“Cries from the Depths” – a sermon for March 2, 2014
March 2, 2014
Scriptures
Psalms 31: 9-16 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my misery, and my bones waste away. I am the scorn of all my adversaries, a horror to my neighbors, an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have passed out of mind like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many— terror all around!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors. Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
Matthew 7: 24-29 Jesus said, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!” Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
“Cries from the Depths” – a sermon for March 2, 2014
Reverend Doreen Oughton
In this season of Lent, another thing I am doing differently is my choice of bible texts. Usually I preach from the lectionary, which is a 3-year schedule of daily readings that many Christians follow. Instead I am doing a sermon series on different types of prayer. For each week that I am here, I have chosen a Psalm as a reading that seems to go with the prayer theme, and then a second reading, usually something from the New Testament, that will respond in some way to the psalm. Anne Lamott, a writer I really enjoy, has a new book out about prayer, and she names three important prayers, each consisting of just one word. Any guesses what they are? “Help, Thanks, Wow.”
Today’s prayer theme is HELP. These are prayers of lament. Does anyone know what lament means?… Sometimes a lament can sound like complaining, or even whining. I’ve heard criticisms of people who lament, saying they are having a pity party. Or they are advised to get off the pity pot, stop feeling sorry for yourself, it could be worse, others have it worse than you. But I love that these prayers and songs are in the bible. I love it that we have this example of people bringing their laments to God. I am reminded of one of those beatitudes we heard a few weeks ago – blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. When we let ourselves get in touch with how hard certain things are in our lives, we start to mourn. Part of this can be naming our losses, saying what has been hard, reaching out, in a way, for comfort.
I wonder if one of the reasons people pray prayers of lament is to check and see that God is still paying attention to them. Perhaps they are wondering about that, because with things getting so bad, maybe they feel that God isn’t looking out for them, that God has turned her attention elsewhere. Just the other day a friend of mine was telling me a story of a car accident that completely changed her life. She used the word “ruined.” It happened over 40 years ago. She was a young woman in her 20s and had worked and saved and had been accepted to nursing school in Florida. She packed up her things, left her apartment, and went to stay with a friend for a few days until it was time to head off to school. Her friend worked at a retirement home, and it was a hot day, and the ice machine at the home had broken and her friend felt badly about not being able to give ice to the people, so my friend offered to drive to the store and get some. And as she was crossing over the turnpike, her car stalled – she’d never had this trouble before – and a car came speeding up behind her and she thought she would die. She didn’t, but her neck was broken and it was a very long and painful recovery. She still suffers pain. A lawyer assured her that she would get a settlement, so that she could get all the help she needed to recover, so that she wouldn’t have to worry about work for quite some time, so that she would be able to go back to school when she was ready. But the driver of the other vehicle did not have insurance, and so she got nothing. She was homeless and injured and angry. When she was telling me about it, she made a point of saying how she’d gone out to do a kindness. I asked if she was angry with God about this accident, and she said she never had been, that God had been her refuge and her strength.
I was, frankly, surprised. I guess it was me who was angry with God about the accident. Why hadn’t God been paying attention? Why couldn’t her car have just made it across the turnpike before it stalled? Why was the ice machine broken? Why did the other driver have to be from a state that did not require insurance? It just seemed like God could have had a handle on some of that stuff. Do you ever ask yourself questions like that when bad break after bad break comes? I think the psalmist did. Listen to the cry – “Be gracious to me, O Lord.” The psalm is this great build up – yoo-hoo God, over here! Look at me, look at my terrible suffering. Do you see, really see, how much I am hurting? And then there is this lovely expression of trust – I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.” I think there is probably some basis for that trust. The psalmist has called out to God before, like my friend had called out to God before – during a difficult and lonely childhood. The psalmist, and my friend, had experienced God’s face shining upon them, knew that God loved them and had confidence that God cared, that God listened, that God strengthened them.
I chose the Gospel reading from Matthew, which is the end of the sermon of the mount, because I think this solid foundation that Jesus is talking about is not just taking Jesus’ advice to love an enemy, to give up your shirt as well as your cloak. I think the solid foundation is set when we seek to develop the same kind of relationship with God that Jesus had. That is the strong foundation, the rock that will hold up the house, the temple that we are, through any storm, through rain and flood and wind! God loves us and responds to us no matter what, but if we don’t trust it, if we don’t turn to God in times of trouble, we will never know that. We will never recognize it and see it. We will be trying to build the temple that we are on sand, and feel completely wiped out when hard times come.
To love God, to build ourselves on the rock of solid relationship with God, does not mean our lives will be free from storms. They will come for sure. But we have the chance always, through any storm and trial, to grow closer to God, to build that relationship ever stronger. And one way we do that is by asking for help, bringing our pain, our fear, even our self-pity, to the one who will help us bear up, the one who will indeed shine upon us. May it be so.
