June 24 // Psalm 123

Opening Prayer

O send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling.

Psalm 43:3

Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid to the hands of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord,
have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

I don’t remember a lot of sermons I’ve heard. I don’t even remember a lot of sermons I’ve given. But I remember quite clearly a sermon given at Shawnee Park when I was in college, in which Pastor Nick asked the question, “When you’re stressed, is your first instinct to book a massage, or to pray?”

I’m sure that question stuck with me over the years because the truth it forced me to reckon with was uncomfortable but unavoidable. How often do I forget all about God, and plow on ahead, trying to find my own methods of coping, my own ways of putting to bed my stresses and anxieties, my own way of solving the problem weighing heavily on my mind.

It’s something we’re all guilty of from time to time, isn’t it? We live in a society marked by an increasing secular belief in the progressive march towards utopia. We can achieve perfection, one law, one bill, one global treaty at a time. This belief creeps into the church, especially perhaps in Reformed circles, where we preach the importance of caring for every square inch of creation, that life matters in the here and now, not just in the age to come. It’s easy, therefore, to get swept up in the weightiness of it all, the importance of each decision, the gravity of making the right choices. Easy to treat those who disagree with us as problems to be solved, obstacles in the way. Easy to turn to politicians, climate accords, social movements as our salvation. Easy to treat those who think differently with contempt.

Psalm 123 calls us back from contempt, because it calls us back from ourselves. This Song of Ascent, sung by pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem, asks us the question, “Where do you turn for help in a dark and troubled world?” Do you look to the thrones of this world? Do you raise your eyes only so high as to consider ideologies, newspaper headlines, Facebook posts, political maneuvers? Do you reach for what you feel you can control, what is within your own grasp? Are we too easily satisfied with the world’s empty promises?

The psalmist invites us to lift our eyes higher.  “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!” For the psalmist knows it is only God who has the power to perfectly assuage our fears, to bring justice in all its fullness to the oppressed, to provide for the needy. To be sure – God calls us to be involved, to work for these things, to care deeply about justice and mercy and peace. Our pleas for mercy are meaningless if we are unwilling to extend mercy ourselves. But we are only able to offer that mercy, to strive for justice, because the one who is enthroned in the heavens is powerful enough to use even our stubborn hearts to bear witness to his Kingdom, his salvation, his goodness. The world’s promises will fail us – God remains. The world moves from one plan, one project to another. God’s love is steadfast. Our own motivation, our own desire, our own strength will fail. God’s power is limitless.

So in these days of turmoil, of accusation, of striving for justice, of desperation for equality, of a great desire for flourishing, bear with one another in love and in humility. God is on the throne. Each of us comes before him with our own cries for mercy, our own distresses, our own laments. And God uses each of us, in myriad ways, to be his answer to those cries. We have had more than enough of contempt. May we never have too much love.

Closing Prayer

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love,
that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness,
and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.