Lent 5
Preaching
Hear My Voice
Preaching The Lectionary Psalms for Cycles A, B, C
Object:
(See Proper 8/Pentecost 6/Ordinary Time 13, Cycle B, for an alternative approach.)
An old Peanuts cartoon has Charlie Brown sitting at Lucy's psychiatric booth. After Lucy dispenses one of her typically twisted diagnoses, Charlie Brown is left sitting there, head in his hands. With a forlorn look on his face, he implores the cosmos: "Where do I go to give up?"
Perhaps that's a question some of us have asked, when we have found ourselves at the end of our ropes. It is much the same question the writer of Psalm 130 is asking: "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!"
As with many of the psalms, we cannot know with certainty who wrote those plaintive words, or what the precise difficulty is: but we can empathize. We've been there. The only thing we can tell for sure about the psalmist's problem is this: it has something to do with guilt. "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered."
The scholars call this a penitential psalm. Surely that is why it ends up at this place in the lectionary, deep in the season of Lent. Although this song may have been born "out of the depths," it does not dwell there. For not many verses after that despairing cry, there comes, abruptly, a confession of faith: "... my soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning...."
In this age of technology -- when streetlights cast broad circles across the pavement, and garish neon and subtle night-lights are both commonplace -- not many people stand still anymore to "watch for the morning." Yet this was a common practice in biblical times. Each town had its night watchmen: public servants who would stay up all night on guard duty. Up and down the streets they would trudge, in the early-morning chill, making sure no enemies were lurking: making sure everything was all right.
Maybe only someone who has worked nights can fully discern what the psalmist is talking about. The sentry on the Army post knows all about it: how the hours drag on, how the senses get sharpened in the silence, how even the crunch of boot-heel on gravel sounds like it carries for miles. Anyone who has ever kept bedside vigil with someone who is dying knows it, too. Such a one knows how, in the wee hours, the mind plays tricks: how one hears imaginary, muffled conversations out in the hallway, how absurd images pass before the mind's eye.
Yet somehow, in the sepulchral blackness, the psalmist finds it within himself to calm his nerves and wait. He waits for the Lord, "more than those who watch for the morning." Who's to say how he makes it to that spiritual turning-point: how, precisely, he manages to transform his situation from despair into hope? But transform it he does.
It may sound pollyanna-ish to say to someone in the slough of despond, "Just wait, things will get better" -- but the simple truth is, very often they do. They certainly do, if we boldly place ourselves in the caring hands of the God of love.
-- C. W.
An old Peanuts cartoon has Charlie Brown sitting at Lucy's psychiatric booth. After Lucy dispenses one of her typically twisted diagnoses, Charlie Brown is left sitting there, head in his hands. With a forlorn look on his face, he implores the cosmos: "Where do I go to give up?"
Perhaps that's a question some of us have asked, when we have found ourselves at the end of our ropes. It is much the same question the writer of Psalm 130 is asking: "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice!"
As with many of the psalms, we cannot know with certainty who wrote those plaintive words, or what the precise difficulty is: but we can empathize. We've been there. The only thing we can tell for sure about the psalmist's problem is this: it has something to do with guilt. "If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered."
The scholars call this a penitential psalm. Surely that is why it ends up at this place in the lectionary, deep in the season of Lent. Although this song may have been born "out of the depths," it does not dwell there. For not many verses after that despairing cry, there comes, abruptly, a confession of faith: "... my soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning...."
In this age of technology -- when streetlights cast broad circles across the pavement, and garish neon and subtle night-lights are both commonplace -- not many people stand still anymore to "watch for the morning." Yet this was a common practice in biblical times. Each town had its night watchmen: public servants who would stay up all night on guard duty. Up and down the streets they would trudge, in the early-morning chill, making sure no enemies were lurking: making sure everything was all right.
Maybe only someone who has worked nights can fully discern what the psalmist is talking about. The sentry on the Army post knows all about it: how the hours drag on, how the senses get sharpened in the silence, how even the crunch of boot-heel on gravel sounds like it carries for miles. Anyone who has ever kept bedside vigil with someone who is dying knows it, too. Such a one knows how, in the wee hours, the mind plays tricks: how one hears imaginary, muffled conversations out in the hallway, how absurd images pass before the mind's eye.
Yet somehow, in the sepulchral blackness, the psalmist finds it within himself to calm his nerves and wait. He waits for the Lord, "more than those who watch for the morning." Who's to say how he makes it to that spiritual turning-point: how, precisely, he manages to transform his situation from despair into hope? But transform it he does.
It may sound pollyanna-ish to say to someone in the slough of despond, "Just wait, things will get better" -- but the simple truth is, very often they do. They certainly do, if we boldly place ourselves in the caring hands of the God of love.
-- C. W.
