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Sunday June 20, 2010 "Deep Calls to Deep" Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 6/23/2010 3:08 PM | “Deep calls to deep.”
I remember the first time I heard this phrase, and I was a little mystified. When I was a kid, before we asked the blessing and ate, someone read a devotional for the day which included a scripture and a short reflection. On this certain day, Psalm 42 was the scripture and I really didn’t know what it meant, this idea of “deep calls to deep.” I remember not wanting to ask right at that moment, mainly because I was hungry and wanted to get to dinner, but after the blessing and as we were eating I asked what it meant.
My brother said he thought it meant something “really heavy was going on.” Which wasn’t a lot of help. My father said he thought that it meant that when things start to go wrong, there is a tendency for us to let things go from bad to worse. My mother said she thought it meant that when things are going really, really wrong, when we are in the deepest pain, we call out to the deepest source of hope we know, God.
Forty years later, I’m still pondering that question. But in retrospect I think they were all right. It does tell me that something really heavy is going on. It very well could be that in our humanness, when things go wrong, we allow them to spiral. But for me, when I read this passage and think about what “deep calls to deep” means, I think my mother was on to something. Deep calls to deep is about pain seeking healing; grief seeking solace; despair seeking hope; humanity seeking God.
The scripture we heard read this morning consists of two psalms in our Bible, but many experts believe that originally they were one. Exactly why they would be split apart is unclear, but today, almost universally, we treat them as one cohesive unit. They are psalms of lament, and I believe that laments are some of the most helpful and cathartic of all of our scriptures.
The Psalms of lament speak to our hearts as well as our minds. They are poetic and practical at the same time. They say things we would like to have said, if only we had the wisdom, the skill, the words.
These particular laments speak to us of an issue that all of us may face at some time in our lives: feeling isolated and alone, away from God, feeling abandoned by God, yet hoping against hope that God’s presence will be felt again. These laments lay well what it feels like to long for God to be close yet finding it difficult to discern God’s presence or power. The pain is palpable in the psalmists voice, we can almost hear it cracking with emotion:
“My soul thirsts for God, the living God…when shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night…I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?...why have you cast me off?” And if this feeling of abandonment weren’t bad enough, the psalmist describes his enemies as taunting, cruel, people, continually mocking him with questions of “Where is your God now?”
When I was teaching at the University of Missouri, I had a colleague who had lost both parents at a young age, and had recently learned that she had lost her step-mother to cancer. Yet she was steadfast in her faith, even as she confided in me that there were days when she felt so abandoned by God as to leave her almost unable to move.
“How do you handle that?” I asked her one day.
She replied that she got mad…she screamed at God…she shouted so that God would have to hear her.
“Does it help?” I asked.
“Oddly enough,” she smiled. “Yes. Yes it does.” After a pause, she added, “I think it has something to do with finally saying out loud what is bothering me, what is so unfair. And in a really strange way, when I rail against God, it dawns on me that God is really here, or I wouldn’t bother yelling at him. And when I realize that God is here, I begin to remember when and where I have felt God’s presence the most.” Then laughing, she said, “Well, that makes no sense at all, does it?”
Actually, it made perfect sense to me. Deep calls to deep. At the depths of despair, we cry out to the depths of our hope.
About a week later I witnessed, through my colleague, the second part of this lament. Over dinner faith and faith issues came up over dinner with friends and one of them, a self-described atheist came very close to saying “Well, where is your God now?”
When I look around at the situation of the world, I am not surprised when people feel alone and isolated. Our global society is dealing with problems unparalleled in history. And these problems are made all the more pervasive because we are all interconnected in some way. We cannot act as if we are separate from each other anymore. We are all in this together, around the world, whether we like it or not.
When people of faith call on God in the midst of famine and war and hatred and death, we hear the echoes of the psalmists words on the lips of an unbelieveing world: Where is your God now?”
Wow. These laments have gone a little off the rails, haven’t they? All this grousing and taunting and wallowing in negativity. While it may seem like that, the fact is that the crying out is only the beginning.
Faithful lament is not wallowing in negativity. It is a frank an honest acknowledgment of our pain. An acknowledgment of our true feelings. A sharing of that pain and those feelings with our God, a God who promises to always be with us.
The lament is not only for God’s ears: it is for our own as well. When we give voice to our fears, our anger, our loneliness, we have begun the process. We cannot sit on our feelings; we cannot stuff our anger down inside. We must get it out. Until we can do that, we have little hope of moving forward.
The soon to be saint, Mother Teresa herself suffered through times of doubt, depression and what she called her own “dark night of the soul.” After her death, some of her personal journals were published in which she lamented the pain and doubt she endured at times during her ministry. I remember reading book reviews that openly questioned her faith and came surprisingly close to asking, “How can we accept God’s presence if even Mother Teresa can’t feel it?”
