A Sermon based upon Psalm 40: 1-11
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
January 15, 2011, 2nd Sunday of Epiphany
He sought inspiration in his Bible, opening it to the Psalms, where his eyes fell upon Psalm 40. With the words of the psalmist in his head, the last track—known simply as "40"—was created. Ten minutes for the lyrics, ten minutes for the music, ten minutes for the band to record it, and ten minutes to mix it—and the miracle song was completed.
And thus was completed their album titled "War." It was their third album, but the first to go "gold" in the U.S—eventually selling more than 4 million copies. Over the past twenty-five years, "40" has become one U2’s most famous songs, often used to close their concerts and send the crowds home with a new song in their hearts and minds.
The message of the album "War" and its closing track "40" was overtly political. U2 and Bono expressed their outrage about the conflict then raging in Northern Ireland and decried the prospects that the political leaders of the superpowers would bring nuclear war on all our heads. But, like the psalmist, in the midst of their despair they urged solidarity among the world’s people, and in "40" closed with a call for peace and understanding—urging all of us to sing a new song. (From www.goodpreacher.com).
But how can we sing a “new song” when we are all in such a hurry to get where we think we are going, but have little time to stop and think about where we are really going? Someone has said that the only way to gain true perspective in this life is for us “to peer into an open grave”. Only then, it is said, can we see exactly where we are going and why we, as the old saying goes, need to take time to “stop and smell the roses.”
This Psalm we’re considering speaks directly to one of the greatest spiritual needs of human life: our need to slow down, to take time to stop, and also to learn, as the Psalmist did, to “wait patiently upon the Lord.” I’ve entitled my sermon not after the words of a preacher, but after the words of one of the world’s most famous psychiatrists, C.G. Jung, who studied under Freud, had a more practical mind, and a great ‘doctor of the soul’. He has said: “Hurry is not of the devil, but HURRY IS THE DEVIL.” What I think he meant by this phrase is that when we rush through life, seldom taking time to reflect or consider where we are going and who we are becoming, we don’t grow in our soul and personality, and then, even without realizing it, we can destroy the “new song” we could sing and person we could become. This is how Satan becomes our “adversary” (which his name means), his deceptive power is displayed through the rush, the hurry, and an unexamined lives which destroy all God would create in us.
A REASON TO PAUSE
But slowing down, being patient and waiting on the Lord is not something our world knows as much about today. Even this very simple language of the Psalmist can be very difficult for us to comprehend. We live lives that demands things to happen fast, instantly, automatically. Most everything we value today appears to run counter to what the Psalmist is saying in this text.
Right here in my hand I have an IPOD Touch. I had a classic IPOD that was recently stolen out of my vehicle and had to replace it. This new, but already “outdated” IPOD is a very small, compact device, but all this is very deceptive. When I am connected to a wireless network, like the one in my home, I can get pick this IPOD up off my night stand and through the push of one button, automatically download access to the headlines and front page articles to over 4,000 newspapers around the world. I can surf the Internet and have access to immediate information that even world leaders didn’t have 20 years ago. I can check the outside temperature or take a glimpse of an approaching storm on a weather radar. I can access a Bible, turn on the local FIRE or POLICE scanner or access thousands of others around the world. That’s not to mention gaining access to Twitter or Facebook, which I seldom have time to do. Oh, yes I can also access all my music or most any radio station around the world. I can even review my Greek and German vocabulary. The only thing this device does not have is a camera and a phone, but they have that too.
This small piece of amazing technology is transforming our world and hopefully will be wonderful tool used for good purposes, and it is not my purpose to denounce technology or our good use of it, but what does concern me and what this Psalm speaks to, is something that this great piece of technology can’t do, or might make us forget or neglect. It can cause us to become so distracted that we overlook the great value of slowing down, of being still, and of reflecting upon what all this information mean and what all this information cannot do. It does not insure the growth of our soul. For, what the Psalmist suggests, is that we have not been put in this life to know anything and everything, but the Psalmist reminds us, we are here, if anything, to learn to “wait” and to “partner” with God in singing a “new song”. That’s the very point U2 make the chorus in their song, 40: “How long to sing this new song? How Long?
