Psalm 145
Twenty-fifth Sunday
after Pentecost/ 10th November 2013
Tradition says that Psalm 145 was
written by King David. We don’t know for sure.
What we do know is that whoever composed this song had a heart for
God. Perhaps it was written by David
after all, a man, scripture tells us, who was after God’s own heart (1 Samuel
13:14). Whoever wrote it this much is clear: this text flows from a very deep place in the human psyche. While
it’s descriptive of God, it’s written
with a sense of familiarity and authority.
This person—we can call him David—knows God. David not only knows about God, David knows God. David knows the
heart of God pouring forth through him. This song of praise pours forth from
within his experience of God. Only
someone who knows God can write a text such as this, compose a song such as
this. David knows what he’s talking
about.
And what does he know? It’s right there toward the center of the
song in verses 8 & 9: “The LORD
(that is, Yahweh) is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love. Yahweh is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.”
That’s it. The center of the psalm,
the center of David’s faith, the center of biblical faith; it stood at the
center of Jesus’ faith and ministry. God
is gracious and merciful-abounding in steadfast love—unswerving, unfaltering,
persistent, committed, stubborn-love.
God is good and full of compassion, abundantly compassionate toward all
that God has made.
That’s it. When we know it, not just know about it,
really know it—not in our heads, not
in our thoughts, but in our hearts, in our souls, in our bodies, in our feet, in
our guts, when we’re inside this
knowledge, then everything changes, the world is transformed, and our lives are
transfigured.
You can hear it, almost feel it in
the psalmist’s song, sung from the depths of his heart: I will extol, praise, worship you God, I will
bless your name, every day, forever and ever, for Yahweh is great and greatly
to be praised, with a greatness that is unsearchable, that knows no ends. Glorious.
Wondrous. Awesome. These are the
words that flow from the fount of all blessing.
Celebration and song come pouring forth because of Yahweh’s
goodness. And not only God’s goodness,
but God’s righteousness, God’s faithfulness, God’s relentless determination to
love us, we who so often reject God’s love or run from it. Still Yahweh pursues you and me like a crazed
lover, driven toward you with a love that will not rest until God finds
you and once found, will never, ever let you go.[1]
I.
And when we know this is how God is
toward us, our lives are changed and the world is transformed. The psalmist knows. The psalmist knows
that love calls forth praise. When that happens the world is transfigured
before our eyes and all becomes emblazoned with the light of God. For the
psalmist the world shouts: Praise! For the psalmist the world shouts: Joy! For the psalmist the world shouts: Glory! Creation begins to speak—trees,
mountains, flowers, sun and moon, women, men, children, even the stones
themselves start to sing; the psalmist declares, “All your works give thanks to
you, O Yahweh!” Can you hear them? Can you see them offering thanks? Can you see the
world ablaze with the glory of God?
That’s what God’s love does, its calls forth praise. It’s all in love, God’s love, with a capital “L.”
It’s all in and through and for Love.
You know, Zora Neale Hurston
(1891-1960) got it right. African-American
novelist and anthropologist, got it right when she said, “Love makes your soul crawl out
from its hiding place.” And then suddenly you discover a world all around you,
people, neighbors, beautiful faces, but also faces of people whose hearts are
wounded and broken…people in need, who hunger for what you hunger for, who
dream of knowing what you have discovered, something of God’s love and
faithfulness.
II.
Love calls forth praise. But it doesn’t stop there. Love then calls forth acts of service. When you know
how God is toward you, you then reach out to the world, you can’t help it. It
just happens. Because Yahweh is faithful
and gracious, upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down,
because that’s what Love does, that’s
what we find ourselves doing, it’s what we’re called to do, it’s what Christ
calls us to do.
It’s
what we’re doing as a church. We call it
mission, but it’s really love. It’s Love
in action. Everything we do is mission; everything we do is in the name of
Love. We search for the one who is
falling and we hold her up. We notice
the one whose life is falling apart, coming unhinged and we reach out and hold
him. We find the ones who are bowed
down, oppressed and depressed, alone and scared, weighed down by life, by
trauma, by natural disaster, by circumstance, by sin, and we raise them up, and
we hold them, and we heal them, and we embody the steadfast love of God.