On the cross, Jesus uttered the soul-aching lament, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Which no doubt prompted many to hiss, “Where is your God now?”
Yes, these are cries of pain. But they are more than that. They are the honest struggle of a faithful person in the throes of that pain. And more than that, sometimes it is not our adversaries who are taunting us. Sometimes it is our own voice asking the question: “Where is my God now?”
Nicholas Wolterstorff lost a 25 year old son in a hiking accident. He wrote about his struggle in a book called “Lament For A Son” and came to this conclusion along the way.
“Faith is a footbridge that you don’t know will hold you up over the chasm until you’re forced to walk out onto it…am I deluded in believing that in God the question shouted out by the wounds of the world has its answer? Am I deluded in believing that someday I will know the answer?....(still) I cannot dispel the sense of conducting my inspection in the presence of the holy one.”
In the presence of the holy one…where exactly is that? Where do we go to feel that presence again? Where do we turn to find God?
I think we start right here.
The grieiving, hurting psalmist alludes to as much as he reflects on seeking God: he describes going with the throng of believers, of being in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival…and then, if to bolster his own journey he implores himself: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”
There is a definite connection to being in community and being able to praise God. Oh, we can praise God alone, but when we feel at loose ends, at our wits end, it is very difficult to do. I know that God is everywhere. I have never been so overwhelmed as when I have been in the midst of the wonder of God’s creation – standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon, wading into the Atlantic Ocean, staring up at the majesty of the Redwoods of Northern California. But when I am in pain, my gaze is rarely taken off the ground. I need to be surrounded by people who understand, and even more than that, who have been where I am. I need a community of faith to be with me as I lament and when I praise.
Rev. Jennifer has shared with me several times her thought that while God is in the place, we also all bring God with us when we gather. We need all the parts of God we bring if we are to be able to give voice to our pain and struggle, to find comfort and hope, and finally, to give voice to our celebration that God is indeed with us.
On more than one occasion in my life, I have heard (or I have said) something like this: “I’m not in a good place. I am struggling. I just can’t see sitting in church.” But that is exactly when we need to be there! Not because we will be stirred by beautiful music, although we might. Not because we will be challenged by wise words, although we might. Not because we will find comfort and hope in meaningful prayers, although we might.
No, we need to be with other travelers on the journey. We need to know that we are surrounded by people who have been where we are. We need to remember when we were able to be the source of comfort for someone who needed it. We need to be with people who can help pull us along in those times when we can barely move. We need to feel the love of God as reflected in those who sit with us and love us and will be there for us, if only we will let them. Each of us brings God to this place. And someone needs the God we bring, today.
In his novel “Bright Lights, Big City” , Jay McInerney weaves a terrifically troubling story of a young man who falls into the web of addiction to such a degree that he literally throws away his career, his marriage, maybe even his life. In one scene, the young man finds himself sitting next to a member of the Hassidim – a hassidic Jew – reading Talmud, oblivious to everything around him. And whether he ever understands it or not, the young man discovers something very important in this man sitting net to him: “This man,” he muses, “has a god and a history, a community. He believes he is one of God’s chosen…(I feel) like an integer in a random series of number.”
The young man’s observation is stunning in it’s power: left to ourselves, we wander aimlessly, randomly. In community, we find God.
When we are the end of our rope, when God has seemingly abandoned us, it is good to give voice to our feelings. Whether shouted to the wind, shared with a friend, across the room from a counselor, we begin to move forward when we can start to come to grips with the nature of our pain. Until we are honest about our doubts and fears, we will never go the next step.
And the next step begins when we hear those words, “Where is your God now?” The answer is, God is here, in the community of faith, in the fellowship of believers, in the midst of those who have been where you have been.
The laments are fascinating to meet because they give us some good psychological advice: until we speak what troubles us, answers will not be found. But the laments always, always, end on a note of hope.
It is the hope that comes from a history of feeling God’s presence. It is the hope that comes from knowing what God has done. It is the hope that comes God will never leave us.
This doesn’t mean that we will suddenly be turned around, our problems solved. It doesn’t mean that walking through these doors will cause everything to be rosy. What it does mean is that here there are people who can help. God’s people, each carrying God with them, ready to share.
In this place, deep calls to deep.
In this place, hope is found.
Let us pray: Loving God, when we find ourselves unsure of where you are, we give thanks for those who surround us. We give thanks for the presence of your children in our lives, and we give thanks for your presence with each of us. Hear our cries. Be our hope. Now and always. Amen. | | | Permalink | Trackback |
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