This week our nation found reason to pause, albeit a very tragic one: The death of many innocent people at an outdoor political meeting in Tucson at the hands of a mentally deranged young man. There is, of course, even political controversy surrounding why this happened. But beyond all the mostly useless rhetoric remains what we need to stop and consider. In the tragedy we learned that a young 9 year-old girl, who wanted to get involved in politics and do good for the world, was unduly murdered. A conservative Judge too, who was there to support his opponent was also killed. So were others senselessly killed or injured, including congresswoman, Gabriella Giffords. But still the question remains, not whether or not we have access to all the information, or can fully explain “why” it happened, nor who’s to blame, but the real question of such tragic events like this, is whether or not, we who live and remain, will stop, pause, learn from it all, and learn to “sing a new song” because of it. Our old songs of division, hate, self-centeredness, self-centered political agenda is not getting this nation where it needs to go. The only hope in any time of great tragedy is that we will stop and learn to “patiently wait” upon the LORD for answers we can’t seem to come up with ourselves.. It is a shame that we can know so much, hear so much, gain so much information about life, but still can’t learn “how” we should live it. That is the real tragedy of life; that we might rush through such terrible events without stopping to consider what we can learn and how we can grow through them.
What is the value of pausing, stopping, having patience to “wait upon the Lord” for what only God can teach us? What really is the value of not rushing to our own rationales for such things and to truly stop and wait on God for what He can teach us? Do we even have time to stop? Are we so busy with our own agendas, our own concerns, our own desires, our own opinions that we have little or no time to “stop”? What really is the value of “waiting on God” and not rushing to our own conclusions?
The Psalmist gives us a very interesting “reason” for stopping, listening, taking pause, and waiting on God in our lives? Do you see it right there in the very first verse? Only when he “waited patiently for the LORD” did the Lord himself, “incline to me, and heard my cry.” It was only when he stopped to wait patiently on God did he know that God was with him, knowing his situation, hearing him and responding to his cry for help beyond himself.
Most all of us know what it is to lose our patience with someone; perhaps with our spouse, our children or our friends. We normally regret it, when we do. What the Psalmist reminds us is that the worse thing that happens when we “lose patience” is that we also lose our knowledge of the presence of God in our lives. The Psalmist would have us know that not only does God inhabits the “praise” of his people he also inhabits the “patience” of his people. Even God does not get in hurry to answer us, because life, in the great scheme of things, is not about having the knowledge, having the answers, nor getting everything done. What does getting anything done mean when you are staring in a grave? No, life is about finally about knowing that God is with us, that we need him, and that he hears us.
A REASON TO TRUST
Life is finally and ultimately about “waiting” and gaining “patience” because life is about learning to trust and learning to trust in each other, even learning to trust again within ourselves when trust has been broken by life’s experiences. Listen to what the Psalmist calls the greatest value of learning to “wait patiently on the Lord” as the he becomes the person who is “blessed” to “make the Lord his trust.” (vs. 5) What most of us know already is that you don’t learn to trust by knowing everything, having everything, or getting everything but you learn to trust by making something out of what you already know and have. In the same way, you don’t come to trust God by rushing through life to get more of what you want out of it, but you come to trust God by learning to wait patiently for what you know only God can give you: himself.
But of course, there are all kinds of things only God can give you when you learn to “wait upon the LORD” says the Psalmist. Only when you slow down and wait upon the Lord can you be assured of his presence, as we have said, but also only when you slow down and wait upon the LORD can you know his power to deliver you out of the horrible “pit” you’ve got yourself in. If you are always rushing to save yourself, you don’t experience God’s ability to bring you up “out of the pit”. You have to stop. You have to slow down. You have to wait. You can’t even know you’re in the “pit” until you slow down or until something slows you down.
This is what happened to Ted Williams, that homeless guy who has been made an immediate household name and American sensation by the media the last couple of weeks. But Dr. Phil was right to stop the fellow and the whole episode in its tracks. Dr. Phil, as an expert of the soul, knew that you can’t really get out of the “pit” until God helps you and you can’t have God’s help until have to stop and consider the pit you’re in, and you can’t really get out of it unless you stop to get “real” help. Only when we stop, and fully come to know his presence, and feel the need of his deliverance will we gain the “new song” that only God can put in our hearts, which will leads us, as the prophet Isaiah also said, “to put our trust in him.”
