Psalm 41
Preaching
A Journey Through the Psalms: Reflections for Worried Hearts and Troubled Times
Preaching the Psalms Cycles A, B, C
Object:
Most of us love the church. Even when we struggle with its stumblings and imperfections, there is a piece of us that is at least fond of this home we have found. But love it or not, the truth is that Christian faith often loses credibility in its quixotic quest for niceness. Does this ring a bell? We try so hard to be nice. Our churches are full of nice people who smile and say, "Blessings on you," while all manner of behavior is quietly tolerated because, well, we're nice. It doesn't much matter what all is going on as long as we're ... nice. After all, we're supposed to love everyone, right? We're even supposed to love our enemies.
This facade of nice within our faith communities doesn't help us much in the long run. This is true for a few good reasons.
First, the truth is that we're really not all that nice. We're a broken people. We are sinful. While the world around us starves for both love and food, we feud and fight for power and control, and we don't, for the love of God, very often resemble the body of Christ.
The second reason that "nice" is not all that helpful is the fact that we live in a delusional kind of naïveté. It's the kind of attitude generated by the deadening ether of "I'm okay. You're okay." When we realize, as this psalm does, that none of us are really "okay," and that we actually do have enemies, we are a bit nonplussed. We thought nice would cover it all, but somehow it just doesn't.
The thought that there are enemies who actually sit and wonder when you will die (v. 5) is not pleasant. The idea that there are those who might gather mischief in their hearts (v. 6) against you just doesn't jive with our image of nice guy Jesus sitting with a lamb on his lap.
The hard reality is that there are enemies about in this life. They present themselves for a host of different reasons. But whatever the reason or the form they take, it is a fact of life, that most people have them.
In a kind of dumb-struck solidarity, we join with the psalmist in blessing those who care for the poor. After all, in these days who has more enemies than the poor? We lift up those who protect others, who won't give up someone to their enemies. And with this psalmist we pray for God's help when our enemies line up against us.
Perhaps, if we pray enough, the veneer of niceness will give way to the gritty presence of God's sustaining love. Could it be that in this love we would find the "moxy" to match our prayers with a kind of holy integrity? If so, prayer-tinged integrity would not only draw us closer to the God we seek, it just might also restore some of the credibility we squandered on nice.
This facade of nice within our faith communities doesn't help us much in the long run. This is true for a few good reasons.
First, the truth is that we're really not all that nice. We're a broken people. We are sinful. While the world around us starves for both love and food, we feud and fight for power and control, and we don't, for the love of God, very often resemble the body of Christ.
The second reason that "nice" is not all that helpful is the fact that we live in a delusional kind of naïveté. It's the kind of attitude generated by the deadening ether of "I'm okay. You're okay." When we realize, as this psalm does, that none of us are really "okay," and that we actually do have enemies, we are a bit nonplussed. We thought nice would cover it all, but somehow it just doesn't.
The thought that there are enemies who actually sit and wonder when you will die (v. 5) is not pleasant. The idea that there are those who might gather mischief in their hearts (v. 6) against you just doesn't jive with our image of nice guy Jesus sitting with a lamb on his lap.
The hard reality is that there are enemies about in this life. They present themselves for a host of different reasons. But whatever the reason or the form they take, it is a fact of life, that most people have them.
In a kind of dumb-struck solidarity, we join with the psalmist in blessing those who care for the poor. After all, in these days who has more enemies than the poor? We lift up those who protect others, who won't give up someone to their enemies. And with this psalmist we pray for God's help when our enemies line up against us.
Perhaps, if we pray enough, the veneer of niceness will give way to the gritty presence of God's sustaining love. Could it be that in this love we would find the "moxy" to match our prayers with a kind of holy integrity? If so, prayer-tinged integrity would not only draw us closer to the God we seek, it just might also restore some of the credibility we squandered on nice.
