and at the same time not yet fully realized. But the idea behind this Psalm, and many other biblical passages like it, is that who God is and what God does is so awesome and so awe-inspiring that it will inevitably draw “all the earth” into the worship of God.

I still remember the first time I noticed this language about “all the peoples of the earth” coming to worship God in passages like this. There are many of them throughout the Bible. It sounded too good to be true. But it’s there, over and over, in the Psalms, and the Prophets, and even in the New Testament. The idea is not that you can do whatever you want to because God is going to “save” you anyway. The idea is that who God is and what God does is so amazing and so awe-inspiring that it will inevitably draw all the earth to worship him! That’s a big promise, and a big hope!

We might wonder what our role is in all of that. I think the psalmsinger suggests at least one answer to that question: our role is to worship God. Some might think that’s a lame answer. But the psalmsinger won’t hear of it. Worship, from the perspective of the Psalms, is not only a way to remember that God is awesome and awe-inspiring. It’s also a way for us to draw others into the experience of God’s awesome and awe-inspiring work. As one commentator suggests, every time we sing “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” we are inviting all who hear to not only remember that Jesus died for them, but also to experience the love that God poured out for us all when Jesus died for us.[2]

When we join together for worship, we do so as those who know that we’re God’s beloved children. We worship as those who know that God loves us, always has and always will. We join together for worship as those who know that God made us just as we are, and he made us for a purpose that only we can fulfill in this world. We worship as those who trust the promise that like Jesus, we’re God’s beloved children, and he is pleased with us just the way we are. And we worship as those who know that this God will always be with us, come what may, even through fire and floodwaters. And as we join together in worship, celebrating the awesome and awe-inspiring God who loves us in this way, we create a place here in this sanctuary where all who join us can feel that all of this just might be true for them as well. As we join together in worship, we create a place where we not only we can feel like we belong, but also and especially where those who may feel “on the outside” of faith can feel like they belong. I would say that in these days of fear and hostility, it’s no small thing to create a place where all people can feel that they belong in God’s love!

[2] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 222.

Monday, May 11, 2026

On This Day

Psalm 118:24[1]

On this day we come together to celebrate the heart of our faith: Jesus who died was raised to life! For those of us who have grown up with it, we accept that Jesus rose again on the third day as the heart of our faith. But none of us has first-hand experience with the resurrection of Jesus. At least not in the same way that his original followers did. They experienced his physical presence after he was raised from the dead. They ate with him. They could touch him. None of us has that kind of first-hand experience with the Easter miracle. But we can experience the risen Lord in our lives “first-hand” in a different way.

We can sense the presence of the Spirit, we can feel Jesus’ call to compassion, and we can enjoy the love of the God who is always with us wherever we go. At the end of the day, I think that’s what our celebration of Easter is about. We may not have the same kind of first-hand experience of Jesus the risen Lord as his disciples did. But we do have Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and in our lives. And we celebrate Easter Sunday because the same Spirit of the risen Christ that the first disciples experienced physically all those years ago lives in you and in me and in all who know his continuing presence.

If you’ve been around here for a while, you may have noticed that I do something different on Palm Sunday. We typically use verses from Psalm 118 for our call to worship. But one of the verses doesn’t sound quite right. It’s the one that usually says, “This is the day that the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That verse has become so much a part of Christian life and worship that some might think it’s going too far for me to tinker with it. But being the student of the Bible that I am, I have to read that verse in the context of Psalm 118 as a whole.

When you do that, when you read the whole of Psalm 118, you find that the Psalm is a celebration of a kind of death-to-life restoration. The psalmsinger speaks of being in distress, of being surrounded on every side (Ps 118:5, 10-11) and being “pushed hard” to the point of falling (Ps 118:13). It sounds like the psalmsinger was engaged in battle and at the point of what must have felt like certain death. It’s in that setting that the psalmsinger affirms, “The LORD is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation” (Ps 118:14). He celebrates that the Lord has delivered him from what may have seemed like certain defeat.

Because of that, the psalmsinger rejoices that “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). That’s the way most English translations put it. But if we pay attention to the context, it seems like there’s more to this verse than just celebrating God’s hand in every new day. The psalmsinger is celebrating a special day of deliverance. And so that verse that’s so familiar to us probably shouldn’t be read as “this is the day the Lord has made.” It probably should be read as a celebration of “the day of the Lord’s victory” (Ps 118:24, GNT), an act so unexpected, so “marvelous” (Ps 118:23) that all we can do is to “rejoice and be glad in what he has done.” And so, in my humble opinion, we should say, “This is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done.”

I think that’s what Easter is about. It’s a celebration that on this day, all those years ago, God acted decisively to break the power of everything that threatens to oppress or distort or destroy our humanity. It’s a celebration that, on this day, God took all our pain and sorrow and suffering and loss and death and turned it into new life. Easter is the celebration that the new life that came into being on that day will one day transform everything and everyone.It’s a celebration that, on this day, God acted to demonstrate that he is constantly working to restore the whole creation to the place where it is once again “very good,” as it was in the beginning. When that happens, “the Lord’s victory” will be complete.

