Epiphany 6/Ordinary Time 6
Preaching
Hear My Voice
Preaching The Lectionary Psalms for Cycles A, B, C
Object:
(For alternative approaches, see Easter 3, Cycle C, and Proper 9/Pentecost 7/Ordinary Time 14, Cycle C.)
The heading in my copy of the NRSV labels Psalm 30 as a "Thanksgiving for recovery from grave illness," and verse 2 affirms that. Because the psalmist's plea for deliverance has been answered, he brings this psalm as an offering of praise.
One sermon theme this immediately suggests is the matter of remembering to thank God for answered prayers. This was pounded into me again and again by the church of my youth, which placed great emphasis on thanking God. I knew of one pastor who even kept a prayer journal in which he recorded all his prayer requests, and beside them he wrote how and when they were answered. Then, in his subsequent praying, he made it a point to thank God for those answered petitions. That practice is too mechanical and too much a scorekeeping approach for me, but there is something to be said for the principle.
Following the rescue of nine Pennsylvania coal miners from a collapsed mine, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial (August 2, 2002, p. W13), about how some people saw the rescue as an answer to prayer, citing a sign in a restaurant in the miners' town that read, "Thank you God, 9 for 9." After reviewing the usual questions of whether praying changes God's mind and why God would save some and not others, the editorial referred to Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich and their shared view that God is "infinite consciousness, wisdom and bliss, underlying and supporting the material cosmos." In this view, the editorial said, "answers to prayer" are not "instances of a supernatural being putting an arbitrary number of requests into his 'Yes' box ... but are responses of this cosmic spirit to the desires and intentions of all finite spirits."
There are other theological explanations of "answered prayer" (not to mention "unanswered prayer"), and there are too many of them to include in a single sermon. A more fruitful avenue arises from the pattern of alternation that underlies this psalm. That pattern is set in verse 2: "I cried to you for help"/"you have healed me," and repeats in other verses. We see it clearly in verse 5 -- "His anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime" and "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning" -- but the pattern is present elsewhere as well (see especially v. 11).
A sermon on this text could focus on how prayer and praise are the twin tools for dealing with the experiences of life, both the hard and the gladsome ones. The pastor who kept the prayer journal did not view his practice as any kind of tally sheet. To him, it was simply evidence of how actively God is involved in our lives. His point is right -- our response to the activity of God in life ought to be prayer and gratitude.
-- S. P.
The heading in my copy of the NRSV labels Psalm 30 as a "Thanksgiving for recovery from grave illness," and verse 2 affirms that. Because the psalmist's plea for deliverance has been answered, he brings this psalm as an offering of praise.
One sermon theme this immediately suggests is the matter of remembering to thank God for answered prayers. This was pounded into me again and again by the church of my youth, which placed great emphasis on thanking God. I knew of one pastor who even kept a prayer journal in which he recorded all his prayer requests, and beside them he wrote how and when they were answered. Then, in his subsequent praying, he made it a point to thank God for those answered petitions. That practice is too mechanical and too much a scorekeeping approach for me, but there is something to be said for the principle.
Following the rescue of nine Pennsylvania coal miners from a collapsed mine, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial (August 2, 2002, p. W13), about how some people saw the rescue as an answer to prayer, citing a sign in a restaurant in the miners' town that read, "Thank you God, 9 for 9." After reviewing the usual questions of whether praying changes God's mind and why God would save some and not others, the editorial referred to Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich and their shared view that God is "infinite consciousness, wisdom and bliss, underlying and supporting the material cosmos." In this view, the editorial said, "answers to prayer" are not "instances of a supernatural being putting an arbitrary number of requests into his 'Yes' box ... but are responses of this cosmic spirit to the desires and intentions of all finite spirits."
There are other theological explanations of "answered prayer" (not to mention "unanswered prayer"), and there are too many of them to include in a single sermon. A more fruitful avenue arises from the pattern of alternation that underlies this psalm. That pattern is set in verse 2: "I cried to you for help"/"you have healed me," and repeats in other verses. We see it clearly in verse 5 -- "His anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime" and "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning" -- but the pattern is present elsewhere as well (see especially v. 11).
A sermon on this text could focus on how prayer and praise are the twin tools for dealing with the experiences of life, both the hard and the gladsome ones. The pastor who kept the prayer journal did not view his practice as any kind of tally sheet. To him, it was simply evidence of how actively God is involved in our lives. His point is right -- our response to the activity of God in life ought to be prayer and gratitude.
-- S. P.
