Psalms
A PASTORAL LETTER
Dearest family,
As always, thanks for your attention on Sunday. Was it my imagination or did fewer people take a bathroom break during the sermon? I noticed that the first person who had to get up and go, was not at the retreat so was ignorant of my contribution at the Revue show. (A song entitled ‘Bladder has broken’ to the tune of ‘Morning has broken’ as once sung by the great Cat Stevens.) I was worried that they were going to get strange looks that would leave them self-conscious and confused! I noticed that they all seemed to make it back into the sanctuary safely.
I hope you understood some of the reasons why Psalm 73 is indeed a mid-point for the collection. It is just a brilliant psalm in the way it is narrated and structured, and I apologize if my enthusiasm for it was inordinate – NOT! But what, of all we covered, should I re-iterate in this week’s pastoral letter. We saw how that first reference to “but as for me” (v2), loaded with self-consciousness and self-pity, expressed his dissonance and disconnection with things godly and with God himself. His opening statement about the goodness of God was creedal but it had ceased to be personal. The psalm charts the journey to the final use of “but as for me” (v28) where he is now separating himself what separated him from God, and declaring not his isolation but his intimacy with the Lord, and the recovery of personal God-consciousness. The psalm began with WHAT he wanted (basically “the goods”) but ended with WHO he wanted (the “goodness” of God himself).
We looked briefly at the two “hinge” words upon which his deliverance began to swing open. The first was “UNTIL”. His “slip and slide” gets traction with this word: until he went into the sanctuary. Maybe he just stumbles in gasping and grasping. Isn’t that how we often come? That he enters is more important than how. The sanctuary is the place of presence. This is the place of the altar where one is confronted with the cost of sin and the price of atonement. This is the place of prayer, of testimony, of worship, of collective memory, of instruction in righteousness, of evidence of God’s work in the lives of others who are there too. This is the place where God has to be the center and self has to be dethroned. This is not a leisure activity for spiritually minded folk. This is not a society of like-minded religionists. This is not a support group. This is the place of meeting. The psalmist’s drift is arrested here as is his spiraling obsessive thinking. His preoccupation with self is transformed into a turning to God himself. The image of God’s throne kind of trumps his protest speech that he is giving standing on his complaint’s folding-chair. Here is the place where he is confronted again with a sense of God’s presence. Here is where he can pause long enough to consider. The text says that here he “understood” something. This is about truth. He needed more than a vague fuzzy feeling. He needed more than a good vibe, some temple mood music, a little smidgeon of self-worth; more than an essence, more than a thought for the day, more than an emotional pick-me-up or a promise-box encouragement or a piece of fortune-cookie spirituality. He desperately needed a dose of God’s fibrous reality – a revelation of how things are on God’s terms, about how God perceives things, about what God values, about what God blesses. This is the fulcrum: the pivotal verse. Against worldly success is set divine sovereignty; against impurity is holiness; against the temporary is the weight of eternal reality; against the language of scoffing and mocking are the words of honoring worship. Simply put, he has a revelation of their end. I love the way Os Guinness puts it: “face to face with mystery, and especially the mystery of evil, the faith that understands why it has come to trust must trust where it has not come to understand. Faith does not know why in terms of the immediate, but it knows why it trusts God who knows why in terms of the ultimate.” (God in the Dark)
As brilliant in the traction process as the word “until” turned out to be, equally significant is another delivering, salvific word: YET! “Yet I am always with you.” (v23) It is almost humorous but we laugh because there is such relief. “I am a beast before you… yet I am before you!” Suddenly he is not conscious of what he is before God – he is only conscious of the God before whom he is! Despite all of this, despite all that has transpired, he is still in his presence. We have already heard about those who were despised and dismissed from God’s presence. Here, in the psalmist’s experience is the amazing grace of God. He had earlier been mad about all the things that God allowed to the wicked. But he has learned through this process that his sins are no different to theirs. Talking of what God allows! God has allowed him to stay in his presence. This passage has always been seen through the ages by the lovers of scripture as one of the great texts about grace, in all its many colors. This is what the Puritans called:
o Receiving grace: like Psalm 103, he had not been dealt with according to his sins. Good
things for bad people? Wasn’t that his problem? Was he not now the bad person
receiving good things? How the tables turned!
o Restraining grace: he describes how grace held him by the right hand, restraining his
fall, seeking to slow down his backsliding – this is the grip of grace! It was restraining
grace that empowered him to hold his tongue in v.15
o Restoring grace: not only into present relationship, but with the renewed invitation to
everlasting relationship.
It is also a great text about guidance. It is always hard to deal with any suffering if we do not believe God is guiding us. What the psalmist discovered and accepted was what Os Guinness again has put so well: “We do not trust God because he guides us; we trust God and then are guided, which means that we can trust God even when we do not seem to be guided. Faith may be in the dark about guidance, but it is never in the dark about God. What God is doing may be mystery, but who God is, is not. So faith can remain itself and retain its integrity by suspending judgment.”
Then comes the wonderful word “afterward”. Having seen the END of those who do not live their lives for God, he is granted an insight into the end of those who do: “and afterward take me into glory”. This is a huge encouragement about God’s commitment to keep that which I have committed to him. As Peter put it: “Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last time.” This sequence is so wonderful here – described by teachers and preachers through the centuries as: grasped…guided…glorified. But as good as all that is, it’s not over YET. Let the Lord speak those two words into the narrative of your present journey: until….yet.
As part of my preparation I read Augustine’s sermon on this psalm (not light reading for the faint hearted!) and I meant to quote him at the end of my message. I forgot, so herewith is the conclusion to his message on Psalm 73 that I thought you’d appreciate, and maybe identify with?!
"I was forgetting that I had talked so long. The psalm is finished now, and from the stench in the building I surmise that I have given you a rather long sermon. But I can never keep up with your eager demands..." (Saint Augustine: Exposition of the Psalms)
Pastorally (and sometimes forgetfully like Augustine!) yours,
Stuart
http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)