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Prayers That Stick – DUH

April 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Prayers that Stick

Prayers That Stick – DUH (Psalms of Confession)
Sycamore Creek Church
April 1, 2012
Tom Arthur
Psalm 32

DUH Friends!

This past week I found myself facing something of a trial.  I was throwing my own little pity party and saying to myself, “I deserve better than this.  I shouldn’t have to deal with this.  People should make my life easy.”  I was driving down the road speaking this way to myself when I heard more clearly than I’ve heard in a long time, “Who promised you a trial-free life?  Jesus certainly didn’t have one.”  DUH!  The next morning as I was writing in my journal and examining myself for sin, I realized the sin I had fallen into: pride.  Pride is a tricky sin.  It’s subtle and hard to notice, but pride basically tells us a lie.  Pride tells us that we’re something that we’re not.  Humility is telling the truth about yourself.  So in my journal I confessed my pride to God.

Today we continue a series called, Prayers that Stick.  We’re looking at the book of Psalms which is basically a book of all kinds prayers in the form of poetry.  These aren’t the kind of prayers that feel shallow.  They’re prayers that stick with you for a long time.  They’re prayers that are worth sticking in your memory by memorizing them.  They’re prayers that we believe stick with God too.  So far we’ve looked at prayers of praise, prayers of wonder and awe, prayers of lament and cursing, and today we look at prayers of confession.

It’s a good time to consider confession.  It’s a good time to confess.  Well, actually any time is a good time to confess, but today is Palm Sunday and it begins the week leading up to Easter called Holy Week.  This week ends the 40 days of Lent in which we prepare ourselves for Easter.  Part of that preparation is confession.  I’ve picked Psalm 32 to help us do that this morning.  Admittedly, Psalm 32 is more a psalm about confession than a psalm of confession, but I think we’ll still learn something that will stick with us.  So let’s begin with Psalm 32.

Psalm 32 NLT

Oh, what joy for those
whose rebellion is forgiven,
whose sin is put out of sight!
Yes, what joy for those
whose record the LORD has cleared of sin,
whose lives are lived in complete honesty!

When I refused to confess my sin,
I was weak and miserable,
and I groaned all day long.
Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.
My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.
Interlude

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you
and stopped trying to hide them.
I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.”
And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.
Interlude

Therefore, let all the godly confess their rebellion to you while there is time,
that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment.
For you are my hiding place;
you protect me from trouble.
You surround me with songs of victory.
Interlude

The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.
I will advise you and watch over you.
Do not be like a senseless horse or mule
that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”

Many sorrows come to the wicked,
but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the LORD.
So rejoice in the LORD and be glad, all you who obey him!
Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!

Thank you God for Psalm 32!

Did you notice that there were a lot of different ways to describe sin in the first couple verses of this psalm?  There are four kinds of sin according to Psalm 32:

32:1 Rebellion (pe-sha) – an active rebellion against God’s will;

32:1 Sin (hka-ta-ah) – un/intentionally missing the mark of God’s will;

32:2 Sin/Iniquity (a-ohn) (guilt) – accumulated guilt from rebellion or missing the mark;

32:2 Deceit/honesty (ru-me-yah) – deceiving oneself and/or others.

When I look at this list of the ways to sin, I realize that there are a lot of different ways to sin just like there are at least four words to describe it.

When we commit these kinds of sin there are consequences.  We learn more about that as we keep reading the psalm.  In verse three we read about how unconfessed sin tears us apart inside, and how God doesn’t leave us alone but convicts us of this sin:

When I refused to confess my sin,
I was weak and miserable,
and I groaned all day long.
Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.
My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.

In the end we’re left without much strength, perhaps physical, emotional, or spiritual strength.

When I was working at another church, we had a copier that you really weren’t supposed to put card stock through it.  It was apparently bad for the machine.  But I needed something printed on card stock and decided to run it through it anyway.  As I was doing this the secretary walked up and noticed I was using the machine in a way I shouldn’t be using it.  So what did I do?  I lied.  Yes, I was working at a church, and I lied.  I told her that I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to do it.  Active rebellion.  DUH!

Well, over the rest of the day my conscience would not let me go.  My stomach was in knots.  Every time I saw her I felt like I had betrayed her trust.  I probably didn’t look any different on the outside, but on the inside I was being eaten up.  Finally I went to her, and I confessed.  I said, “Sue, I need to tell you something.  When you saw me putting card stock through the copy machine, and told me I wasn’t supposed to do that, I lied to you.  I told you I didn’t know, but I did know.  I’m sorry that I lied to you.  Will you forgive me?”  She was gracious and forgave me, and I felt the weight of the sin lifted off of me.  Thank you God!

