Psalm 37
¹Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers,
²for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
³Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
⁴Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
⁵Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.
⁶He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
⁷Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices.
⁸Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it leads only to evil.
⁹For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
¹⁰Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there.
¹¹But the meek shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.
¹²The wicked plot against the righteous, and gnash their teeth at them;
¹³but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that their day is coming.
¹⁴The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to kill those who walk uprightly;
¹⁵their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
¹⁶Better is a little that the righteous person has than the abundance of many wicked.
¹⁷For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous.
¹⁸The Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will abide forever;
¹⁹they are not put to shame in evil times, in the days of famine they have abundance.
²⁰But the wicked perish, and the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.
²¹The wicked borrow, and do not pay back, but the righteous are generous and keep giving;²²for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off.
²³Our steps are made firm by the Lord, when he delights in our way;
²⁴though we stumble, we shall not fall headlong, for the Lord holds us by the hand.
²⁵I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.
²⁶They are ever giving liberally and lending, and their children become a blessing.
²⁷Depart from evil, and do good; so you shall abide forever.
²⁸For the Lord loves justice; he will not forsake his faithful ones. The righteous shall be kept safe forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
²⁹The righteous shall inherit the land, and live in it forever.
³⁰The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak justice.
³¹The law of their God is in their hearts; their steps do not slip.
³²The wicked watch for the righteous, and seek to kill them.
³³The Lord will not abandon them to their power, or let them be condemned when they are brought to trial.
³⁴Wait for the Lord, and keep to his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land; you will look on the destruction of the wicked.
³⁵I have seen the wicked oppressing, and towering like a cedar of Lebanon.
³⁶Again I passed by, and they were no more; though I sought them, they could not be found.
³⁷Mark the blameless, and behold the upright, for there is posterity for the peaceable.
³⁸But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed; the posterity of the wicked shall be cut off.
³⁹The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their refuge in the time of trouble.
⁴⁰The Lord helps them and rescues them; he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them, because they take refuge in him.

 
Sojourner’s UCC, Charlottesville VA
October 2, 2016

HOPE

When I was a very new clergy-person living in Vermont and serving as a hospice chaplain, I was lucky enough to find myself in a fellowship group of clergy people. We met monthly in one another’s homes. We shared bible study, we shared lunch, we shared communion and in between those moments, we shared ourselves. Our struggles and joys in ministry, the family and personal challenges weighing on us, and supported one another.

I was younger than the other participants by, let’s be generous and say, “a handful of decades.”

And it was fantastic.

As a culture, we tend not to give much credence to the wisdom of our elders. In a constant pursuit of what is “new” and “fresh” and “innovative” we have, in a manner, thrown the baby out with the bathwater and forgotten that there is a deep understanding and knowledge in taking a long-view of things.

But I am here to tell you that when we, in all of our youthfulness are freaking out about something, having a friend with a long-view of life is essential.

Soon after my daughter Cecilia was born, I sat with my clergy friends who were mothers with adult children and laid out for them my worries. “How can I do this?” I asked them? “How can I be a minister and a parent?! It feels completely impossible! I can’t do everything I’m supposed to do!”

My friend, Margaret’s was partly reassuring and partly disconcerting:   “you can’t.” she said. “Don’t worry so much. You have time ahead of you. I’ve been a minister for over 20 years and I didn’t start until I was in my 40’s. You’ve got time.”

My other friends echoed her. Take. Your. Time. They told me. Don’t worry so much about making it all look perfect right now. You’ve got time. Trust us.

In case you were wondering, yes, I miss my old friends.

The psalm that we hear today starts in a similar place. The writer of this psalm is giving the kids – aka: US — some sage advice.

The psalmist doesn’t tell us the name of the person they have written this psalm for. Neither do we know the occasion for it. But certainly, the person for whom this was written had a heavy heart. Three times we hear the words, “do not fret.” We can therefore assume, that the original listener was quite a worrier.

When I saw this on the lectionary this week, I could not imagine something more timely for all of us right now. We seem to continually be bombarded with terrible news: election drama, racist fueled violence, refugees seeking and not finding sanctuary. There are mornings when I cannot make myself turn on the radio. And you know I have confessed to you before what an NPR junkie I am. Not turning on the radio is a big deal for me. These are fretful times.

And while this advice “do not fret” feels timely, there is a part of us that might just push back when we hear it. Because the danger in the message, the edge to it, is that it can begin to sound like the psalmist is recommending that we not stir the pot, that those who are oppressed, discriminated against and taken advantage of (and their allies) should sit quietly and wait for another far off day. Indeed, this psalm has been used to those ends in the past.