I know all of that may sound very hard to believe, especially in the light of all that’s going on in the world these days. But I believe it’s part of the Easter miracle that began all those years ago. It may sound hard to believe, but our first-hand experience of the risen Christ alive and present in our lives serves as a basis for our faith in the Easter miracle that continues to “this day.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus Christ, the Spirit of Christ is alive and present in all our lives. And so “on this day” we “rejoice and are glad in what he has done.” Because of what God did in and through Jesus, we experience the “marvelous” work of the God who is bringing salvation—grace and peace and mercy and love and joy and new life—into every life. And as we celebrate that “This is the day of the Lord’s victory,” we experience that “marvelous” work of God in our own lives. And so we “rejoice are glad in what he has done.”

In one respect what we celebrate happened a long time ago in a land far, far away. But because we know Jesus’ living presence in our hearts and our lives just as the first believers did, just as faithful people throughout the ages have, we do more than remember what happened on that first Easter. For us, every Easter, indeed every Sunday, becomes a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. Every Easter, indeed every Sunday, is meant to be a celebration of the new life that God has “injected” into this life to transform us all. It’s a day for us to celebrate that “this is the day of the Lord’s victory, we will rejoice and be glad in what he has done!”

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 4/5/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Tuesday, May 05, 2026

Always in God's Care

Always in God’s Care

Psalm 31[1]

This morning I’d like to share with you another of my occasional stories about my experience with a particular passage of Scripture. I’d like to share with you my journey with Psalm 31. Like many of you, I probably first heard the words “Into your hands I commend my Spirit” from the story of Jesus’ death on the cross in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 23:46). My first serious Bible was a King James Version, and it had every verse divided separately, so it was hard to tell when people in the New Testament were quoting from the Old Testament. I soon switched to the New International Version, and they print things differently, so you can tell when someone is quoting from the Old Testament. That’s probably where I first noticed that Jesus was quoting from the Psalm. I don’t remember the exact timeframe for this, but it was a while ago.

I took my first Hebrew class in College, and then I took the required year of Hebrew in Seminary. But I found Hebrew to be harder and more confusing than Greek, and I wanted to try to master it. So I took a “Hebrew Exegesis” class to help level up my skills. It wasn’t until I started digging into the Hebrew Bible more consistently when I was in my mid- to late-twenties that I began to notice some interesting things going on with the language of the Hebrew Bible that weren’t always reflected in the English translations. And I was especially drawn to the Psalms. Along with Isaiah, they’re probably my favorite part of the Old Testament.

A case in point is the English translation of Psalm 31:5, “Into your hands I commend my Spirit.” It sounds like a prayer someone might pray when they’re dying. That’s likely influenced by the fact that Jesus prayed that prayer as he was dying. But just the language of “giving up” one’s “spirit” seems to lend itself to that understanding. When I read the verse with that in mind, I’m not sure I really paid all that much attention to the rest of the Psalm.

It was during the year that I spent living and studying in Germany in 1989-90 that I really began digging into the Psalms. One of the things I discovered about Psalm 31 is that the Hebrew word typically translated in English as “spirit” here refers to the psalmsinger’s whole life. That insight enabled me to read Psalm 31:5 more like “Into your hands I commend my life,” or as the Good News Version we read today puts it, “I place myself in your care.” It helped me see that, at least in the original context of the Psalm this is a prayer for living!

That helped me to hear the words of the whole of Psalm 31 better. A lot of us still have a problem with just lifting out verses of the Bible that we like. The reason that’s a problem is because we’re meant to read the whole Bible. And in this case, that means we’re meant to read Psalm 31 as a whole. The Psalm as a whole is the prayer of a person of faith struggling with the painful and sometimes unfair ways people can treat us. And as I mentioned above, Psalm 31:5 is not a prayer for dying, but a prayer for living with faith in God, no matter. We see that in other ways in the Psalm. The psalmsinger recounts all the hardships of his life, enemies who sought to undo him, the anxiety and sorrow he experienced from opponents. And yet, in spite of all the afflictions he endured, at the end of the day he could pray, “my times are in your hand” (Ps. 31:15). Or, as the Good News Version translates it, “I am always in your care.” With all of that in mind, it’s hard not to conclude that the whole Psalm is a prayer of trust, a prayer of confidence in the “faithful God” (Ps. 31:5). And the prayer “into your hands I commend my spirit” is a motto for living, not a prayer for dying.

In Psalm 31, as in other Psalms, the psalmsinger expresses the decision to entrust his life—his whole life—into God’s hands. That’s not an easy decision to make. Most of us like to keep the “important parts” of our lives in our control. But when try to do that, we learn that there is so much about life that is outside our control. For me, knowing that we can entrust all of that, all the things that seem too big for us, to God’s loving care relieves us of the heavy burdens we try to carry ourselves.

One of the last stages in my journey with Psalm 31 was when I read through the commentary on the Psalms by James Luther Mays in the Presbyterian commentary series called Interpretation. Yes, I did actually read through a whole commentary. I’ve done it more than once! One of the things I like about that commentary is that Mays, who himself was a Presbyterian Old Testament professor, really seems to pull together all the Psalms around some key themes. It helped me to read each Psalm, not as a whole in itself, but in the context of the entire collection of Psalms. And that only reinforced my conviction that the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life” is a motto for living, not a prayer for dying.