What are all the kinds of ways you find yourself sinning and what is it doing to your physical, emotional, and spiritual strength?

Just in case you’re having a hard time coming up with ways that you’re sinning, there are several places in scripture where different writers list different sins.  That’s one of the benefits of daily Bible reading.  You learn how you’re life isn’t hitting the mark, and you’re given the grace of conviction so that you can confess those sins and be made right with God and others.  Here are some of those lists of sins to ponder and examine yourself:

Romans 1:29-31 NLT

Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving.

Ephesians 5:3-4 NLT – Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes — these are not for you.

Colossians 3:5-9 NLT – So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don’t be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry…Now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other…

1 John 2:16 NLT – For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world.

Revelation 2:5 & 3:16 NLT – Look how far you have fallen from your first love…Since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!

Have we become Luke Warm?

When I look at that last one in Revelation, I regularly ask myself, have I become lukewarm?  Have I lost my first love?  Have I made anything else in my life more important than my love for God?  Sometimes, church, I wonder if we have not become a lukewarm church.  Here are some questions to ponder about whether we’ve become lukewarm or not:

  • Do you spend unhurried time daily with God? Or does God get your crumbs of time if even that?  If you’re too busy for this, then you’re too busy.  (I was talking with Jana Aupperlee earlier this week.  Jana is helping to lead the Run for God small group that is doing spiritual and physical training to prepare to run a 5K race.  She told me how she has been convicted in the past that she is able to find daily time for exercise and running but not always for God.  Are the rest of us like that?)
  • Do you seek counsel from other Christians in your spiritual walk?  Are you in some kind of small group?  Or are you a solo-Christian who thinks you can go it alone, that everyone else is wrong, crazy, and ignorant?
  • Do you give cheerfully? Do you give regularly and intentionally?  Do you give sacrificially?  Do you give from the first portion of what you receive?  Or do you give begrudgingly when you feel like it or not at all?
  • Do you serve cheerfully?  Or have your extracurricular activities so overcommitted you and your family that you serve only because we chase you down?  Do you serve only when it’s convenient for you?
  • Do you have an overflow of joy for inviting people to know Jesus in and through the community we call SCC?  Does your love for God and for this church naturally flow into your conversations with people around you?  Or is this whole church and Jesus thing just a game rather than life and death and eternity?  Have you taken the opportunity to invite three people to Easter seriously or do you brush that opportunity aside and ignore it?
  • Do you come to church with a bib on only to feed yourself, or do you come to church with a towel in hand so that you can help feed others?  Do you stick to the people you know on Sunday morning or are you regularly working on building community here at SCC with people you don’t know, especially guests among us?

Friends, if we are turning into a lukewarm church, then that’s something we need to pray to be convicted about, confess to God, and then do a U-turn and get going the other way.  But how do we confess?  What does a confession look like?  Psalm 32 provides some guidance.  Just like there were multiple words for sin, so too are there multiple words for confession.  We read about four ways to confess in verse 5:

1. I confessed (ya-da) – Made known;

2. I did not hide (ca-sah) – Uncover, only God can cover our guilt;

3. My iniquity (in the NLT it simply says “Them”, but literally the Hebrew says “a-ohn” or guilt) – Take responsibility, the guilt is mine;

4. I will confess (ya-dah) – Cast it off (and onto God).

So confession includes making the active rebellion, missing of the mark, guilt and deception known, uncovering it and putting it where it can be seen, taking responsibility, and casting it off of oneself (by God’s grace) onto God.

Usher, a contemporary R&B singer has a song called Confession.  In it he tells the story of how he cheated on his loved one and now his “chick on the side” is having his baby.  Here’s the lyrics to the song:

Chorus: These are my confessions
Just when I thought I said all I can say
My chick on the side said she got one on the way
These are my confessions

Verse 1: Now this gon’ be the hardest thing I think I ever had to do
Got me talkin’ to myself askin’ how I’m gon’ tell you
’bout that chick on part 1 I told ya’ll I was creepin’ with, creepin’ with
Said she’s 3 months pregnant and she’s keepin’ it
The first thing that came to mind was you
Second thing was how do I know if it’s mine and is it true
Third thing was me wishin’ that I never did what I did
How I ain’t ready for no kid and bye bye to our relationship

Is this a real confession?  It’s not bad, but somehow it feels forced to me.  It feels like he’s been backed into a corner and is looking for a way out. If he found it without confessing, I get the sense that he’d take that route.  If his “chick on the side” would have an abortion, then he wouldn’t have to confess.  If he found out the baby wasn’t his, then he could deny the accusation.  But for now, it appears that he’ll have to “man up” to it and confess.  I’d prefer for him to take more responsibility.  His confession could go something like this:

I have done wrong to you.
I have done what I should not have done.
I was unfaithful emotionally and sexually.
I would like to ask you to forgive me, but I expect that if the relationship continues, it will require a lot of hard work to repair the broken trust.
I am sorry for what I have done.

