Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19
Preaching
A Journey Through the Psalms: Reflections for Worried Hearts and Troubled Times
Preaching the Psalms Cycles A, B, C
Object:
There is a deep yearning here. A longing for a time now past. It seems that memory always burnishes the finish of bygone days. Listen closely to any gathering of older folk recalling the good old days. If honesty were to prevail, they probably weren't quite as good as recollection claims. But still, fortunes do decline. Armies invade. Economies stumble. Crops fail, and loved ones perish. In other words, even with an inclination to put a spin on the past, there are times when people ache for a restoration of good fortune.
History, of course, teaches that people and civilization move in cycles and long arcs of rise and decline. There is the movement and shove of cultures, the shift and jumble of intermingling traditions. Here lies something different. Here is desolation in the extreme. Here is a people who feel spurned by their God.
So the cry goes up. "Save us!"
In the wake of contemporary culture, the question arises. From what do twenty-first-century Americans need saving? If today's church community came together to cry out for restoration, what is it that would be restored? What kind of psalm would be sung to God if we were to fall on our knees and ask for God's help? Would the cry come to restore old "mainline denominations"? Would the old men and women gather in the church kitchen to recollect Norman Rockwell scenes of once and long ago? How would the people pray? What words, what yearning or longing would pass from their lips?
Perhaps it is longing itself that calls for restoration. Could it be that some ancient sense of yearning for God's intimate presence has evaporated in the wake of modern culture? Is it possible that the militant march of individualism has snatched holy intimacy away and replaced it with an incessant and wearying search for the self? Is there a chance that the self is somehow diminished or fractionalized by this vacuum where holy yearning once lived?
If there is a psalm of restoration to be written today, this could well be it. A fervent prayer for a reconnection to the holy is something that might well be considered. It might go something like this: Restore us, holy one, to relationship with you! Save us, Lord, from our empty search for a self that doesn't really exist apart from you. Bring us, we pray, into the fold of your embrace. Crack open our hearts and awaken our sense of longing, of yearning, our childlike sense of wonder at your magnificence. Restore us, O God, and come live in our hearts again. Amen.
History, of course, teaches that people and civilization move in cycles and long arcs of rise and decline. There is the movement and shove of cultures, the shift and jumble of intermingling traditions. Here lies something different. Here is desolation in the extreme. Here is a people who feel spurned by their God.
So the cry goes up. "Save us!"
In the wake of contemporary culture, the question arises. From what do twenty-first-century Americans need saving? If today's church community came together to cry out for restoration, what is it that would be restored? What kind of psalm would be sung to God if we were to fall on our knees and ask for God's help? Would the cry come to restore old "mainline denominations"? Would the old men and women gather in the church kitchen to recollect Norman Rockwell scenes of once and long ago? How would the people pray? What words, what yearning or longing would pass from their lips?
Perhaps it is longing itself that calls for restoration. Could it be that some ancient sense of yearning for God's intimate presence has evaporated in the wake of modern culture? Is it possible that the militant march of individualism has snatched holy intimacy away and replaced it with an incessant and wearying search for the self? Is there a chance that the self is somehow diminished or fractionalized by this vacuum where holy yearning once lived?
If there is a psalm of restoration to be written today, this could well be it. A fervent prayer for a reconnection to the holy is something that might well be considered. It might go something like this: Restore us, holy one, to relationship with you! Save us, Lord, from our empty search for a self that doesn't really exist apart from you. Bring us, we pray, into the fold of your embrace. Crack open our hearts and awaken our sense of longing, of yearning, our childlike sense of wonder at your magnificence. Restore us, O God, and come live in our hearts again. Amen.
