Rev. David Boyd

As I think back on my 21 years in ministry, I could probably count on two hands the number of times I've preached from the Psalms. For some reason I found myself pondering that this week. Why haven't preached more from the Psalms? I think I've come up with a partial answer.

I often, and even usually, preach on the gospel reading, some story of Jesus. I do so because I want to understand and help us collectively understand who Jesus is for us and what God is asking of us through Jesus. We are, after all, Christians, and Jesus is the One whom we have chosen to follow. And while I think I try to be experiential in my thinking and not overly intellectual, I would have to say that my sermons tend to be fairly rational. I tend to preach a rational sermon, make my points and stop. In other words, my sermons tend to be more from my head.

Because of the Richard Rohr and the Voluntary Simplicity books that we are reading, I've had pause this week to be reminded that I have a strong want to figure things out. I'm also in an online spiritual discussion relationship and my discussion partner raised this question with me: in my attempts to figure things out, do I sometimes not let my feelings have any say. Even in the midst of struggles and pain, I have this overwhelming need to understand and to explain.

And that's the beauty, the power and the challenge of the Psalms: they are not about intellectually understanding the world. They are about being... being in the midst of pain. Being in the midst of joy. Being in the midst of life's ups AND life's downs. The Psalms lead us to pure being. And in this way lead us into the very heart of God, for the name of God revealed to Moses and to us all is "I am who I am," the great "I Am."

Yes, sometimes the language of the Psalms gets in the way. We've lost the sense of poetry to some degree because we don't read them in Hebrew. We've lost the understanding that they are hymns and were sung rather than spoken. We've lost some of the symbolic associations because they were written more than 2500 years ago.

But they are wonderfully human and we can relate to them on this level. They express the delights of God's love and presence and the deep sorrow that comes with loss and the feeling that maybe God has abandoned us in times of sorrow or trial. "God, my God, why have you forsaken me!" we hear in Psalm 22, the very words Jesus used on the cross.

The first section of today's Psalm 27 is about hope in the midst of war and strife and expresses a strong sense of God's presence: "God is my light and my salvation, whom then shall I fear? God is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?" And then the psalm changes tone; this occurred after we sang the 1st refrain this morning. It shifts from strong confidence in God's presence to a desire to find safety in the house of God. The psalmist still is confident that God's presence is still there in times of trouble and in the face of strife and foes. It seems that this is just the beginning, though, for the psalmist goes deeper into his or her experience of loss or despair, "Do not hide your face from me; do not reject your servant in anger, you who have been my helper. Do not cast me off, or forsake me, O God my saviour." Here we've reached the depths of human despair and the fear that God is no longer with us... with me! And then a third time, the Psalm writer shifts the tone and returns to a note of confidence; but observe, it is a little more tentative than at the beginning: "I believe that I shall see God's goodness in the land of the living. Wait for God, be strong, and take courage; yes, wait for God." This isn't quite the ringing endorsement that began the Psalm, "God is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear."

What I think is so important about the Psalms is that we not try to understand them overly much. We enter into the human expressions and images. It is especially helpful to read the Psalms when we are going through difficult experiences in our lives. Martin Luther, the great church reformer of the 16th century and a strong thinker, said that thinking theologically about God will not sustain us when our hearts are troubled; we just have to be. I learned that lesson early in my ministry. A young woman in our congregation in Ontario came to me one day and wanted to speak with me. Her husband had left her with two young boys. She was new to the community and had the beginnings of a support network, but didn't know many people. She needed just to talk about what was happening to her and to frame that within in her life of faith. At one point I found myself going on about trying to understand God's presence in times of challenge and difficulty; I mentioned Job and how the story of Job tells us of the human experience of suffering and then I tried to extrapolate from that who God is for us in these challenging times. I looked up at one point and she was just staring at me. I just shut up and apologised and asked her to carry on. What is there to say when we are the midst of despair and struggle? Sometimes the best thing is to say nothing.

I remember when my dad died reading all of the cards Mom received. They would say things like "he's gone to a better place" or "it was God's will" or something else that was trite and unhelpful. What is there to say when someone dies prematurely? What is there to say when we are in the throws of depression? What is there to say when our husband has left us? What is there to say? Luther said there is nothing we can say. We can only affirm that God is and that God's presence is there in the pain and in the struggle. At times of tragedy, when I preach at a funeral, the last thing I want to do is try to explain what happened. I can't—no one can. We can only affirm, as Luther said, God is for me, the stronghold of my life; while that may not provide much comfort in the moment, God's light will pour through the cracks of our lives into our being often in moments when we least expect it.

I came to this point in writing this sermon, and I felt I needed to justify to myself what I was saying. Christine is about to go on Sabbatical and I haven't said anything about that. Last week I spoke about the Church in the wilderness and the challenges we are facing. I haven't said much about the Olympics and nothing in this sermon about justice in the world. It's funny how I feel the need to justify myself intellectually right at this moment. And yet last week, I had people email me, phone me and come to me to speak about their wilderness experiences. Well, that was pause for reflection. And I have to admit that I've been in my own wilderness place for a while. Perhaps I needed to hear that beyond the words there is silence and beyond the silence there is a presence of the One who gives life. And that's what the Psalms say. Nothing more and nothing less.

My Lenten spiritual discipline this year--not necessarily of my choosing—has been about being. I'm practising just being. I've been challenged to not think things through so much, but to be... be in my times of wilderness and struggle, be in my moments of despair, be in moments of laughter, be in moments of doubtÉ just be.

I was recently reminded of a piece of poetry that Janet Morely wrote, a poem/prayer that has been very meaningful to me over the years, that I want to leave you with. Janet Morley was at the vanguard of women's ordination in the Church of England in England in the 80's and 90's and she wrote a worship resource called "All Desires Known." Her writings are very experiential and from the heart. This poem is about being in God:

And you held me and there were no words
And there was no time and you held me
And there was only wanting and
Being held and being filled with wanting
And I was nothing but letting go
And being held
And there were no words and there
Needed to be no words
And there was no terror only stillness
And I was wanting nothing and
It was fullness and it was like aching for God
And it was touch and warmth and
Darkness and no time and no words and we flowed
And I flowed and was not empty
And I was given up to the dark and
In the darkness I was not lost
And the wanting was like fullness and I could
Hardly hold it and I was held and
You were dark and warm and without time and
Without words and you held me
Janet Morley, "All Desires Known", Movement for the Ordination of Women, London, England, pg. 56.