Sunday, May 13th, 2007
Sixth of Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 67
Given any other Sunday, after these last couple of days, it would seem to be an appropriate time to read a Psalm of sorrow rather than a call to worship as our text.
There are times when it simply doesn’t seem to be in us to be able to lift our voices in song and praise God. But I think that comes from a misperception of what we’ve come to exclusively equate praise and worship with – and that is Joy.
Yes, of COURSE, when we are feeling joyful we praise God. It’s easy to do that at THOSE times.
Especially on days like today, when our surrounding culture celebrates motherhood, it comes easy to our lips to thank God and Praise God for God’s gift of mothers.
There’s no way to overstate the importance of them in our lives – whether they be our actual mothers, our adoptive mothers, those women in our lives who have stepped into that role for us in the absence of our biological mothers, or even those women who for even a short time became mothers to us.
But what of those who might be in our midst who were NOT blessed with a mother like Diane, or like Gladys? What of those whose mothers were abusive, or emotionally or even physically absent, those mothers for whom the day a child turned 18 and could be ushered out the door could not come soon enough? How will THOSE people find a way to worship on a day like this, when we read this particular call to worship, extolling God’s blessing on not only the nation of Israel, but by association, on the individuals who make UP that nation?
There is a subtle yet persistent falsity that we, as part of the church, have allowed to infuse our understanding of the way God works, and that is that God is primarily out to make us feel good and be happy. Having said that, we DO stand on the passage in Jeremiah 29 where God tells us,
but what we are faced with is a world where children – young or not so young – lose their mothers just before mother’s day. Where husbands lose their wives and where grandchildren lose their grandmothers, where women who more than anything WANT to BE mothers yet are unable to do so, and where young women choose to stop a life within because the father has moved out of their lives, where husbands beat their wives and send them to the hospital with a concussion, and still we are being asked to praise God and to thank God for all the blessings we’ve received from God.
How do we reconcile the two? CAN we reconcile the two realities?
To be honest, I’m not sure we are supposed to, at least not on THIS side of the grave. Someone may be able to. I cannot. I believe God HAS our best interests at heart. I also believe God and God’s … movements … are not something we are going to be able to understand 100 % of the time. We’re going to be talking about that as we move through the book of Habakkuk on Wednesday evenings, by the way. In case you might be interested in joining us.
As I mentioned last week, the truthfulness of the Psalms with regard to the human condition is deeply comforting to me. The fact that if we look for it, we can find a Psalm coming from just about any emotional place we can name and ending up somehow, someway at the same place – worshipping and praising God.
What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
It means that we begin to learn that we worship God through our singing and our laughter, yes, but that we also worship God through our tears – not ‘in spite of’, not ‘regardless of’, not ‘ignoring’ our tears, but THROUGH our tears. It is the song coming from a heart so overwrought with grief and sorrow that the words are barely able to form on emotion-tightened lips telling of the majesty, the holiness, the goodness and the blessings of God that speak and sing the truest psalms from our purest, most honest selves.
What will mark us as followers of Christ is not ONLY that we laugh and celebrate life’s blessings with each other, but that we ALSO acknowledge, that we also support and love one another through the darkest times of our lives – that we stand together – for mutual support, but also to bear witness to a God who knows and understands our sorrow and our pain because God incarnate – God in the person of Jesus Christ – came and walked this world beside us, and taught us about being our most pure and honest selves.
So if there is an invitation this morning it is to find THAT in us – the purest, most honest expression and let our voices ring out and proclaim that God is a good and loving and holy – and wholly – completely – other.
Let’s pray.
Sixth of Easter
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 67
1May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah 2that your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations. 3Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. 4Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah 5Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you. 6The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us. 7May God continue to bless us; let all the ends of the earth revere him.
Given any other Sunday, after these last couple of days, it would seem to be an appropriate time to read a Psalm of sorrow rather than a call to worship as our text.
There are times when it simply doesn’t seem to be in us to be able to lift our voices in song and praise God. But I think that comes from a misperception of what we’ve come to exclusively equate praise and worship with – and that is Joy.
Yes, of COURSE, when we are feeling joyful we praise God. It’s easy to do that at THOSE times.
Especially on days like today, when our surrounding culture celebrates motherhood, it comes easy to our lips to thank God and Praise God for God’s gift of mothers.
There’s no way to overstate the importance of them in our lives – whether they be our actual mothers, our adoptive mothers, those women in our lives who have stepped into that role for us in the absence of our biological mothers, or even those women who for even a short time became mothers to us.
But what of those who might be in our midst who were NOT blessed with a mother like Diane, or like Gladys? What of those whose mothers were abusive, or emotionally or even physically absent, those mothers for whom the day a child turned 18 and could be ushered out the door could not come soon enough? How will THOSE people find a way to worship on a day like this, when we read this particular call to worship, extolling God’s blessing on not only the nation of Israel, but by association, on the individuals who make UP that nation?
There is a subtle yet persistent falsity that we, as part of the church, have allowed to infuse our understanding of the way God works, and that is that God is primarily out to make us feel good and be happy. Having said that, we DO stand on the passage in Jeremiah 29 where God tells us,
11For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
but what we are faced with is a world where children – young or not so young – lose their mothers just before mother’s day. Where husbands lose their wives and where grandchildren lose their grandmothers, where women who more than anything WANT to BE mothers yet are unable to do so, and where young women choose to stop a life within because the father has moved out of their lives, where husbands beat their wives and send them to the hospital with a concussion, and still we are being asked to praise God and to thank God for all the blessings we’ve received from God.
How do we reconcile the two? CAN we reconcile the two realities?
To be honest, I’m not sure we are supposed to, at least not on THIS side of the grave. Someone may be able to. I cannot. I believe God HAS our best interests at heart. I also believe God and God’s … movements … are not something we are going to be able to understand 100 % of the time. We’re going to be talking about that as we move through the book of Habakkuk on Wednesday evenings, by the way. In case you might be interested in joining us.
As I mentioned last week, the truthfulness of the Psalms with regard to the human condition is deeply comforting to me. The fact that if we look for it, we can find a Psalm coming from just about any emotional place we can name and ending up somehow, someway at the same place – worshipping and praising God.
What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
It means that we begin to learn that we worship God through our singing and our laughter, yes, but that we also worship God through our tears – not ‘in spite of’, not ‘regardless of’, not ‘ignoring’ our tears, but THROUGH our tears. It is the song coming from a heart so overwrought with grief and sorrow that the words are barely able to form on emotion-tightened lips telling of the majesty, the holiness, the goodness and the blessings of God that speak and sing the truest psalms from our purest, most honest selves.
What will mark us as followers of Christ is not ONLY that we laugh and celebrate life’s blessings with each other, but that we ALSO acknowledge, that we also support and love one another through the darkest times of our lives – that we stand together – for mutual support, but also to bear witness to a God who knows and understands our sorrow and our pain because God incarnate – God in the person of Jesus Christ – came and walked this world beside us, and taught us about being our most pure and honest selves.
So if there is an invitation this morning it is to find THAT in us – the purest, most honest expression and let our voices ring out and proclaim that God is a good and loving and holy – and wholly – completely – other.
Let’s pray.
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