But I would say that reading this psalm that way doesn’t give the writer enough credit. In his commentary on this psalm, Walter Bouzard writes “do not fret because the wicked” is a way of rendering a Hebrew verb that connotes heat or becoming inflamed with anger.

This psalm is not about not getting angry and lulling ourselves into complacency. It IS about not being consumed by your anger. A fire in the belly is one thing. A fire that takes us over until all we see is red is quite another.

The psalmist is inviting us to welcome some nuance into our lives.

Any good cardiologist will tell you that living in a state of anger is bad for your heart. The psalmist is also reminding us that living in a state of agitation is bad for our souls. How could we keep up a relationship with God if we are constantly angry, worried or agitated?

Just like my friend Margaret, this psalm reminds us that there is a bigger picture, a longer road than we can imagine, even when faced with the cruel reality that people do succeed in “wicked schemes.” But the psalmist reminds us there is more than that. God is more than that. We can have hope.

And that’s what the nuance of this psalm is made of. That’s the stuff. Indeed, this psalm is all about hanging onto hope. “Those who hope in God will inherit the land.”

Hope is a slippery thing. Emily Dickinson writes most elegantly about it when she says that it’s “the tune without the words.” Because the feeling of hope can be allusive, and it can feel so small and so ‘not enough.’

Last spring, Barbara Kingsolver came to the paramount to speak, and as a serious fan of her books, I excitedly bought my tickets. I think some of you were also in attendance. I’ll admit that I was disappointed that she didn’t read from any of her actual books and the night was more of an informal update on what’s going on with her these days. Towards the end of the evening during a Q & A, someone asked how her how she infused such beauty and inspiration (or something like that) into her work. To paraphrase her response because I didn’t write it down she said: “Hope! I think hope is something you take daily, like a vitamin.”

I remember being so unsatisfied in her answer. What?! This is one of my modern day heroes and in the face of all that is going on in the world, that’s all we’ve got?! Hope?! She’s writing about global warming, endangered species, the disconnection between communities and individuals! And that’s her answer—hope?! You’ve got to be kidding—how much did I pay for these tickets?

But this psalmist might just agree with Barbara Kingsolver. Hope is what we’ve got. It may be small, feathery, light and allusive. And it’s incredibly powerful.

And of course we need to be clear about where our hope lies, and where the psalmist tells us that our hope should be. Not in government or money or in those who are up their “wicked schemes,” as the psalmist puts it. No, the psalmist is clear: “those who hope in God will inherit the land.”

We can let go of our anger because we have hope in God, because we trust that God is with us, loving us even in the anger and fear and the not-enough of life.

I would also say that it is this same hope that makes it an imperative for us us to act. Indeed, the psalmist invites us into action. The psalmist commands us clearly to “Do Good.” To “Commit your way to God.” And, one of my favorites, to “be still before God,” which actually is less about being inert, and more about being “motionless in awe.”

Our hope is what propels us forward to protest an unjust society, to strive to find our unity amidst our great diversity in this church and in our community. We can work towards our goals and not be consumed by rage, fear and dismay because we have hope that we are not alone. There is hope for the resurrection when we see the cross.

That is the Good News today: Those who have hope, will inherit the land. We can be strong in our hope for God’s kingdom. We can let go of what would otherwise overwhelm us.

I once asked one of my mentors, a hospital chaplain at a terribly burdened Boston Hospital how she could not take each of these suffering people with her everywhere she went. How did she let go? “I pray and I trust that I can let go of it because I can give it to God,” she told me.

I promise I won’t actually sing ‘Let it Go,” because I’m sure you all now have it in your heads without my needing to sing it. But I think perhaps our sage psalmist is reminding us that we can perhaps only continue our good work in the world when we ‘let it go.’ Otherwise, we hit burn-out, we hit fatigue, we hit despondence. Who knew Queen Elsa was giving us an imperative?

So today, and as we go forward this week, remember to have hope. Let this psalmist whisper in your ear every morning: “those who have hope will inherit the land. Don’t worry so much, kid.” Maybe even take a dose of hope with your vitamins as Barbara suggested.

Remember too that communion is an incredible act of hope: hope that we are truly worthy of taking God into our bodies. Hope that God is there. Hope that we are connecting ourselves to the body of Christ across the world and across time. We hope. Today, right now, this is our act of hope.

May the wisdom of the psalms and our feathery hope carry us to God’s kingdom.

Amen.