One of the things that Mays does is to inform the readers of his commentary how various Psalms have been used not only in the New Testament, but also throughout the history of the church. It should come as no surprise that, following Jesus’ example, a number of prominent Church leaders, including Martin Luther, used this prayer at the end of their lives. But as Mays says in his commentary, “in Hebrew and in the context of the psalm” the prayer is a confession of ultimate “dependence and trust” in God. He adds that this prayer, “Into your hands I commend my life” is essentially “a way of saying in the midst of affliction, ‘It is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I am willing to have it so.’”[2] I find that to be a wonderful way to affirm my trust in God. I think Jesus paraphrased that prayer with his prayer in the Garden, “not my will but thine be done.”

If you think of it, what better place could we ever want to be than in God’s loving care? What more could we want than what God wants for us? That’s what I think about with this prayer, “It is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I’m willing to have it so.” When you put it that way, the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life” really does become a prayer for living. In fact, it has been one of my primary prayers for living for over fifteen years. I haven’t prayed it every day. But I’ve prayed it most days. And many days I’ve prayed it more than once. I think one of the significant spiritual breakthroughs in my life’s journey was when I finally realized that I needed to consciously turn to God and entrust my life, all my hopes and dreams, into his care on a regular basis. This prayer has gotten me through a lot of up’s and down’s in life, and I think it will continue to see me through whatever may come in the future. Telling this story is my way of inviting you to join me in praying the prayer, “into your hands I commend my life,” following Jesus’ example, and the example of many faithful people who have gone before us. It’s a way of entrusting all of our lives into God’s hands. As we do so, may we discover that our lives are always in God’s care, and that there’s no better place we could be.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2026. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/29/2026 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] James Luther Mays, Psalms, 144.

Monday, April 27, 2026

What Joy!

Psalm 32[1]

Christian worship can seem strange to people who aren’t used to it. Especially a traditional service like ours. Everything we do in worship has a reason for it. But because the way we worship was shaped literally centuries ago, it can reflect a mindset that some people just don’t connect with. I think that’s especially the case with our unison “Confession of Sins.” Even if we’re actually praying the prayer as a way of confessing our sins to God, and not just “saying” the words because that’s what comes next in the service, it might seem strange that we all “pray” the same confession. As I said, the way we worship can seem strange to people who may not be used to it.

Some of us these days may be uncomfortable simply admitting that we have sinned. Some of us are even more uncomfortable admitting that we are sinners. But from the biblical perspective, both are true: we have sinned—that relates to our actions. And we are sinners—that relates to who we are. But it’s not something that’s easy for us to admit. Especially out loud. The pride that can lie at the heart of our personal insecurities can also lead us to make our own selves the most important thing in our world. We name that choice “sin” because it means turning away from the love that shapes our true humanity and therefore it means turning away from God.[2]

I think this can be a problem even and especially for those of us in the church all the time. In the evangelical world, people can tend toward the thinking that “I’m saved, I asked Jesus into my heart and confessed my sin on such-and-such a date.” They may feel the need to confess “really bad” actions here and there, but they tend to think that they’ve already confessed to being a sinner. They’ve got that part covered. In our branch of the Christian world, we can tend toward the thinking that “I’m a good person, I go to church, I try to help people and be kind to them, I volunteer my time.” Given all of that, some of us may feel like the demand to confess that we “are” sinners is offensive and even harmful. Rather than confessing our sin, some think we should be affirming that we are good enough just as we are.

In the midst of all this incredibly complicated approach that we have toward the simple fact that we all can do and say things that we regret, the Psalmist in our Scripture lesson for today insists that confessing our sin is something that’s important for our spiritual health and well-being. Despite the fact that this lesson was written before Christ was even born, it still remains a truth of our human existence that when we refuse to acknowledge our wayward behavior, it tends to fester inside us and comes out in all kinds of ways that aren’t pleasant. Pride, anger, and bitterness are just some of the ways that we can behave when we try to repress a feeling of guilt for what we have done.[3]

From the Psalmist’s perspective, refusing to clear his conscience by admitting his wrongdoing made him feel like God’s hand was “heavy” upon him (Ps. 32:4). I think most of us can relate to that “heavy” feeling. And it’s one more clue that we all need the relief and release the Psalmist says comes as a “blessing” when we confess our sin (Ps. 32:1-2). And that is precisely what the Psalmist promises in response to the heartfelt, genuine confession that “I have sinned, and I am a sinner”: relief from the burden of guilt. That’s why the confession of sin is so important. As long as we hold back, as long as we refuse to acknowledge who we really are and what we’ve really done, we will always have lingering doubts about whether God really accepts us as we are. But when we admit our wrongdoing, we find God’s love embracing us, God’s grace abounding, and God’s mercy healing us. More than that, when we come to God with the confession, “I have sinned, and I am a sinner,” and we experience not condemnation or rejection but acceptance and love and forgiveness, we walk away from that experience with a stronger sense of trust in the God whose love for us never fails.

Unfortunately, for too many of us, “confession” is only something we do at the beginning of a worship service. And even then, because we do it every Sunday, in the same way, and at the same time, it can begin to feel like something routine. But for confession to be genuine, it has to be more than a routine. It has to be something that is heartfelt. It cannot be relegated to a few words we mumble on Sunday morning. Ongoing confession is an integral part of the life of faith. If we need to be reminded why it is so important to confess our sin, all we have to do is remember that, as we say in one of our Presbyterian Confessions of faith, it is God’s love poured out for us in Jesus’ death on the cross that exposes our sin.[4] Jesus’ death on the cross shows us that there is something about sin so damaging to us that God felt it necessary to die for us in order to do something about it. If our sin is that serious to God, maybe we should take it more seriously.