In the same way that there are several ways to sin and several ways to confess, there are several ways that God forgives us.  We read about these back in verse one and two:

32:1 – Our active rebellion is Forgiven (na-sa) – It is lifted up off of us.

32:1 – Our sin is Covered (ca-sa) – We uncovered it in confession and God covers it with forgiveness.  The verb here is passive.  God does the work.  We receive it.  Augustine says, that our “sins are buried in oblivion.”

32:2 – Our guilt is Cleared (hka-sha) – God does not count it in some heavenly ledger.

Interestingly there is no word for forgiveness that is paired with deceit.  Maybe that’s because deceit hinders us from making the sin known to begin with.

When I read about all these ways that God forgive us, an image comes to mind.  Many mornings I do exercise in my living room.  Micah, my sixteen-month-old son is usually running around at my feet.  He often wants to use all my exercise equipment: bands, pads, balls, and dumbbells.  I have one set of five pound dumbbells, that he can barely lift if at all.  The weight is way too heavy for him.  He is bent over by it.  But I can pick it up with ease.  I could easily throw it across the room.  The five pound weight is everything to Micah, but it is nothing to me.  Maybe our sin is to us and God what that five pound weight is to Micah and me.

If we begin to confess our sins in all their shapes, colors, textures, flavors, and styles, there are some new habits that we’ll be practicing.  Psalm 32 lists those new habits.  In verse eight of NLT we read “The LORD says, ‘I will guide you…”  But in the Hebrew the phrase “The LORD says” is not there.  The line of the psalm just begins with “I.”  Who is the I?  Obviously the NLT translation team thinks the “I” is God speaking.  I tend to disagree.  I think because its poetry that the I can be both God and the psalmist who is writing the psalm. Thus, not only does God guide us but the wisdom of those around us guides us too.  Verse eight goes on to list three things that this person does with us: guides us, advises us, and watches us.  In other words, we don’t do it alone.  We do it with God in community.  We share in the wisdom of those who have gone before us, and God gives us the grace and power not to do it again.

There are at least three ways I seek guidance from those around me.  First, I have a small group that I meet with regularly.  I don’t lead this small group.  I just show up and participate like any other person in the group.  Some of that participation includes  confessing my sins to them and seeking their guidance on how to make my relationship right with God and with the person I sinned against.  Second, I also have another pastor that I meet with regularly.  His name is Jon, and Jon is also my internet accountability partner.  I have a program called X3 on my computer that monitors what websites I visit.  It also runs on my cell phone.  Every two weeks it sends a report to Jon for us to discuss.  In this way I confess my true self to Jon.  Third, my wife, Sarah is a confession partner.  I regularly confess my sins, screw-ups, mistakes, and hang-ups to her.  In my better moments I even listen to what she has to say after I confess.

Who are the people who are guiding, advising, and watching you?

Psalm 32 draws a picture of the results of this kind of confession.  Our hiding place becomes God rather than hiding in sin.  The sorrow of sin, for sin itself is its own torment, disappears and is replaced with God’s unfailing love for us.  All of this can  simply be called joy.

Remember that sin of pride I told you I confessed to God in my journal earlier this week.  After I confessed it to God I sensed a kind of release from the weight of that pride, and some release from the anxiety of the trial.  I was given a new energy and enthusiasm to tackle the problem.  That’s what confession does.  DUH!

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Prayers That Stick: CRAP

March 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

Prayers that Stick

Prayers That Stick: CRAP (Prayers of Lament and Cursing)
Sycamore Creek Church
March 25, 2012
Tom Arthur
Psalm 13

CRAPCRAP friends.

Yeah, that’s right.  CRAP.  Everyone is lamenting today.  The Spartans are out.  The Wolverines are out.  The Blue Devils are out.  Everyone.   At least your team didn’t lose in the first round to a team you’ve never heard of before.  CRAP.

Well, today we’re continuing a series on prayers from the book of Psalms.  We’re looking at prayers of lament and cursing.  OK. My “lament” for the way that March Madness is turning out is really more like a complaint than a lament.  You know what I mean?  There is a significant difference between the two.

Complaint: Having to listen to your talkative friend.
Lament: Having your talkative friend talk behind your back.