In love Yahweh provides for our
every need, “food in due season.” That’s
what God’s Love pours forth from within us. We, too, provide “food in due season.” Casseroles for the homeless shelter; the
church school collects jars of peanut and jelly, the deacons have food drives, we
go on CROP walks.
III.
Love calls forth praise. Love calls for acts of service. Love
calls forth generosity. The psalmist
says of God, “You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living
thing. Yahweh is just in all God’s ways,
and kind in all God’s doings. Yahweh is
near to all, to all who call on God in truth.” You
open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. That’s what Love does and that’s what Love
does in us. Love gives. It does not hold back. It pours forth. When we know God’s Love toward us we find
ourselves becoming more and more generous—generous with our love, generous with
our hearts and thoughts, generous with time, generous with the things that we
value most, generous with our resources.
We open our hearts and then we open our hands to share what we have,
although we’re really only sharing what has been entrusted to us, because
nothing we have or own belongs to us. It’s
all sheer gifts; it’s all sheer grace, like life itself.
IV.
This is a big-hearted church and we
open our hands and share what we have, all for the glory of God. You can see God’s Love at work when you go
into Fellowship Hall after worship today. Love is at work through you and me
through our mission partners. This is
just a sampling. This congregation has a
big heart and with open hands you are financially supporting what God is doing
through us. This morning we celebrate
and give thanks for what Love is doing through mission, locally, nationally, and
globally. But Love is also at work
through Christian education, children’s ministries, youth groups, adult
education. It’s at work when we invite
people into this community of faith, when we extend hospitality, when we share
a meal. It’s at work through the
deacons, through the advocacy work of the peace and justice committee, through Presbyterian
Women, in weekly worship experiences, fellowship, the faithful work of the trustees,
the leadership of the Session, the many interactions that take place on Sundays
or during the week that we never hear about, gestures of grace, a listening ear
over coffee, silent prayer.
At
the risk of singing our praises too much, this really is a special congregation. We are not perfect. We are not always thoughtful or kind. We’re both sinners and saints at the same
time. But there really is a lot of love
here, a generosity of spirit. Many
people tell me they feel it as soon as they walk into the sanctuary. Not everyone feels this way, of course. Some have shared with me that no one said a
word to them before or after worship. If
that was your experience, please forgive us.
Still, there is something at work here.
It’s the Spirit. It’s the Spirit
of Christ. It’s the presence of Christ
who comes to us in love and calls us to love and sends us out into the world in
love.
And I am convinced that God is at
work through you and me, together, that God is trying to love something into being through us, forming us and reforming us
in order that we might deepen our capacity as a church to embody God’s love in
the world. God expects more, not less
from us, both individually and together as a church. God wants more for us. God dreams of more for us, through us. What is it?
What is Love asking of us? What
is Love asking of me?
This
is the question we’re being asked to consider in this season of commitment. I
encourage you to think on these things, to meditate on these things this week
as you consider your family’s 2014 commitment and then bring your pledges to
worship next week. What is Love asking of me? That’s the question. If you think about it, the question is always
before us, isn’t it? The answer to this
question is life itself; and hearts that know the generosity of God want to be
generous, want to respond with a life of profound, unending gratitude.
There’s a
great line in the song “Awake My Soul,” sung by the contemporary band Mumford
and Sons. There’s a lot of good theology
in this song and in so many of their songs. This is the line: “…where you invest your love, you invest your
life.”[2]
Awake my soul.
This congregation isn’t yours. It doesn’t belong to your pastors. It doesn’t belong to the session or deacons
or trustees. The church doesn’t belong
to the presbytery—well, actually, it does belong to the presbytery, but you
know what I mean. It belongs to God,
because we belong to God. And because we
are God’s people, God’s Love is pouring forth through us.
You exist to be a conduit of that
Love. That’s why you were born.
It’s
Love that called you into being.
It’s
Love that has saved you and claimed you.
It’s
Love that has called you into community.
It’s
Love that holds us together.
It’s
Love that then sends us, always sending us out
with joy and praise and big hearts
into the world,
in
order that every soul know, know in
one’s heart, that
“The
LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow
to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The
LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.”
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