Ps 30
22 April 2007
3rd Sunday of Easter
“Forgive Us”
Last week my theme was forgiving. I began with a story I thought I may have told you before, and in the event that that was so, I asked you to forgive me. Today, Banu and I both will be preaching the sermon. I don’t foresee telling a story you’ve already heard, for which we would need to beg forgiveness.
The sermon title, “Forgive Us,” is not just about Banu and me. If you’ve been conscious during the worship service, you know that today is Earth Day. So often, this becomes our annual day of self-flagellation for the way we’ve been treating Mother Earth.
Truth be told—the little poem on the back of our worship bulletin notwithstanding*—our planet will eventually recover from whatever we dish out. Mother Earth is over four billion years old, and she’s had to deal with stuff like collisions with asteroids and comets! The question is how much of the human race will survive, not to mention the rest of God’s creatures.
To me, today should be at least as much a celebration of God’s good gift of the home we all share—this blue marble in the vastness of space. Of course, if we truly appreciate that gift, we won’t want to foul it up. So it’s in that regard that I think the phrase, “forgive us,” is relevant for us all.
So, today is indeed Earth Day, but our scripture text isn’t one of the obvious “ecological” Bible readings. I’m not going to ask you, as I once did my Assembly of God church many years ago, “Is God green?” I’ll say that again: I will not ask you the question, “Is God green?”
Psalm 30 is often considered to be a case of praise after being healed from sickness. It’s certainly a song of thanksgiving to God after deliverance from some kind of trouble. In any event, I think we can read Psalm 30 as a story that applies to all of us, including the way we relate to God’s creation.
Look at the way the psalm is laid out. We start off in the first three verses with the psalmist praising God for some kind of rescue. As I indicated, we’re not really sure what it is. In verses 4 and 5, the author instructs others to thank God as well, because “his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (v. 5).
Right after this, things take a turn for the worse. We see the psalmist’s downfall. He admits, “As for me, I said in my prosperity, ‘I shall never be moved’” (v. 6). He’s become arrogant; he proclaims, “I am invincible!” He’s forgotten that whatever he is or has is due to the Lord’s favor. He’s forgotten that it’s the Lord who has “established [him] as a strong mountain” (v. 7).
That’s an easy trap to fall into. It’s a lot easier to be grateful for something after we’ve been deprived of it. When things are running smoothly, it’s easy to think that we’re in control. But that’s never the case, anyway! Any of us is just a heartbeat away from…going out like that!
The psalmist gets a wake-up call. He says to God, “you hid your face; I was dismayed” (v. 7). You hid your face. What does that mean? Something that frequently appears in the Old Testament is anthropomorphizing. That’s a fancy word that means “attributing human characteristics to something.” In this case, it’s giving God a face.
So what happens when the face of God is hidden—when God turns away? In theological terminology, it means your goose is cooked! It’s a sign of divine displeasure. Our psalmist has an appropriate response: “I was dismayed.” The word translated as “dismayed” comes from a root word (lh'B;, bahal) which also means “terrified” or “trembling.” We don’t know what’s caused it, but our friend is shaking in his boots!
Verses 8 to 10 demonstrate his change of heart. And verses 11 and 12 have a theme very similar to what we heard before. “You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy” (v. 11).
At first glance, it looks like the psalmist has come full circle. He’s right back where he started. That seems to be true with a lot of stuff in life. We go through some kind of experience, and then we emerge—right back at square one. So, has anything been learned?
It might be more constructive to see the psalmist’s journey as a spiral. If you’re looking at a spiral edge-on, it just looks like a circle—going round and round and round. But if you step to the side, you can see all three dimensions. You can see progress forward, even if it feels infuriatingly slow.
I think that’s our story. We have to constantly re-learn our lessons; we have to continually and deliberately seek God’s guidance. That’s how we make progress. In the case of our stewardship, our care, of the planet we inhabit, the question must be asked: is that progress fast enough?
The 21st century holds both promises and problems the human race has never before encountered. There can be a tendency, in the face of all that, to settle into paralysis—to think it’s just too overwhelming. There can be an ever darker temptation to lose interest—to not even care what happens after we’re dead and gone.
There can even be a sad kind of self-justification. It says, “Hey, I inherited the mess left by generations before me, so let somebody else clean up the mess I’m leaving.” If they don’t like it, tough toenails!
[At this point, Banu preaches her half of the sermon]
* “A planet doesn’t explode of itself,” said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air—
“That they were able to do it is proof that highly
Intelligent beings must have been living there.”
—“Earth” by John Hall Wheelock (1886-1978)