Complaint: Waiting in a long line at the grocery store
Lament: Not having enough money to buy groceries

Complaint: Paying $4/gal for gas to drive to work
Lament: Not having work to drive to

Complaint: Not liking the songs sung at church
Lament: Not being able to gather legally to sing songs at church

CRAP!

We hear a lot of complaints from those around us, but have you ever really heard someone lament?  You’ve never heard a lament until you’ve heard a southern Pentecostal woman lament.  Sarah and I lived in a house with several other Christians and we offered hospitality to women and children in transition.  It was kind of like living in the homeless shelter with your small group.  One day while I was a seminary I was sitting in my chair reading when I heard a wail go up like nothing I’d ever heard before.  I jumped up and ran out of my room to see what was happening.  “Mary” had come back from church and felt that one of her trusted friends had stabbed her in the back.  Her trust was shattered not just by anyone but by someone who was supposed to be her spiritual sister.  Being a Pentecostal, Mary was prone to letting it all hang out.  She cried and cried out loud and louder than I had ever really heard someone cry before.

As the house gathered around her, we hugged her, laid hands on her, and began to pray for her.  I didn’t know exactly what to pray, but I felt God’s Spirit leading me to the words of scripture.  Whenever you don’t have words for your prayers, turn to scripture.  So I began reciting the psalms I had memorized looking for a suitable one:

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.
Psalm 1.  No, not right.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.
Psalm 100.  Not even close.

The heavens are telling the glory of God.
Psalm 19.  No way.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;
Psalm 51.  Sounding good…

According to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
No.  This isn’t a moment of confession.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
Psalm 139.  Getting close.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Psalm 23.  Still close but not quite.

How long, O Lord, will you forget me? Forever?
Psalm 13.  Perfect!

The only problem was that I had not yet memorized Psalm 13.  CRAP!  In that moment I realized that I had only memorized “happy” psalms.  I hadn’t only jumped over all the pain and hurt in the Psalms.  All the suffering.  So after that night I made a commitment to memorize a psalm of lament, and I landed on Psalm 13.

Psalm 13 NRSV
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The psalms are found in the middle of your Bible and are prayers in the form of poetry.  It’s essential to remember that whenever you read them.  Because they are poetry they will have multiple meanings.  They will also use very few words to get across a lot of depth, and there are many forms of poems: praise, awe and wonder, lament, confession, wisdom, and more.  (By the way, do you know where a poem comes from?  A poe-tree.  Ugghhh…In a sermon on lament you’ve got to get a laugh in where you can.)

Because the psalms are prayers, they are very personal in nature.  Reading or praying a psalm is kind of like reading someone else’s journal.  Sometimes you learn more about them than you do about God.   You’re learning about their feelings about God more than about who God is.  And often in the psalms there is an honesty that we are not always comfortable with.  We would prefer to think that God’s people don’t really feel like that, don’t really have those emotions.  But we do, and the psalms teach us that being honest with God changes us.

It is interesting to note that in Hebrew the book of Psalms is titled “Tehillim” which  means “praises.”  But there are actually more laments in the book of psalms than there are praises.  The ancient Hebrew people apparently thought it was also a praise to God to lament to God.   Perhaps this can be seen most clearly in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.  I visited the Wailing Wall in 2007.  It is a very sacred place where people come to lament all kinds of things, but especially the tensions between Jews and Muslims in the Middle East and especially in Jerusalem.  People place written prayers (often laments) in the cracks of the Wailing Wall.  Here is a recognized place where it is appropriate to come and lament.  The church, on the other hand, does not know how to lament.  Let me give you one example.  Jeremy and I spent way too much time trying to find songs that would work with this sermon today.  All our songs are “praise songs.”  We don’t have any “lament songs.”  So we ended up choosing psalms that at least referenced struggle or pain in some way.

Nancy Duff, Professor of Ethics at Princeton, says this about lament:

Psalms of lament allow us to speak from the darkest regions of the heart, where our despair threatens to overwhelm us.  In so speaking we do not exhibit a lack of faith, but stand in a biblical tradition that recognizes that no part of life, including the most hideous and painful parts, is to be withheld from God, who loves us, who in Jesus Christ speaks the psalms of lament alongside us, and who proclaims hope, when there can—at least for the time being—be no hope in us.  The church would do well to recover this biblical practice of lamentation. (Nancy J. Duff, Recovering Lamentation as a Practice in the Church, an essay in the compilation Lament: Reclaiming Practices in Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square edited by Brown and Miller.)

