A Lesson in Honesty
This World Communion Sunday, we’re taking a small break from Jeremiah. Our scripture today is instead from the Psalms. But Psalm 74 is not very far from Jeremiah. It is written in the same circumstances, in the aftermath of the Babylonian conquest—after the temple has been destroyed and desecrated and the people have been exiled to a strange land.
The Psalms have long served as models for prayer in both Jewish and Christian traditions. Which is fascinating, because their prayers are sometimes scandalously unorthodox, wishing vengeance on their opponents and death on their enemies. Rabbis and priests have long pointed out that the psalms actually contain some “bad” theology. That is, they do not always portray God in an even-handed way. Yet for whatever they might get wrong, they get the first thing right: honesty. Honesty is the first step in any prayer, just as it is in any real relationship. If we are always pretending, always wearing a mask, always guarding ourselves, then the relationship will never reach our heart. We will never grow. We will never heal.
As we read our scripture this morning, notice the psalmist’s honest feelings. Notice his accusations against God. Notice his doubts and fears. And then, notice how his tone changes. Notice how after he has opened his heart, hope enters in. Notice how his feelings do not give way to despair but are transformed, as though by some quiet whisper from God.
[Read scripture.]
A Hymn of Creation
“Why have you left us, God? Do you see what they have done to us—to you? Why do you keep silent?” These are the honest questions that plague the psalmist, and so the psalmist gives voice to them. The truth, as we have explored in the past weeks, is not so much that God has left Judah, but that Judah had long ago left God. But the psalmist is not completely wrong. Feelings never tell the whole truth, but they usually contain a kernel of it. The psalmist’s feeling of alienation is accurate. It feels like God is missing. Where is God?
After the psalmist bears their heart, there is a pregnant pause and then a different voice seems to speak. “Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth” (Ps 74:12). Who is this hopeful voice? The psalmist still? Many scholars believe that here the psalmist is actually reciting an ancient hymn. It is as though in the quiet of their heart, a song of faith, perhaps one from their childhood, stirs and reminds them where God is and where God works salvation. God “work[s] salvation in the earth.” The ancient hymn recounts how God created the earth: how God tamed the chaos of the sea; how God arranged the various water ways so that they would nourish the dry land; how God choreographed the dance of the sun and the moon and the stars so that there would be daylight in which to work and darkness in which to rest; how God orchestrated the weather and the seasons from summer to winter so that a healthy rhythm of life could be established.
This ancient hymn views life through the wide lens of faith rather than the narrow lens of the psalmist’s feelings. It’s like moving from an iPhone screen to an IMAX screen. This is not to say that the psalmist’s feelings are wrong. It is, rather, to say that only by being honest about their feelings are they able to move authentically through them and beyond them. Only by first feeling God’s absence are they able to consider a response to their feelings, something bigger and more real than their feelings. Something about this ancient hymn of creation rings true with the psalmist, and that’s why they sing it. We might reimagine the psalmist’s inner dialogue as something like this: “It feels like God is absent now that the temple is destroyed and the land is lost…. But surely God is bigger than any temple or any plot of land. God’s care is still evident in all of creation, isn’t it? In the sun that keeps coming up, the rains that keep falling, the seasons and the soil that yields the harvest in due time….These are echoes of God’s salvation.”
A Second-Rate
Salvation?
It is not uncommon for Christians to identify salvation as the afterlife, as something that happens later. But as Dietrich Bonhoeffer points out, the biblical story presents salvation as this-worldly, as something that happens in the here and now. In the Old Testament, God’s salvation for the Israelites is freedom from slavery and oppression; it is water and manna when they are hungry and thirsty; it is homes and fields and vineyards for the landless poor. As our psalm puts it today, God works salvation “in the earth.” In the New Testament, Jesus declares the good news that God’s kingdom is at hand, and even that it’s already here. On the few occasions when Jesus tells stories that envision a reality after death (such as the rich man in Hades, or the people separated as sheep and goats), these stories always serve to invite his listeners into a fuller life now, one that is rooted and grounded in God’s ever-present love. Jesus doesn’t glorify an otherworldly afterlife, where streets are paved with gold and you have everything you could ever want. He glorifies the stuff of this life—the serenity of birds, the beauty of wild flowers, the sun and the rain that fall on us all; children who dance and play flutes, brothers and bridesmaids, weddings and feasts. All of these things sing God’s love, which is salvation for us now (and of course salvation for us later too!).