The way the New Living Translation of Psalm 32 words our lesson is with the exclamation, “what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven” (Ps 32:1, NLT). It might seem like a strange thing to some of us. We have a difficult and complicated relationship with aspect of ourselves at times. And admitting, even to ourselves, that we have fallen short in some way, can be deeply disturbing. It can challenge our sense of self-worth. But when we take that approach, we let our own pride get in the way of the acceptance that God offers us freely. We’re only harming ourselveds. The very words, “I am a sinner” get caught in our throats as we say them. Yet, they are so important for us to say. Only when we confess—to ourselves, to one another, and to God—that we have done what we regret do we fully experience the joy of God’s unconditional and unfailing love for us.[5] But as the ancient words of Scripture promise, if we’re willing to take that step, we find what people of faith have experienced for millennia. When we confess our sins, we know the joy of being embraced by God’s acceptance and love. A love that claimed us “before the foundation of the world” as Paul says, and a love that will never let us go, world without end! And what joy it is to know that our God loves us in that way. What joy indeed!

[2] Cf. Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, II:50, where he defines sin essentially as “hubris” or pride.

[3] Cf. Karl Menninger, What Ever Became of Sin?, 178: “I believe that all the evildoing in which we become involved to any degree tends to evoke guilt feelings and depression. These may or may not be clearly perceived, but they affect us. They may be reacted to and covered up by all kinds of escapism, rationalization, and reaction or symptom formation.”

[4] Cf. The Confession of 1967, 9.12: “The reconciling act of God in Jesus Christ exposes our sin in the sight of God.”

[5] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 146: “God’s way is to forgive sinners, and we do not acknowledge his grace unless we present ourselves to him as sinners.”

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Is Anyone There?

Psalm 121; Luke 18:1-8[1]

There is a question that has haunted the human family since the beginning. If you look at the religious beliefs and practices through the ages, and if you “read between the lines,” I think you’ll find that question. From ancient times we have wondered whether there is a God, and whether that God cares about us at all. I think this question was even at the heart of the earliest religions, when people worshipped many “gods.” The stories they told themselves about their “gods” betray a fundamental anxiety about our place in the world. The “gods” of ancient mythologies aren’t even good people, let alone “gods”! And underneath it all lies the question whether whatever “higher power” there may “out there” be is able to help us at all, and whether that power cares enough about us to do so.

When science and the church taught that the earth was at the very center of the universe, I think it may have been easier to believe in a God who cares for us. Our relative importance in the whole scheme of things was huge, and we felt more confident about our faith in God. But even in those times, there were catastrophes and tragedies that made people ask that question whether God can really do anything to help us, and whether God cares enough to do so. In more recent days, with our scientific perspective on how small the earth is compared to the rest of universe, I think that question has become even more pressing. At least for some people. Given the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, we can easily question whether there is a God, and whether any God there might be could or would pay much attention to us.

Even in a Christian context, this anxiety has been expressed through a centuries-old question: If God is both loving and all-powerful, how can there be evil in the world? The presence of tragedy in our lives suggests that God loves us but he’s not powerful enough to stop these things from happening. Or it suggests that God is powerful enough to stop them, but since he doesn’t he must not be loving. Although many have tried to address this question, I don’t think any of the “answers” really help. Most of them offer some sort of rational explanation. But that doesn’t really do much for the feeling of anxiety that the traumas and tragedies that life can bring. The only answer to the heartbreaks of life is to find a way to trust that God does indeed have the power to help us and does indeed care enough about us to do so.

Our Psalm for today addresses this question. The Psalmsinger looks to the mountains to try to figure out whether there is anyone there to help. The reason for looking to the mountains is because in ancient times people believed that the “gods” lived in the high places of the world. So when the Psalmsinger looks to the mountains and asks himself where he can find help, he’s looking for God. In this case, looking to the mountains reminds the Psalmsinger that “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth!” (Ps 121:2, NLT). I think at least a part of the meaning here is that God is bigger than any mountain, because God created all the heavens and the earth. The Psalmsinger’s hopes aren’t confined to a so-called a “deity” that lives on a particular mountain. His hope and his help come from the God who made all the heavens and the earth, the whole cosmos and everything in it!

I think there are a couple of linked ideas here that can help us. As powerful as a mountain can appear, God’s power is far greater. I think many of us experience mountains as a display not only of grandeur but also of power. But God’s power is far greater, because God is the creator of all the heavens and the earth. That’s one of the most basic ideas of the Bible. It’s where Genesis begins: God created all the heavens and the earth. And that means whatever you can find in creation or in the whole cosmos that impresses you with its beauty, its grandeur, or its display of power, God’s power is greater. The Psalmsinger reminds himself and us that our faith that the God who created all the heavens and the earth is the God who is our help and our hope means that he most certainly does have the power to help us!

But the other part of the question concerns whether God cares enough to use that power to help us. That’s at least part of the lesson from our Gospel reading for today. In it, Jesus tells a parable about a woman who was a widow, very likely in danger of losing her home because she was at the mercy of a corrupt judge, who had no interest in protecting her. Jesus’s parable tells us that this man doesn’t care about God, and he doesn’t care about people. It seems clear that the only reason he held his position was to enrich himself. But this is no ordinary widow. She persisted relentlessly in demanding that this judge grant her what was rightfully hers, and she kept doing so until she annoyed him! That’s why the traditional title for this passage is “The parable of the importunate widow.” That’s what “importunate” means: demanding what’s rightfully yours and doing until you annoy somebody. That’s what she did. And this corrupt judge confessed, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming” (Lk. 18:4-5)!