Cursing

Sometimes our pain and lament is so strong that it leads us to cursing those who caused us this pain.  The psalms are quite familiar with this kind of pain and often turn it into prayers.  Sometimes the cursing in the psalms is pretty graphic like that in Psalm 137 which says:

Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! (Psalm 137: 9 NLT)

CRAP!  Was that in the Bible?  Happy is what?  This psalm is written during the Jewish exile in Babylon.  The Babylonians came and sacked Israel and carted off many Israelites to Babylon.  Imagine a foreign invader coming and destroying the United States then forcefully relocating you to a foreign land.  That’s how bad it was.  You can imagine the pain that is underneath this psalm of cursing.

But are we to take this seriously?  I’m not so sure.  Remember sometimes we learn more about the emotion of the psalmist than we do about God.  Consider this for a moment.  The phrase “Happy are” is a stock wisdom phrase in the psalms.  It shows up many times.  Here are some instances:

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.  Psalm 1:1
Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven.  Psalm 32:1
Happy are those who make the LORD their trust.  Psalm 40:4
Happy are those whose strength is in you.  Psalm 84:5
Happy are those who fear the LORD. Psalm 112:1
Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! Psalm 137:9

There’s quite a difference between all the other psalms that use this phrase and Psalm 137.  I think the psalmist is intending to be outrageous, even absurd; maybe even a little sarcastic.  A modern example might be the movie title “Thank You for Smoking.”  You’re supposed to understand that there’s a wink and nod in there.  But in the end, you will not be happy or blessed by dashing babies against rocks, even the babies of your enemies.

Usually the cursing psalms come from the perspective of having completely open hands.  Consider Psalm 109, the nuclear bomb of cursing psalms:

Psalm 109:7-15 NLT
When his case is called for judgment,
let him be pronounced guilty.
Count his prayers as sins.
Let his years be few;
let his position be given to someone else.
May his children become fatherless,
and may his wife become a widow.
May his children wander as beggars;
may they be evicted from their ruined homes.
May creditors seize his entire estate,
and strangers take all he has earned.
Let no one be kind to him;
let no one pity his fatherless children.
May all his offspring die.
May his family name be blotted out in a single generation.
May the LORD never forget the sins of his ancestors;
may his mother’s sins never be erased from the record.
May these sins always remain before the LORD,
but may his name be cut off from human memory.

CRAP!  When was the last time you prayed like that?  Notice that the psalmist is asking God to do all this.  The psalmist’s hands are empty.  He is giving it up to God.  All his anger, frustration, pain, and suffering.  God, you take vengeance on this creep! Not me, but you.

So let’s go back to Psalm 13 and see if we can learn anything more about how to lament.  There is a basic pattern in Psalm 13: Despair – Demands – Deliverance.

Despair

Did you notice how many times the psalmist asks “How long?”  How long…How long…How long…How long?  Four times.  It’s OK to ask God, “How long?”  Sometimes God feels absent and sorrow overwhelms us.  Maybe some of this at times has to do with our own ego getting the worst of it.  Did you catch the psalmist lamenting that his enemy might gloat over him: Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!” (Psalm 13:4 NLT).

Demands

From despair the psalmist moves to making demands.  Notice all the strong command words: Look! (Pay attention!) Answer!  (I’m waiting!)  Give!  (Now!)  But these demands aren’t the demands of someone who doesn’t know God.  Notice that the psalmist calls God “my God.”  There’s a kind of intimacy here.  The intimacy is what makes the demands possible.  These demands also come with reasons.  If you don’t act, God, this is what will happen: I’ll die and the enemy will gloat and rejoice.

Deliverance

There’s a key word that begins verse five: But.  From despair and demands the psalmist turns a corner in the last two verses.  Two-thirds of the psalm is lament.  One-third is devoted to praise.  Here we see the psalmist reiterating his trust in God.  There is an anticipation of being rescued and saved.  His heart is, after much lament, rejoicing and singing.  I think it is helpful to recognize that while the psalmist has turned the corner here, we’re not told whether the situation got any better or not.  It is a praise for deliverance built on the faith that God wins.

While Psalm 13 makes this turn to praise at the end of the prayer, there are at least two psalms of the 150 in the Bible that don’t make that turn to praise.  Psalms 39 & 88 don’t turn toward praise.  I think this suggests that there are times where our hearts are so overwhelmed that we cannot turn to praise after lament.  Psalms 39 & 88 give us permission to stay in lament for some time longer.  How much longer?  I don’t know.  But my sense is that there is no rush.

Lament

So how should we pray?  What can we learn from the psalms of lament and the psalms of cursing?   If I were to boil it down to one thing it would be this: be honest in your prayers.  If you’re hurting, tell God.  If you don’t like what’s happening to you, tell God.   If you’re fed up with how slow God is at answering your prayers, tell God.  If you feel  like your prayers are falling on deaf ears, tell God.  If you’d really like you ex to have all kinds of bad things happen to them, tell God.  If your kids are driving you crazy, tell God.  If you can’t find a job and you feel like you’re sinking and God doesn’t care, tell God.