But trust in God, in people, or in life itself, is not always easy to have. Sometimes any of us can lead lives that have become “broken records of negativity” due to our loss of trust. We may not become addicted to alcohol and drugs, like Ted Williams did, but we can become addicted to a host of other things, including money, our skills, or our own false opinion and false sense of power and rightness. When we rush through life, wrongly thinking that our lives are in our own hands, or that we have to figure it all out, or that we’ve got it all figured out, this is when that negativity really begins to swell and will finally come to crash on the shore of all our experiences. It was that way for the Psalmist too, until he realized the value of “waiting patiently” on the LORD. Only through “waiting” did he realize God was present, did he get out of his miry pit, did he began to sing a new song, and did he regained his ability to trust. It wasn’t in “getting” but in “waiting” that the Psalmist grew up in his soul and gained the peace he needed for life.
When we are able to wait on the Lord, we grow up in our soul and we learn to trust. That is what we all need, and it should be our single agenda, but sometimes finding time to learn to trust God falls way down on our priority list. All kinds of things can cause of to lose trust, in God and in each other. This week the Biblical Recorder had a shocking article about Clergy Reputations in the U.S. Did you know, according to a recent Gallup Poll, who Americans trust more than Clergy? A majority of Americans now say that nurses, police, elementary school teachers, soldiers, and doctors are more honest and ethical than their pastors. How can we rebuild a trust that has been broken and has brought a negativity that stifles our ability to trust and do God’s work in our own time?
The way of rebuild trust comes, of course through learning to wait upon the Lord, but the Psalmist also shows some very practical ways trust can be rebuilt, both in the Lord and in the Lord’s work. In his time of reflection and pause, he come to consider not what humans are doing or not doing, but to ask himself to stop and consider what “God’s wonderful works”. Didn’t you hear that happen this week as that medical neurosurgeon who was taking care of Gabriella Gifford said, “miracles happen every day in medicine we like to attribute miracles to what we do, but so much of medicine is out of our control.” (http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/14/doctors-call-giffords-progress-called-a-miracle/)
How do we consider the “miracles” in our lives each and everyday? This is the way to begin to regain trust in life and in each other---to look for the good, to look for signs of God’s presence in our world and to pause to consider just how “many are (his) wonderful works.” This is how trust begins to be rebuilt, when we put the focus on God, but then, says the Psalmist, we must also “declare and speak of them” (vs. 5). Nobody knows the miracles still happen, that God is still at work in our lives, unless we tell them. Trust doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but it happens when we stop and take time to talk and share to each other. And out of this sharing come the greatest revelation of all, whether or not, we find “delight” in God’s “will” (vs. 8).
In his very recent book, The Rise of Christianity, Sociologist Rodney Stark tells about some of the things that made Christianity different than the pagan religions of Rome. More than anything else he tells how Christians offered the world a meaning and hope in crisis the world was facing at the time. But another major difference was that in pagan Rome, the gods and the religion required dedication and sacrifice, but it only did this out of a sense of duty owed to the gods, and it was never done out of a sense of “love”. The original truth Christianity offered the world, which it had never known before is that God loved the world and that God expects us to love each other too. This is exactly where the Psalmist is going, when he tells us that we learn to trust God because we find in God the deepest “delight” of our souls and we all know very well, that the ultimate delight of the soul is to find true love.
And this brings us to the final word of this text, which ends with the highest value of all, where trust is learned and where we know that we can learn to “wait” and “trust” in the Lord. Listen to what the Psalmist says in verse 10, as he declares the deepest feelings of his heart as he had again learned to trust God through waiting patiently on the Lord. In verse 10 and 11 he ends with this honest confession of his soul that is growing through patiently waiting on God: "I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth from the great assembly. Do not without Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me” (NKJV).
Stopping to find the deepest expressions of love is the key to our human preservation. This is the only thing that we are really waiting on: to know that we are loved and to know how to love in return. The one thing that true love always strives to do is to stop, to pause, and to wait patiently on the one who is the object of our love. This week I was hurt to see where our lives can go when we stay stuck on what we want and forget how to love. There was a young family sitting behind us with two children. The children were sitting there looking rejected. The entire time the two parents, both of them, were punching their fingers on their phones, texting to who knows who, impatiently rushing to text, to talk, to someone way across the world, all the while they were ignoring each other and the two who needed their love the most. More than anyone, they needed to pause, to stop, to think, to consider, and to wait patiently for the Lord to show them what was most important for their lives right now. But this is what they couldn’t do.
This is what too few of us know how to do today in our rushing, hurried and harried world. We are rushing through life ignoring what we’ve been given while we are still going who knows where, to get what we are still missing but can only be found when we learn to “wait patiently on the Lord”. Only then, when we discover this love, as both the Psalmist and even a Rock singer like Bono declares, can we sing the song we were made to sing. Amen.
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