One point of this parable is the contrast between the unjust judge and the God whom Jesus demonstrates as gracious, loving, and caring. If a godless, inhumane judge will finally give in to a powerless widow’s unceasing requests for justice, how much more will our merciful and loving God “grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night” (Lk 18:7). And I think the answer is that he will most certainly do so! The promise of God’s justice throughout the Bible is that God will make things right, ultimately if not immediately. But perhaps that’s precisely where the problem lies. We have lots of affirmations in the Bible that God cares about us and will take care of us. We have promises that God will set things right. But life doesn’t always confirm those promises. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. Sometimes bad people do bad things to good people. And when that happens and we cry out to God for help, there are times when when all we can hear is silence. And that experience can leave us wondering whether there’s anyone there. That’s when we come back to the age-old question whether there is a God, and whether that God cares at all about us.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that at times like those, our perspective can get quite narrow. All we can see is the hardship or tragedy or the loss we’re dealing with. And all we can ask is, “Why?” or “How long?”, stuck in our pain and our fears. But in this parable, I think Jesus wants to help us focus our attention elsewhere. He wants to remind us that we believe in a God who is a loving Father who knows what we need, who wants what is best for us, and who is working constantly for our good. And he does all of this despite our inability to understand how our lives are unfolding. There are simply some questions we may never be able to answer. That’s one of the lessons faith teaches us. It’s okay to ask those questions. We just have understand we may never get an answer.

Sometimes people asked Jesus those kinds of questions. In response, Jesus pointed them to the God whose care we can trust in all the circumstances of our lives. Regardless of what we may have to go through here and now, the promise remains: God has all the power he needs to help us, and because he cares for us he will most definitely do so, if not immediately, then ultimately. We see that promise confirmed most clearly in Jesus. Through his life and his example, through his death and resurrection, we learn that God’s love is stronger than anything. The mountains do indeed remind us that God has the power to help us, but the cross and resurrection show us that he cares enough to use that power to help us. When we wonder whether there’s anyone there, we can remember God’s love never gives up, and never will until God accomplishes all the good he has planned for us all, for the whole human family, and for all creation.

Monday, July 21, 2025

Partners

Psalm 8[1]

I think many of us wonder about the meaning of our lives. That’s not just something that we do when we’re young. Through all life’s changes, we can find ourselves wondering what our lives are about. For some of us, we find meaning in our families and our homes. For others, our lives are more geared toward our careers. For others, it’s all about community involvement. For still others, the meaning of life may be focused on the experiences we have the opportunity to enjoy. For many of us, we find meaning in life by trying to balance a combination of these factors. Life’s changes also mean that our quest for meaning in life is a moving target for most of us. At the different stages of life, we can find ourselves wondering “who am I?” and “what is the meaning of my life?”

The psalm singer who wrote our lesson for today reflects on that very question. Like anyone else, the psalm singer apparently was moved by the vastness of the night sky to wonder about our place in all of that. He asks, “When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?” (Ps. 8:3-4, NLT). It’s a common experience to feel a sense of awe when you see the beauty of a clear night that seems so full of stars. And it’s common to wonder at our place in the universe when we feel that sense of awe.

But there are several ways in which the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” are framed in a unique manner by the Scripture lesson. First, the wonder at our place in a universe that can seem overwhelmingly immense is framed by an affirmation that it is God who rules over all of it. The James Webb Space Telescope recently discovered a galaxy that is 45 billion light years away! As our technology has improved our understanding of just how vast the universe is has increased dramatically. It’s only natural that we should wonder at our place in this overwhelmingly immense universe. And yet, the scripture affirms that God rules over all of it! At the beginning and the end of his reflections, the psalm singer affirms, “O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!” (Ps. 8:1, 9, NLT). I think he could have just as easily said “, “O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the whole universe!” The questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” begin and end with the affirmation that God is the one who reigns over all creation. While God’s great majesty may lead us to wonder at our place in things, at the same time, because we are God’s creatures, our lives are by definition endowed with significance.

The second way in which the psalmist frames the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” is by placing them in the context of God’s care for all people. Notice that the psalmist doesn’t simply ask “What are mere mortals?” Rather, he asks, “what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?” (Ps. 8:4). Literally, in the Hebrew Bible the psalm singer wonders why God “remembers” and “visits” mortals. The acts of “remembering” and “visiting” sum up God’s works on behalf of his people Israel throughout the Hebrew Bible. That’s the language of God’s care. God continually made the people of Israel the object of his attention and care. But the psalm singer extends that care to include all mortals, the whole human family. Again, the thought that God pays attention to and cares for every human being is one that we might find so amazing that it’s hard to believe. But the psalm singer insists it’s a vital part of the answer to the questions, “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?”