Then make demands to our God.  Tell God exactly what you want and why.  God, I’m tired of being depressed.  Heal me.  God, I’m sick and tired of looking for a job. Give me one.  God, I can’t stand my ex boyfriend.  Make his new girlfriend cheat on him like he cheated on me.  While you’re at it, my boss doesn’t respect or honor me in any way.  Next time he’s up for promotion, don’t let him get it.  Then let God deal with it.  It’s out of your hands.

Lastly, don’t forget to thank God in the midst of all this despair and all these demands.  Thank God before you even figure out how God is going to answer your prayer (or if God will answer it at all).  Thank God for the ways God has been good to you in the past.

Sometimes this kind of true lament is truly hard to do on Sunday morning in a community gathering.  Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for us.  Who wants to bear their soul to a ton of people they barely know?  Not many of us.  Maybe this is why small groups are so important.  Here at SCC we believe that small groups are essential to spiritual growth.  Part of that is because lament, which is a key element of growing spiritually, often happens more frequently in small groups than it does in large groups.  My own small group often meets and shares with one another the crap in our lives.  It’s kind of like small group is the toilet where you’re able to flush the crap out.  Do you have a small group where you can flush the crap out of your life?  Do you have a group of people you meet with regularly (at least every other week) where you can be honest about the crap in your life?  If not, find one.  We’ve got several here in our church, but they’re not the only ones out there.

While Sarah and I were living in Durham in the house I told you about (our small group for flushing the crap out of our lives), I was working on translating Psalm 22.  It’s the prayer that Jesus quoted as he hung on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”  Notice that Jesus asks “Why?” too.  I decided to take some poetic license with Psalm 22 and put it into the context of where we were living which was the ghetto of Durham.  All kinds of crazy stuff happened all the time in our neighborhood.  I cataloged it and lamented to God.  Here is the first half.

Psalm 22 According to East Durham:

Eli, eli, lamah, ‘azavtani
My God!  My God!  Why have you abandoned me?

All these things surround me.  They circle around me.  They are on all sides.  I can’t get away from them:

Hanging plants stolen from old ladies’ porches,
Packs of stray dogs roaming the streets,
Boarded up houses surrounding me.
Vandalized houses all about.
Paint splattered on remodeled houses.
Broken windows.
Businesses sabotaged time and time again.
Stolen copper pipes.
The boom of cars driving by,
The blast of train horns in the night,
Sirens screaming on Sunday morning,
Disjointed lovers spilling into the streets
cursing one another,
Single mothers missing fathers for their babies.
People going hungry, begging for food and help.
Women reduced to subsist by selling their bodies,
Innocent women receiving propositions,
even on the way to church!
Gunshots into the night,
Gunshots on Christmas Eve!
Welcome to Durham?  Welcome to gangs!
Crack houses on my block.
Police raids with smoke and sirens and shotguns,
while children play in the back yard.
Homicides and shootings mere blocks from my home.
Choppers and search lights.
An ambivalent 911.
Fear.

Are you soon to deal me death?
You did not save your son from death.  Am I to meet the same end?

Eli, eli, lamah, ‘azavtani
My God!  My God!  Why have you abandoned me?

 

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Prayers that Stick – Just Sayin

March 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 

Prayers that Stick

Prayers that Stick – Just Sayin
Sycamore Creek Church
March 11, 2012
Tom Arthur
Psalm 103

Peace Friends!

Do you ever find yourself saying, “I’m just sayin”?  We use this as a phrase that means that we’re actually not “just sayin.”  We are intending to mean something more, something deeper, but we’re a little uncomfortable with what we’re saying so we soften it by saying, “Just sayin.”  Today we begin a series on prayer, and we’re going to see how our words of prayer point to something deeper, something more profound, something that if we’re honest, we’re not always comfortable with.  Just sayin.

This four week series is going to be exploring the book of Psalms.  The book of Psalms is the prayer book of the Bible.  It’s easy to find.  Just open up to the middle of your Bible and nine out of ten times you find it.  The prayers found in the book of Psalms are in the form of Hebrew poetry.  Keep that in mind whenever you read the psalms.  It’s poetry.  That means it has multiple levels of meaning.  It’s not always super simple to tease out which level of meaning you’re on.  For example, because these are prayers, we often learn more about the person praying than we do about God.  The prayers of the Psalms are gritty and raw and honest.  All the junk comes out, and sometimes I’d like to stick that junk in a closet where no one can see it.  So we’ve got multiple levels going on here in this poetry: learning about what the psalmist is feeling, learning what we’re feeling, and learning something about God.  But the first two are sometimes more apparent than the last.  Just sayin.

