Psalm 130: 1-8 (links validated 5/23/24a)
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Sermon Starters (Proper 5B)(2024)
Those of us who live in the modern world where there is such a thing as “light pollution” due to the number of outdoor lights along roads, in shopping mall parking lots, etc. cannot imagine perhaps what a truly dark night might feel like. Even on those relatively rare occasions when we are able to be far away from any outdoor nighttime lighting, we generally revel in the experience because it is thrilling to be able to see more stars in the night sky than we perhaps have ever seen before. It’s nice to be in a truly dark place to see the beauty of the heavens. But if you were a watchman standing a post in such a totally dark place in a world devoid of artificial lights and such, then that would be a very different and even threatening circumstance. It is a well-known fact that an enemy can use the cover of darkness to their advantage. So for those who are in that situation, it is hard to imagine how eager the yearning must be for the eastern horizon to begin pinking up. When you are a night watchman, that dawn is both a welcome sign that you survived a could-be perilous night and that for another day at least your shift is over! As imagery goes, the use of this in Psalm 130 is pretty powerful and clever.A Song of Forgiveness
For more than 20 years, Paulette Harwood worked as a geriatric nurse before she felt called to go to seminary. One of her jobs was working at an Adult Day Care Center. Most of their clients attended so that their families could have a bit of respite from caring for their elderly member. Other seniors came strictly for the group lunch. One of the latter group was a man named Mr. Jenks. He was a widower who had lived alone for many years. Everyone in the facility tried to avoid him. Part of the reason for that was that he was a little odd. For example, he would sit in his parked car for hours on end talking to himself. But the main reason he was shunned was his apparent lack of hygiene. He would wear four layers of clothes, all of which were typically filthy and smelly. Then one day he sat down in the chair beside Paulette’s desk and told her that he was having problems with his feet. He wanted to know if she would check them out. He said that because of arthritis he couldn’t bend his legs enough to be able to see what was wrong. So she sat on the floor in front of him and removed his shoes and socks. As she did so, an overpowering odor filled the entire Center, leading to numerous complaints from the other staff members. Paulette wrote, “As soon as I removed his socks I could see what the problem was...his toenails were so long that they curled under his toes and he was walking on them causing sores to form on many of his toes. “My initial reaction was one of disgust...how could he be so filthy. Then I realized that if his arthritis was so bad that he could not bend to see his feet...surely he could not bend to clean his feet...or even change his socks. So I filled a basin with soap and water and sat there on the floor washing his feet and trimming his toenails.”...(and other illustrations)
The Table of Grief
You hear people saying that it is not right to grieve and be sad because the person who has died has gone to a better place. They’ve gone to be with Jesus. Therefore we should be happy and rejoice for them. Well, if that view of the godly way of responding to death was right, then King David of Israel got it badly wrong, and we’d have to wonder what the people who compiled the Bible were doing when they decided to include a copy of the song of lament that he wrote for Saul and Jonathan. The song is an unrestrained outpouring of grief. It reminded me of a scene from the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” It was the one funeral, that of a man named Gareth, and in the service, his lover Matthew cites W.H. Auden’s poem, “Funeral Blues.” I’m sure many of you remember it, it was the stand out scene of the movie: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policeman wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good...
Resources from 2021 and 2023
Sermon Starters (Lent 5A)(2023)
This poem is labeled a “Psalm of Ascent” but it starts as a Psalm of Descent. It is called De Profundis in older Bibles—the Latin for “from the depths.” When last this came up for the Lectionary Year A Fifth Sunday in Lent in 2020, the initial COVID lockdown was in its second week. Some of us then figured it could not last too much longer but . . . an unsettling reality as to the long-term effect of the pandemic was beginning to settle in. We had no idea how long this would last. Even now, the world has by no means snapped back into its pre-COVID place. We have known these last three years what it is to feel in the depths, in extremis. Disorientation, uncertainty, and related feelings have been common. And when last this psalm was appointed for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, most of us pastors and other churchgoers had no idea how damaging the politicization of the pandemic would be for churches all over the place. The pandemic and the lockdown were bad enough. What we could not see coming fully three years ago just yet was the fracturing, the loss of relationships, the loss of unity in Christ that was soon to ensue. We have been ministering for some time now from the depths. Depths of uncertainty. Depths of fear. Depths of worry for vulnerable loved ones. Depths of profound disappointment as to how people we loved have behaved in recent years. Many pastors continue to have wounding words from once trusted parishioners echoing in their minds...Sermon Starters (Proper 5B)(2021)
I have watched The Shawshank Redemption so often—all of it or parts of it when I run across it on cable—that there are few subjects in life that I cannot link to some scene or another in the film! And so also for Psalm 130. In the scene you can view here, Andy has made a fateful decision: this was to be the night of his long-planned escape from Shawshank Prison. But Andy’s friend, Red (Morgan Freeman) fears that Andy is in despair and is going to hang himself in his cell. Red’s description of his long night of deep worry when time “draws out like a blade” matches the mood of being in the depths a la Psalm 130 as well as a deep, deep longing for the morning light to come.From the Depths of Despair to Forgiveness and Love
In his autobiographical book Telling Secrets, Frederick Buechner frankly relates a family secret: how his teenage daughter struggled with anorexia. There came a day when Buechner was in the pits of despair, worried sick that his daughter would never be well again. Listen for the odd way God chose to speak to him in the dark night: “I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter’s illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary I needed most to see exactly then. The word was trust. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy as a relic as I have ever seen.”...Waiting for God
In addition to Psalm 130 being identified as a penitential psalm and a song of ascents or pilgrimage psalm; the Lutheran Study Bible (p. 849) also identifies it as a prayer for help or lament. To understand this psalm as a penitential, pilgrimage and lament psalm, I think it is helpful to consider the insights of biblical scholar, the Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann. In two of his books, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary, and Spirituality of the Psalms, Dr. Brueggemann suggests that patterns of thought and speech in the psalms are similar to the patterns of human life. For example, there are satisfied seasons of well-being, there are anguished seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering and death, and those seasons can become turns of surprise when we are overwhelmed with the new gifts of God. He also puts it another way, summarizing it in three words, stages, or seasons. There are times of orientation when all seems well with the world. There are times of disorientation when the world is turned upside-down and trouble and suffering are the order of the day. Then there are times of reorientation when life is restored, sometimes even better than in a time of orientation. Reorientation can come sometimes in unpredictable, creative and surprising ways...