The third way in which the psalm singer frames these questions is by affirming the dignity of all human beings as partners in caring for God’s treasured creation. He says it this way, “You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority” (Ps. 8:6, NLT). It seems clear that the psalm singer is reflecting here on the description of humanity as a part of creation in Genesis chapter one. Unfortunately, however, the ideas of “ruling” (Gen. 1:26) or having “authority” (Ps. 8:6) over creation have too often been misconstrued. The point is not that this world and all that is in it is ours to do with as we please. Rather it is that we are called to be partners with God in his ongoing project of creation. Yes, there is a sense in which God “rested” on the seventh day from all that he did in creation. But Jesus could say in John’s Gospel that “my Father is working to this day” (Jn 5?), which alludes to the sense in which creation itself is an ongoing project. It can be awe-inspiring in and of itself to think that we mortals have been entrusted with caring for what is most dear to God’s heart: the natural world in which we live and all the people who life in it! In a very real sense, we are partners in the ongoing work of creation by the way in which we do simple things like planting a garden. Those tomatoes that will be turned into pasta sauce and salsa at the end of the season are still growing right now. Some of them are just flowering. That’s creation unfolding right before our eyes. And those who are involved in caring for those gardens are partners in God’s ongoing work of creation. We have all kinds of ways that we can exercise that partnership with God, including recycling and conserving resources.

There are many ways we could approach the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” We could approach them functionally, based on what we do. We could approach them philosophically, or from the perspective of psychology. And those approaches have important lessons to teach us about what it means to live fully as a human being. But from the perspective of the psalm singer, one cannot fully answer the question of the meaning of our lives apart from the God who created us and who reigns over all things.

It is fitting on this Trinity Sunday, the day when we remember that we worship the God who is not remote, but rather became one of us in order to redeem us, and who is with us through the Spirit’s continual presence, that we remember we are the objects of God’s unfailing love and care. Always and continually. That has a lot to say about who God is: not a God who is distant and absent, but a Creator who takes great delight in every detail of creation, including the flowers that will become tomatoes and peppers and zucchini our gardens. We see that in Jesus our Savior, and in the work of the Spirit as well. But the fact that God takes such great interest in us also has a lot to say about who we are: we are an important part of God’s project. All 8.2 billion of us are beloved and cared for by the God who is beyond the vast universe. However we answer the questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?”, we cannot leave God’s love out of the equation. God loves us all, and that’s a very important part of answering the questions, “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of my life?” We are not “mere” mortals who live out our short lives with no significance, but rather we are partners with God in the ongoing project of creation and redemption. I think all of this challenges us to take our place joyfully in the ongoing work of creation and redemption as God’s partners. And we do that as we hold firmly to our confidence that God cares for us, and that we are valued, perhaps beyond our imagination.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Forsaken?

Psalm 22[1]

On Sunday we talked about the prayer that Luke’s Gospel places on Jesus’ lips as he was dying: “into your hands I commend my spirit” (Ps 31:5). I mentioned how hard it is for us to understand that as a prayer entrusting all of life into God’s hands because it has become associated with Jesus’ death. Our Psalm for this evening, Psalm 22, is equally difficult for us to hear for the same reason. Matthew and Mark recount Jesus’ final cry with the words of Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 26:6; Mk 15:34). They actually report variations of the Aramaic words Jesus used: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” But because Matthew and Mark associated those words with Jesus’ death, we tend to hear them as a cry of desperation, not a cry of faith.

I’ve chosen this as the final Psalm in our series on “Faith in the Psalms” for this very reason. Because while the cry, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” in Psalm 22 clearly express the anguish of the psalm-singer, it is not a cry of desperation, but most definitely one of faith. The same person who asks at the outset, “why have you forsaken me?” can also affirm that God “has not forgotten those who are hurting. He has not turned away from their suffering. He has not turned his face away from them. He has listened to their cry for help” (adapted from Ps 22:24, NIRV). And yet, I think that initial cry, “why have you forsaken me?” haunts us all at times. We wonder whether God might actually abandon us in our time of greatest need.

Again, I would say that fear is actually engendered by the way we’ve heard Jesus’ cry from the cross. The prospect that God abandoned Jesus at the moment when he fulfilled his commitment to God’s purpose most completely is hard for us to process. I think Jesus knew he had to give up his life. And yet he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” I think Jesus trusted that God would raise him from the dead. And yet he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” What troubles us about all this is the question where God was while Jesus was hanging on the cross and crying out in anguish.

I know the standard response: “God had to turn away because Jesus took all the sin of the world on himself, and God cannot look upon sin.” That just doesn’t cut it. It never has for me. How can we find any meaning in the promise elsewhere in Scripture that “I will never abandon you” (Dt 31:6; Josh 1:5; Heb 13:5) if God abandoned Jesus on the cross? And yet the question still haunts us: where was God during the awful silence that followed Jesus’ prayer, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”? It is a prayer after all, addressed to God. Jesus wasn’t just acting out some sort of elaborate play. This was the real thing. And when the agony of the cross overwhelmed him, Jesus cried out one of the most heartbreaking prayers of the Bible. And God’s response was … ? Actually that’s precisely the question. What was God’s response? Did God really forsake Jesus on the cross?

Maybe we’ve been looking at this in the wrong way all along. We tend to equate silence with abandonment. But maybe that’s not what’s going on at all. Sometimes we’re silent with those who are suffering because we’re suffering with them. I believe that’s where God was; rather than abandoning Jesus, God was right there, experiencing all the anguish that heartbreaking prayer expresses.[2] God was silent because God was suffering with Jesus. To some of us it might seem even more deeply unsettling that God would allow himself to become so apparently powerless and weak.