Over the course of this series we’re going to look at prayers of praise (Just sayin), prayers of wonder of creation (OMG), prayers of lament and cursing (CRAP), and prayers of confession (DUH).  These are prayers that stick.  They stick to you and they stick to God.  So let’s dive in to prayers of praise, Just Sayin, and see what sticks.

The Hebrew name for the book of Psalms is Tehellim, which means praises.  So we’re going to start with a praise psalm, Psalm 103.  But keep in mind that while these are the kinds of psalms that we usually think of in the book of Psalms, praises are the least common kind of prayer in the Psalms.  There are more laments in the psalms than praises (but that’s week three).

Psalm 103 teaches us how to praise God, and in it we see that praise includes two aspects: thanksgiving and adoration.  Thanksgiving has to do with praising God for what God does, while adoration has to do with praising God for who God is.  Thanksgiving = what God does.  Adoration = who God is.  Let’s read Psalm 103 and look for both.

Psalm 103 NLT

Praise the LORD, I tell myself;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, I tell myself,
and never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He ransoms me from death
and surrounds me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
The LORD gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
He revealed his character to Moses
and his deeds to the people of Israel.
The LORD is merciful and gracious;
he is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
He has not punished us for all our sins,
nor does he deal with us as we deserve.
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
He has removed our rebellious acts
as far away from us as the east is from the west.
The LORD is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
For he understands how weak we are;
he knows we are only dust.
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone —
as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever
with those who fear him.
His salvation extends to the children’s children
of those who are faithful to his covenant,
of those who obey his commandments!

The LORD has made the heavens his throne;
from there he rules over everything.
Praise the LORD, you angels of his,
you mighty creatures who carry out his plans,
listening for each of his commands.
Yes, praise the LORD, you armies of angels
who serve him and do his will!
Praise the LORD, everything he has created,
everywhere in his kingdom.
As for me — I, too, will praise the LORD.

Thanksgiving

Did you see the praise of thanksgiving for what God does, God’s activity, in Psalm 103?  In verse two the prayer begins with a command to oneself: “Do not forget all God’s benefits.”   What are those benefits?  Here’s a list from the psalm:

v3. God forgives & heals

v4. God ransoms us & surrounds us with love and mercy

v5. God fills us with good things

v6. God watches out for the oppressed

v8. God is merciful & gracious to us

v8. God is slow to anger & full of unfailing love.

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does!

Have you ever tried to list everything you’re thankful for?  Every once in a while I’ve tried to make an exhaustive list of everything I’m thankful for.  It usually runs into four or more single-spaced typed pages.  I usually get tired of the exercise before I finish it.  It’s like those times when you ask a child to pray and they begin listing all the things they are thankful for, “God, thank you for my mom and my dad.  For my stuffed animals.  For my books.  For my bike.  For my barn toy house.  For my play phone.  For my sled.  For my Frisbee…”  And on and on it goes.

Jews tend to be more imaginative than we are when it comes to thanking God.  Some years ago I came across this prayer in a Jewish prayer book:

Blessed are you, O Lord, King of the Universe, who formed humankind with wisdom, and created in them many orifices and passages.  It is revealed and known before your throne of glory, that if one of them were open, or one of them were shut, then it would be impossible to exist and to stand before you.  Blessed are you, O Lord, Healer of all flesh, who does wondrously.

Now that’s a serious prayer.  It is funny, especially the “throne of glory” part, but it’s serious.  Have you ever sat next to the bedside of someone in the hospital who wasn’t passing gas?  I have.  It is no fun.  Thank you God for holy flatulence!

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does!

While we are praising God for what God does, let’s not forget the most important thing God does for us: he forgives us our sins.  We read in verse twelve that God removes our “rebellious acts” (our intentional crossing of lines) as far as East (literally the “sunrise”) is from the West (literally the “sunset”).  “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does!

Adoration

But why does God do what God does?  God does what God does because of who God is.  God’s actions arise out of God’s character, God’s being, God’s essence.  Think about it this way: a tree bears apples because it is an apple tree.  An oak is not going to bear apples no matter how much it wants to.  The fruit of God’s actions come out of God’s character, being, and essence.

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

Psalm 103 begins right off the bat with adoration.  We read in verse one: I will praise his holy name.  Now we’re talking about who God is.  God is holy.  God is so holy that even God’s name is holy.