Resources from 2018 to 2020
Preaching Helps (Proper 14B)(2018)
While I was a seminary intern, I experienced for the first time what it is like as a pastor to walk with someone through cancer, the rigors of chemotherapy, and the final succumbing to the disease. Especially as the end drew near, what worried this dear Christian man more than anything was what was going to happen on judgment day. He had in his mind an image with which perhaps many of us grew up: the image of some giant movie screen on which God would play the film of our lives including all those greasy moments of secret sin. And my dying friend fretted terribly about this, and maybe some of us do, too. How could we endure the shame of having the whole human race see us literally with our pants down or with our mouths full of swear words or with our hearts filled with dark thoughts of envy, anger, pride, and lust? Worse, how could God ever welcome us into his kingdom given all the sins that would be projected onto that movie screen of judgment? If you, O Lord God, kept a record of sins; if you, O God, fixed your eyes ever and only on what we’ve done wrong, who could stand? The answer is no one. So instead of that grim movie screen of judgment, God long ago fixed his eyes on the cross of his Son and our Savior, Jesus. When we admit our need for the forgiving grace that streams from the cross like a mighty river of mercy, we discover that with God there is forgiveness, and that is the end of the story.Sermon Starters (Lent 5A)(2020)
I have watched The Shawshank Redemption so often—all of it or parts of it when I run across it on cable—that there are few subjects in life that I cannot link to some scene or another in the film! And so also for Psalm 130. In the scene you can view here, Andy has made a fateful decision: this was to be the night of his long-planned escape from Shawshank Prison. But Andy’s friend, Red (Morgan Freeman) fears that Andy is in despair and is going to hang himself in his cell. Red’s description of his long night of deep worry when time “draws out like a blade” matches the mood of being in the depths a la Psalm 130 as well as a deep, deep longing for the morning light to come.Preaching Helps (Proper 8B)(2018)
Anyone who has ever worked an overnight or “graveyard” shift knows the poignancy of the psalmist’s “wait” (5-6). As the night stretches out what sometimes feels interminably, various “watchmen” will do almost anything to keep themselves awake. Especially if there’s not a lot of work to do besides keep an eye on things, watchmen figuratively if not literally eagerly watch the clock or scan the skies for signs that the morning is dawning and their shift is ending.
Resources from 2015 to 2017
Proper 8B (2015)
Anyone who has ever worked an overnight or “graveyard” shift knows the poignancy of the psalmist’s “wait” (5-6). As the night stretches out what sometimes feels interminably, various “watchmen” will do almost anything to keep themselves awake. Especially if there’s not a lot of work to do besides keep an eye on things, watchmen figuratively if not literally eagerly watch the clock or scan the skies for signs that the morning is dawning and their shift is ending.
Resources from 2012 to 2014
From the Depths
If you visit the site of the Dachau camp today, you will see the gate with the infamous, false motto. And you will see the barracks, where prisoners slept crowded together on hard bunks. And you will see the courtyard where people were shot often and for no reason. And you will see the buildings where medical experiments were conducted on human beings, crippling and often killing them. You will see the crematorium. If you visit Dachau today, you will also see a memorial chapel. And if you enter the chapel, you can read these words: Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD
Resources from the Archives
From the Depths
If you visit the site of the Dachau camp today, you will see the gate with the infamous, false motto. And you will see the barracks, where prisoners slept crowded together on hard bunks. And you will see the courtyard where people were shot often and for no reason. And you will see the buildings where medical experiments were conducted on human beings, crippling and often killing them. You will see the crematorium. If you visit Dachau today, you will also see a memorial chapel. And if you enter the chapel, you can read these words: Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORDOut of the Depths
David quotes a commencement address given by Mary Schmich which he attributes to Kurt Vonnegut. The original address can be read here.