Sermon Notes for March 11, 2018
Read Ephesians 2:1-10 and Psalm 30..
Now, as we move through the psalms, we began with a psalm of lament, where we cry out to God for all that we have gone through, for the times when we suffer. Then we moved to a psalm of confession, where we admit the times we have fallen short. The things we have done that we shouldn’t have or the things we left undone.
That moves us naturally to today's Psalm. One of thanksgiving for delivery. We offer thanks for getting through the times that caused us to lament. We offer thanks for forgiveness for the times we have gone astray. Basically, we are thanking God for moving us through the last two types of psalm.
This psalm proclaims that endings are not as final as we sometimes think they are. It does not deny the reality of the darkness. It does not deny the experience of the absence of God. And it does not deny the dismay of finding that our beliefs do not always stand up to the realities of life. It does not excuse us from the times we have fallen short. But it affirms that out of that grievous experience of death can emerge a new joy, a new hope, a new future, and a new confirmation of what it is to be the people of God.
Who is more grateful than someone who knows what it is like to have nothing? The man who has recovered from a long illness or surgery, values his good health far more than the one who has never been sick. The woman who struggles to feed and shelter her family values a good job with a living wage far more than the one who has never had to go without. The child who had to work for their first A is far prouder than the one who never gets anything else.
Or, on a lighter note, there is the old story about a man who goes to his priest and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?"
The priest answers, "Take your goat into the room with you." The man is incredulous, but the priest insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week."
A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before. "We cannot stand it," he tells the priest. "The goat is filthy."
The priest then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week."
A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there's no goat - only the nine of us."
We know to be thankful when life is better than it was before. When we have been through the worst and come out the other side we know exactly what a gift we have been given. We understand gratitude for what we have because we know what it is like not to have it. Having been relieved of burdens, having been given our lives back we naturally turn to gratitude. Thankfulness is our response.
But we have trouble expressing our gratitude sometimes, don't we? Especially when it is one that we didn't expect or something we really needed. Instead of saying thank you we often try to talk the gift away. "It's too much" we say. Or "You shouldn't have." We do this rather than responding with a heartfelt thank you and expressions of joy. When God helps us to come through the darkness, when we make it past the hardest moments in our lives, we can be so grateful that words become inadequate. That there is no way we can ever really express just how grateful we are.
It is hard to express really deep gratitude sometimes because we feel like it becomes a debt we owe. When it's to another person we try to push the offer away or do something to balance the imaginary cosmic scales to say thank you. To make up for that effort.
But God's grace is freely given and isn't something we could ever repay. When we become overwhelmed with this realization, we can end up at a loss for words. This Psalm shows us how to respond in gratitude to a God who has given us more than we can ever repay or deserve. We say thank you. Over and over again perhaps, but we do not need anything more or less than our sincere words of gratitude.
"You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever." After we pray our laments and our confessions, it is so important that we give thanks to the God who got us through the dark times. The God who forgave our dark moments.
Sometimes it is tempting to approach God with the unending to-do list of requests, needs and wants, and yet this approach of enthusiastic praise and gratitude reminds us to remember exactly what it is God has done over and over and over again. When we think about what we are lacking, it’s important not to forget what we have already been given.
Now this Psalm is a beautiful and powerful Psalm, but it’s also a challenge to us. It is an invitation to find one’s hope in God, but it can easily be taken as a simplistic suggestion that don’t worry, be happy, because God will take care of everything. But we know that life is much more complex than that.
J. Clinton McCann, in his commentary on the Psalms, writes: "In short, suffering need not be an indication of the absence of God for those who take refuge in God. The existence of suffering does not negate the good news that life is a gift from God."
The point is not that we ignore suffering or that we might be completely freed of physical suffering/sickness, but that we can be aware of God’s presence in all aspects of life, and "this awareness engenders thanks, praise, and dancing."
It’s not just about offering thanks after the darkness is over, but instead about offering thanks in the darkness. It’s not about nothing bad ever happening again, but about knowing that God will be present even in the bad moments.
Psalm 30 narrates a story that envisions God as present in joy and in trouble, that is, in all of life. The psalm proclaims a gospel of divine involvement in the world in all of life. It is a daring act of faith to see God in all the parts of life, and our psalm with powerful poetry helps us to imagine such a reality. The psalmist strongly holds to God's providence in the midst of a crisis of life and death, and God did not leave the psalmist alone but came to deliver her/him from the crisis.
So this week think about the bad times you have gone through and survived. Think about the things that you have done and been forgiven for. Think about all of the gifts you have been given in your life. And take the time to tell God thank you. Amen.
