Knowing Our Place

Every Sunday when we gather for worship we receive the gift of hearing our choir chant the Psalm for us. Some of us sing along with the refrain, or we try to; but many of us simply listen and let the sounds wash over us. I think it’s fair for us to admit it; we love our choir. 

It really is a gift they give us, because they are reminding us of what the Psalms actually are, or were intended to be. The Psalms were the songs of praise sung by the early Hebrew people when they gathered for worship. They are the hymnbook of the Jewish tradition that Jesus knew and grew up in. That is the reason that some of the churches that emerged from the Reformation still follow a practice called “exclusive psalmody”: they don’t permit any singing in church other than singing the psalms.

Every Sunday we hear from different books of the Bible, but we always hear from the Psalms. And maybe exactly because we know we will always hear from them, in the voices of our beloved choir, we don’t really study the words as part of the teaching of the Bible. 

But the Psalms are rich with meaning, and we are missing something important if we don’t give close attention to the words the choir is singing.

A few weeks ago, as I prayed with the readings appointed throughout Lent and thought about what it was I wanted to share with you from this pulpit, I found myself drawn back again and again to the words of the Psalms. 

So if you will let me, the sermons I have to offer during this season—when the church invites us to a time of self-examination and prayerful reflection—are a series of reflections on how the poetry of the psalms might offer us a way of navigating through our time of Lent.

The psalm appointed for today is verses of the twenty-second psalm. The part we heard, and sang, sounds happy and certain: “Praise the Lord, you that fear him; stand in awe of him… My praise is of him in the great assembly; I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.”

It sort of sounds like a hymn to be sung with other people who like singing hymns, doesn’t it? It’s talking about the joy of being together with others who share in the experience of worship.

The thing is, Psalm 22 does not start out with that sort of happy attitude. It does not start out with that kind of confident assertion. Do you remember how this psalm begins?

Here’s how it begins: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me; why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?” The words a crucified Jesus pleads from the cross.

Something happened between those verses, didn’t it? Something has changed despair into assurance, to change pleading into praise.

So what happened? Wouldn’t it be good to know? Because—well, I don’t know about you, but these days, these days of war in Ukraine and Gaza and South Sudan and Yemen and Myanmar and Congo, and authoritarian despots gaining the upper hand in Russia and Hungary and Nicaragua and El Salvador, and presidents canceling elections in Senegal—with all of that happening, I am feeling closer to the beginning of Psalm 22 than to the part we got to hear this morning. I am feeling more like the song of despair than the strains of defiance.

So I would really like to know—what made the difference? Wouldn’t you? Because just maybe it might help us to find that difference, too.

Abram is an old man—Saint Paul says he was “already as good as dead.” (Gosh, thanks, Paul.) In his old age God establishes a covenant with him. God promises him that he will be the father, not just of a family, but of a family of nations. 

That is an idea so outrageous that it seems beyond anyone’s capacity for belief—even Abram’s. And did you notice that God gives Abram a covenant, but he gives Sarai a blessing—not just once, but twice?

Something happens to Abram in this moment that gives him the capacity to accept his part of this covenant—which involves, at least, believing that it’s true. We know that something happens because God renames both of them; Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah. So what happened? Isn’t that something you’d want to have happen to you, too?

What happens to Abraham, what happens to the writer of our psalm, what happens to the people around Jesus—at least the ones who choose to follow him—is the same thing. What happens for each of them is losing themselves, and gaining perspective. What happens to them is that they suddenly find they have a new way of seeing the world. 

For each of them, in that moment of despair they had been the center of their universe. Abram was seeing the world through the lens of what he could not do, of the things he could no longer hope for. Peter was seeing the world through the lens of his fears—through his own misplaced eagerness to protect the little movement Jesus had started from the suspicion and power of a menacing state.

And the writer of our Psalm today—whoever it was—began by seeing their hopelessness as the center of their world, as the way of beginning their relationship with God.

What changed for each of these people—for Abraham, for Peter, and for the Psalm writer—was that they somehow began to imagine the possibility of putting God first in their relationship with God. Somehow, whether in a moment of inspiration or through the discipline of prayer, they gained a new perspective on their place in the universe.

Rather than seeing God as a small part of their lives of trouble and fear, they came to see their lives as being part of God’s loving, reconciling purpose. 

Abram gives up his lamenting over his old age and accepts the idea—really, fully accepts the idea—that God knows more about how his life will unfold than he does. 

Peter gives up his fears over the dangerous teachings Jesus is putting out into the world and accepts, really, fully accepts, the idea that any risk on behalf of the Way of Love is worth it—even if that risk involves losing your life.

And the writer of our psalm this morning has something like this journey. The path from those first verses of desperation to the verses we sang this morning about bold praise and strong assurance travels through the transformation of this one verse: “My soul shall live for him; my descendants will serve him…”

If we think we are the center of our universe, then our universe will quickly become a sad and stormy place. Because we will have no power beyond our own powers to take on the tragedies and traumas of this world.

But when we put God at the center of our lives, something happens in that shift of perspective. When we know our place, when we really, fully accept our place in God’s purpose, then suddenly we find our capacity to overcome difficulties vastly greater, our horizons clearer and brighter—because it is a far greater thing to be part of God’s wider, noble plan than the prisoner of our own small and fragile designs.

We’re living through a transition at Saint Paul’s. We are beginning our search for a new pastor, someone who will join us in the work and witness of the ministry of this place.

And we could pretty quickly get overwhelmed by that, if we think we are doing this alone. If we think Saint Paul’s is somehow our private possession, our beautiful second home.

But we might see it differently. if we really, fully accepted the radical idea that this is God’s church, and that God has invited us to take part in what God is doing here—well, then our sense of our own possibilities might just expand. Things that seem impossible to us might begin to seem possible. Ways of getting involved here, of committing to this community God has given us, might start calling to us.

The good news in all of this is that it isn’t all up to us. The good news in all of this is that our horizons are not limited by our fears and our despairs. The good news is that when we fully accept our place in God’s purpose, and give up being the little gods of our own little purposes, more than our names will change. 

We will become a part of something larger, greater, more filled with possibility than ourselves. Our despair will not define us; our losses will not limit us. And then we will know the joy of praise that comes from living not for ourselves alone, but for the God whose gift is all life and all love. Amen.