If Christians have sometimes been guilty of treating this-worldly salvation as second-rate compared to whatever may happen later—instead of treating everything as the single, continuous reality of God’s love for us—then the example of Francis of Assisi from the thirteenth century shows us it doesn’t have to be that way. Included in your bulletin is an excerpt from Francis’ famous “Canticle of Creation,” a song of praise which is not unlike what we find in the ancient hymn of creation in Psalm 74. In it, Francis praises God through the many elements of creation, including sun, moon, and stars, wind and weather, earth and its produce. Addressing each element intimately as brother or sister, he celebrates how it contributes to the full flourishing of life. Such is the depth of his appreciation, that he seems to be living fully in the presence of God already. One of his acquaintances remarked: “We who were with him saw him always in such joy, inwardly and outwardly, over all creatures, touching and looking at them, so that it seemed that his spirit was no longer on earth but in heaven.”[1]
Francis lived in such close communion with creation, that he could not help but feel close to the Creator. Francis felt at home on this earth. He felt safe. (Which is the root meaning of salvation.) He felt God’s love in all things. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to feel that way. I’d like to look at creation and have a deep sense, along with the psalmist and with Francis, that God’s love is in all things.
I heard the story once of a man who taught his children reverence for the bugs that made it into their house, even the dangerous ones. When a wasp intruded, he would wait until it stopped frantically bumping against the windowpane; then he would place a glass on it and slowly slide a thick piece of paper under the glass. His children would come close and study the wasp as it cautiously explored its new temporary home. He would then gently take the glass outside and remove the paper, and the children would watch as the rescued wasp slowly walked to the edge of the glass, spread its wings, and flew off into the garden.
One day, as a neighbor was visiting in their yard, the man’s youngest son suddenly exclaimed, “Look, Daddy! What’s that?” He looked and replied, “A beetle.” The son was fascinated with the iridescent colors of its shell. The neighbor, completely oblivious, lifted his shoe and stomped on the insect. “That ought to do it,” he laughed. The boy looked up to his father, waiting for an explanation. But his father didn’t want to embarrass their neighbor. That night, as the father was turning out his son’s lights, the son whispered, “I liked that beetle, Daddy.” The father whispered back, “I did too.”[2]
Strangely, this story fills me with sadness and hope at the same time. Sadness for the boy’s innocence and sense of loss. But hope to be reminded that such hearts still beat in our world, and hope that mine might become one too. For the spirit here seems to me to be the spirit of Francis, who was at home in our world, who felt safe because he sensed God’s presence and love in all of life—in wasps and beetles, in sun and rain, at day and at night. He even sensed God’s presence and love in death (or as he called her, Sister Death). He grasped the same good news that our psalmist grasped, a good news that is bigger than any of our feelings, whatever kernel of truth they contain. Creation—reality—the here and hereafter—is God’s work of salvation, a labor of love.
Prayer
Whose love finds fullest expression
In flesh and flora and fauna—
When we honestly cannot see you,
Help us to say so,
And to listen
…
Lead us from our feelings
To a faith that is older than time,
That senses your work of salvation
In all of creation. In Christ, who takes flesh and dwells among us: Amen.
[1] Richard
Rohr, “A Cosmic Mutuality,” https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-cosmic-mutuality-2020-10-06/,
accessed September 26, 2022.
[2]
Paraphrased from Christopher De Vinck, The Power of the Powerless (New
York: Doubleday, 1988), 4-5.
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