Again, I think it depends on how we look at it. The Scriptures tell the story of how, time and again, God reveals his power in precisely in weakness.[3] This is a mystery as deep and as hard to explain as any in the Bible. In the moment when Jesus uttered that heart-rending cry, God made it clear once and for all that his suffering has become our redemption, that his apparent weakness was actually his powerful love transforming all creation. Yet it also communicates the absolutely essential truth that God suffers with us. Especially when God is silent. Especially when we may think God has abandoned us! In fact, I would say that’s one of the lessons of Psalm 22: God is with all who suffer. He never abandons anyone. And his presence with us, his support for us is so real that God actually suffers with us when we’re suffering. I think that’s what Jesus’ cry on the cross teaches us. I think that’s also what Psalm 22 teaches us.

I think it’s also important, however, to notice that the psalm-singer expresses his faith in God in the form of a question. And it’s certainly not a question we might use in prayer to God! It has an edge on it: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest” (Ps. 22:1-2). That’s quite a question to put to God in prayer! Most of us probably wouldn’t feel comfortable being that “in your face” with God. But not only did the psalm-singer ask that question, so did Jesus! And they’re not the only ones. Prophets and sages and spiritual guides from Bible times to the present day have expressed their faith in God by asking what we might consider to be “impolite” or maybe even “irreverent” questions. It might seem like “expressing faith” and asking “irreverent” questions of God couldn’t possibly go together. But I think that’s one of the lessons of Psalm 22: when we feel abandoned by God and we wonder where God is, it doesn’t threaten God at all to be that honest with him in our suffering!

But the psalm-singer discovered what Jesus knew when he made that cry: God is with all who suffer. Prophets and sages and spiritual guides throughout the ages have discovered the same truth: God is the one who’s on the side of those who suffer, all who suffer. Again, the psalm-singer says it this way: God “has not forgotten those who are hurting. He has not turned away from their suffering. He has not turned his face away from them. He has listened to their cry for help” (Ps 22:24).[4] I particularly like the way Gene Peterson puts it in The Message: “He has never let you down, never looked the other way when you were being kicked around. He has never wandered off to do his own thing; he has been right there, listening.” And I would add: “and suffering every bit as much as you, maybe even more”!

As we bring our discussion of “Faith in the Psalms” to a conclusion, it seems to me one of the most important lessons for us to learn is that God is always “God-who-is-with-us.” Most particularly when we are suffering. God is always the one who is giving us the strength to go on, always the one who is comforting us in our sorrows, always the one who raises us up when we fall, always the one who hears our every cry for help. That is the lesson of the Psalms. God is the one who never abandons us, even and especially in the worst of the pain we may have to undergo in this life. And his presence with us, his support for us is so real that God actually suffers with us. The lesson of the cry that opens this Psalm, the lesson of Jesus’ cry from the cross, is that we are never, ever forsaken by God!

[2] In several of Jürgen Moltmann’s works he holds in tension the idea that Jesus died a “God-forsaken” death together with the idea that Jesus was never more closely aligned with God’s will than when he died on the cross. He resolves this tension in different ways in several of his works, but in The Way of Jesus Christ, 173, he says that far from being unconcerned about what was happening, far from abandoning his Son, “in the surrender of the Son the Father surrenders himself too.”

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV:244-48. Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, 205: “God is not greater that he is in this humiliation. God is not more glorious than he is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is in this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humanity.”

[4] Cf. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” New Interpreters Bible IV: 764: “The affliction is still very real, but the affliction itself has somehow become an answer (v. 21b). What the psalmist now affirms is that God is present with the afflicted.”

Before We Know To Ask

Before We Know to Ask

Psalm 31:1-5, 9-16[1]

Trust is a precious commodity these days. It seems the more divided we become as a people, the less we’re willing to risk trusting anyone. Many of us live by the motto, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” We’re just wired that way. Self-reliance has been a virtue for generations, since long before Emerson wrote an essay about it.[2] We believe in pulling ourselves up by our own “bootstraps.” And that can make it difficult to trust—really trust—anyone. After all, making the choice to trust someone, anyone, means taking the risk that our trust will be broken. It’s simply one of the costs of living fully. It’s much easier to withdraw into our protective shell and isolate from anyone who might hurt us in any way. But if we want to experience the full spectrum of what it means to live this human life, we’ll have to learn to trust.

I think our general attitude about trusting anybody for anything rubs off on our ability to trust God. As we’ve seen in our journey through the Psalms during Lent, the psalm-singers framed trusting God as a matter of relying on God wholly and completely for every aspect of our lives. That cuts directly against the grain of our self-reliance. From my perspective, trusting God means acknowledging that there’s nothing we can do to come up with a better version of our past. It means accepting our lives just as they are in the present moment. And it means entrusting our future entirely into God’s hands. It’s hard to do that when we’re busy trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Even and especially when we can’t even find any straps to pull ourselves up by, or when we’ve lost the strength to even take hold of the straps, let alone pull them up.

I believe our Psalm for today addresses this question of trusting God with every aspect of life. It may be difficult to hear that, however. Because Luke’s Gospel has Jesus cry out, “Into your hands I commend my spirit” as his dying breath (Lk 23:46), we tend to hear Psalm 31 as a “prayer for the dying.” We think that the Psalm is about giving up our “spirit” into God’s hands at death. But the prayer in Psalm 31 is better translated, “Into your hands I commit my very life,” as in the New International Reader’s Version we used in worship today. I’ve mentioned before that the Hebrew word translated “spirit” in the Psalm means more than we may think. It refers to one’s whole existence, heart and mind, body and soul. It’s like the way we use the word “self.” Entrusting one’s very “self” to God in this way is not a prayer for dying, but rather a prayer for living.

