January 16, 2005 (David Hyers)


Steady us, O God. Renew us by your Word and Spirit. In your light may we see light. In your deeper truth may we find freedom, and in your will may we discover your peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The psalm for this Sunday will be heard in many churches the world over, and maybe, just maybe, somewhere it is being sung or hummed and heard maybe even in the headphones of a young searcher just as I heard it sung when I was a young searcher.

Let us take in again, with ears made new, with eyes made hopeful these familiar words.

Psalm 40 1-3

I waited patiently, quietly, expectantly for the Lord our God; Yahweh inclined to me and heard my cry.

God drew me up out of a pit of desolation, out of the miry muddy bog, placing my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

And God placed a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear. Many will see and be in awe and put their trust, their hope in God.

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According to my mother, not many words seemed to stick in my head for very long, at least not the words they wanted me to remember! Yet in a time of earnest searching, the words of this psalm first began to echo in my ears. In my journey of faith these three verses came to inhabit the place of deepening truth within my heart. They appeared in a song, heard by ears seeking words beyond words, through my headphones late at night. They were sung with a compelling Irish lilt by a young Irishman, a Christian seeker, Bono, who had a slightly better rock name than Meatloaf. A redemptive tripping through the wires, the words of this psalm traveled into my mind. It was not a complex song, not much elaboration but an honest musical exegesis. Before I realize who this band was, I’d bought the tape. Before I thought much about the words, I’d worn the tape out.

In the days when MTV played music videos, a young band with three new Christians slipped into the chart, and with this psalm slipping into my heart, the words were placed in my mouth. I have drifted away from and come back to this band. Over the years U2 has become one of the most successful bands ever. Rightly or wrongly, they have brought their fame, their fortunes, their faults, and consistently their faith to bear upon the music they make, the lives they lead, and the politics they preach over the years despite my opinions about their taste in music.

As I journeyed towards an active, reflective faith, these words were on my lips, the song in my heart, a deepening truth moving, churning, waiting. Good songs are like that. However, I won’t say for you what a good song is. There are also those good psalms, good scripture, and I won’t make that decision for you either. But they get to working in your head, begin to abide in your heart, becoming for some, for many, for me a deepening truth. These words, these thoughts are analyzed, experienced, hoped for, and cried out for in want, in fear. These songs of the heart are prayed in quiet, expectant hope, spilling out in unexpected doxology.

I enjoy hearing from people about their own scriptures, the songs of their hearts. I need that kind of sharing, of learning, of knowing. For many, it’s the 23rd Psalm. There is a reason it’s so popular; it’s good stuff. “Yea though I walk….” will always pull me away. Also good stuff is the “Love Chapter” (1 Corinthians 13): “Love is patience. It is kind.” Good stuff is in even the short verses. There is good incarnational theology in “Jesus wept.” Even the occasional odd or strange verses, the scandalous have been known to bring a smile of levity to a long-winded Bible study. (The youth know that to be true!) What would a football game be without John 3:16?

Yes, there is a risk of sanitization, a desensitizing, of familiarity to the point of obscurity or irrelevancy. Still, they can be our companions, abiding inside as our lives progress, checking in every now and then to say hi, to remind us of important learnings, to give us comfort in times of grief, and to challenges us to attentiveness. It’s kind of like crock-pot theology; they just need to cook nice and slow. And with enough time the flavor is rich and deep. However, let us not confuse this with “crack-pot” theology, of which I have been accused.

Such scriptures are good companions, and as good friends, our knowing, our experience of them can change and will deepen with time. That is what Psalm 40 is for me. I am hesitant to use the term favorite, but this text has been cooking with me for more than half my life. It’s the first text I knew on my own and learned in my own faith from my own personal seeking, from my own devotional urge.

It’s a dense three verses. “I waited patiently for God.” It was years before I really heard these words. Patient, expectant waiting is a skill I seek after, hope to develop and maybe not one that inherently arose. One is not always prone t o wait quietly and patiently when stuck in a quagmire, mud or otherwise. I tend to move quickly and pull steadily, figuring I can always go back for the shoe. Yet when I am really stuck, patient expectation is a hope I much appreciate. “I
waited patiently for the Lord. God inclined and heard my cry.” Personification or not, I stand in need of a God who listens, who hears, who understands, who cares.

There is in our hearts a crying out, a reaching out for direction, for location, for renewed life and meaning. And so, I pray, hope and believe these words. God inclines, reaches out, hears our cries, our praise, our prayer. God draws me out of the pit of desolation, unhappiness, isolation, and devastation--that does seem to describe a lot of pits, doesn’t it? And in the lived experience of so many, getting out of the miry bog isn’t always what we expect. It’s not a quick fix nor a blanket salvation solution. For God’s drawing out isn’t always a removal from a journey of risk. Yet within these words there is great hope, great promise that within the living word a continued resonance of deepening truths, stories, memories, and of the feelings of feet set again upon rock, our footsteps are made firm.

As we engage in the deep remembering of such words of hope, can we set loose the lived experience of our God so close, of our God who hears, of our God who remains close by? Can we feel again those hands of grace, those tugs of mercy, the gift of footsteps again made firm? That is the challenge for me, for us, to continue to remember those words, those scriptures, to remember our words, to hear and abide with the songs of our heart even as God already abides with us.

The deepening truth of this psalm comes in memory of these words, the memory of this God, the deep hope of faith in Christ as the living word, the deep love of these my friends and colleagues. And in my mouth, in my heart comes an old word and comes a new song of praise that steadies and that assures, of hope in our God. This new song sings of new life, of transformation, of memory. This new song sings of the mysterious remembering of our beginnings in God and even a remembering of a future that is also in God. And perhaps comes a song, a doxology, that many have and will see and that we again may put our trust in God.

And now to the one who, at work in our midst, is able to do far more than we can say or hope or sing, to that one be all honor and glory, amen.

 

 


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