In Psalm 31, the psalm-singer recalls all the hardships of life, including the “frenemies” who sought to undo him, along with all the anxiety and sorrow that caused.[3] As a result of the anguish he had borne, the psalm-singer could say, “I am as forgotten as a dead man” (cf. Ps. 31:12, TEV). He likens himself to so much “broken pottery.” And yet, in spite of all the pain he’s had to endure, at the end of the day he summed up his trust in God by saying, “my times are in your hand” (Ps. 31:15). Again, this points us in the direction that the Psalm is a “life-prayer.” In this song, the psalm-singer expresses his faith in terms of relying on God wholly and completely for all of life.

Another reason for seeing Psalm 31 as a “life-prayer” is because the psalm-singer expresses his confidence in the “faithful God.” That’s the second part of the prayer: “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God” (Ps. 31:5, NRSV). In Hebrew the idea of God as the “faithful God” is literally worded, “the God of truth” (el-emeth). One could also translate this as “the God of trustworthiness.” This phrase points us to the one whose very character is defined by dependability. The psalm-singer entrusts his entire life to “the God who can be relied on … because [God] is true to himself.”[4] Being dependable, being reliable, being trustworthy in relationship to us all is what it means for God to be true to himself. The psalm-singer shows his confidence in the God who is always faithful by essentially praying, “it is up to you, God, what becomes of me, and I am willing to have it so.”[5]

As we’re learning about “Faith in the Psalms” during Lent this year, I think that may be the foundation for everything else. To be sure, like the rest of the Bible, faith has different facets in the Psalms. Sometimes we learn faith by hearing about all the ways God was faithful to people in the past. Sometimes we learn faith from their affirmations about God, like “God’s love never fails.” And sometimes we learn faith by following the example of those who entrusted their lives wholly and completely to God. When we take that step of faith, we’re not just engaged in so much wishful thinking. In the Psalms, faith is based on the firm foundation that God’s love for us never fails. And through the stories of those who entrusted their lives to him, God has demonstrated time and again that he is the God we can rely on. More than that, we have our own experiences of God being there for us, through good times and bad times. Again and again, God has been true to himself by being true to us. God does this simply because that’s who God is. God is the “faithful God” in whose hands we can “entrust” our “times,” all our times, past, present, and future.

If you’ve been in worship here for a while, and if you’ve been paying attention, it’s likely you recognized the title of my sermon for today, “Before We Know to Ask.” It’s a phrase I’ve used every week in my pastoral prayer since before I came here over ten years ago. I don’t use that phrase because it’s something I just memorized or it’s an “easy” way to close my prayer. I composed that phrase years ago as a way of concluding my prayer with the kind of trust this Psalm expresses. It’s a way of formulating in words that I hope we can all relate to the faith that the psalm-singers encourage us to embrace. It’s the faith that God always shows us grace, mercy, and love in little ways every day. Theologians call it God’s “prevenient grace.” I know that’s not likely a phrase you’re familiar with. One of the things I love about the Reformed Christian tradition to which we in the Presbyterian Church belong is that we believe God’s grace is always “prevenient.” That means it always precedes anything we might do. A theology of grace teaches us that God is constantly at work in all our lives, even and especially when we’re not aware of it. God is “for us” in many more ways that we can know simply because that’s what it means for God to be true to himself. And God’s unfailing love always precedes our asking or even knowing what to ask for!

Our faith is not about “pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps”! Our faith teaches us to recognize that we don’t have any bootstraps strong enough to actually pull ourselves up at all. Every grace, every mercy, all the goodness in our lives comes as a gift from God’s love. Our faith is not about relying on ourselves for every little thing. It’s about acknowledging that there’s nothing we can do to come up with a better version of our past. It’s about accepting our lives just as they are in the present moment. And it’s about entrusting our future entirely into God’s hands. We do that when we follow the psalm-singer’s example and entrust our “times,” all the times of our lives, into God’s hands. We do that when we live out the faith that the God whose essential character is reliable, trustworthy, and faithful will bring grace, mercy and love into our lives before we even know to ask.

[2] Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, 1841; accessed at https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance.html

[3] Most modern versions follow the (Greek) Septuagint version which reads “misery” in v. 10 rather than “iniquity” in the Hebrew text (and KJV, ASV, NASB, ESV, CEV, NET, NLT [2015; NLT 1996 has “misery”]; contrast GNV, “pain”). Cf. H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 360; Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 258.

[4] James L. Mays, Psalms, 143; cf. also Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 363, who renders it “the faithful, dependable God.” He also adds (p. 365), “The truth of God is the confirmation of [God’s] grace and faithfulness.” See further, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.1:459-60, where he relates this to the doctrine of God’s “simplicity,” or the idea that God is entirely true to himself when God relates to us with love, mercy, grace, and patience. God does so because God has chosen to do so, and because God always faithful to God’s self. It is a matter of “the unity of grace and holiness, mercy and righteousness, patience and wisdom, in the total work of His love” (ibid, 460).

[5] This is Mays’ interpretation of “into your hands I commit my spirit.” Cf. Mays, Psalms, 144.

The Waking Dreamer