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

Several years ago A.J. Jacobs, an editor-at-large for Esquire Magazine and non-practicing Jew, wrote a book titled, The Year of Living Biblically.  He attempted to follow literally every command of the Bible for a year.  It is a wonderful book full of all kinds of humor and insight.  When he came to the Psalms he found himself having a hard time with praising and adoring God.  He could do the whole thanksgiving thing, but adoration seemed so foreign to him.  Some of this may have to do with an image we have of heaven that tends to seem more like hell than heaven: 24/7 harps and singing for infinity.  Well, that’s not what I think heaven will be like, but that’s probably our primary image of adoration.  But there may be another issue at work here too, but I want to come back to that later.  In the meantime, as we walk through praise of adoration, perhaps you will struggle like Jacobs.  So hang on.  I’m going to come back to this problem again at the end.

Thomas Merton in his book, Praying the Psalms, writes:

If we have no real interest in praising [God], it shows that we have never realized who [God] is. For when one becomes conscious of who God really is, and when one realizes that [God] who is almighty, and infinitely holy, has ‘done great things to us,’ the only possible reaction is the cry of half-articulate exultation that bursts from the depths of our being in amazement at the tremendous, inexplicable goodness of God to [humanity].

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

So let’s go a little deeper into who God is.  The first thing anyone runs into who tries to describe who God is is a lack of words.  God is indescribable.  God is inexpressible.  It is sometimes easier to say what God is not than say what God is.  When Moses asked God who he was, God responded with, “I am what I am” (Exodus 3:14).  Oh, that clears everything up.  Right?

Thomas Aquinas is one of the two greatest thinkers in all of church history.  He wrote prolifically about God.  His greatest work called the “Summa Theologica” or “Summary of Words about God” was going along just fine with five volumes, when he had a vision of God while in worship.  He was unable to finish his work and considered it a “pile of straw.”  So whenever we begin to talk about who God is, we must approach this with a kind of humility.  If everything Thomas had written was a pile of straw in comparison to the real thing, then what will our words about God be?

And yet, there have been some things that Christians over the centuries have found as anchor points for talking about God.  First, God is unique.  There is nothing like God.  Isaiah, the ancient prophet, says, “For I am God, I alone! I am God, and there is no one else like me” (Isaiah  46:9 NLT).

Second, God is transcendent.  “Transcendent” literally means to climb across or above.  Have you ever been climbing up a mountain and felt like you were just at the top but then realized it was a false summit and you had more to climb.  God is like that.  Every time we think we have reached the top, we are only at a false summit.  There is always more.  Psalm 113 says, “The LORD is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens” (113:4 NLT).

Third, God is One.  God is utterly simple.  There are no parts and there is no division.  God is not a yin and yang, part good and part evil.  God is one.  The great Jewish proclamation called “The Shema” (literally “Hear”) comes from Deuteronomy 6:4 which says, “Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

And yet, while Christians hold that God is one, we also hold that God is three.  God is one God in three persons, the Trinity.  There is a dynamic relationship within the very being of who God is.  God’s essence of oneness is not static.  It is sometimes a little hard to wrap our minds around this so some metaphors, while they will break down at some point, are helpful.  God is three and one like a triangle, which has three sides but is one object.  God is three and one like speech, which has a speaker, words, and breath, but is one thing, speech.  God is three and one like fire, which has a flame, heat, and light.  God the Father is the source of all things.  The Son is the Word or mind of God become flesh.  The Spirit is the friendship that the Father and son share.  So when we say “praise God for God,” this is the God we mean: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

What Christians ultimately want to affirm about God is that within the very being of God is loving community. The Father loves the Son in the Spirit.  Thus, lastly, God is love (John 4:8).  But God is love because God is Trinity: one God in three persons.  Love always includes a relationship, and within the very being of God is a relationship of love.

We read about this love in several places in Psalm 103.  The Hebrew word here is important: Hesed.  It means “steadfast love” or “loving kindness.”  It is God’s unconditional love for us.  God “crowns you with hesed” (103:4), is “abounding in hesed” (103:8), is “so great is his hesed” (103:11), and “the hesed of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting” (103:17). One author summarizes God as “A burning, inexhaustible, unwavering, loving determination” (Michael Ward in Heresies and How to Avoid Them).

Just sayin: Praise God for God!

So back to AJ Jacobs and his struggle with adoring God.  I wonder if that struggle doesn’t come out of this reality.  Adoration is always a function of a loving relationship.  I have no problem adoring my son because I love him.  I have no trouble stating exactly what he is.  He is my son.  He is made in the image of God.  He is beautiful beyond what I can describe.  He is mine, but even more so he is God’s.  I praise and adore him for who he is because I love him.

Perhaps Jacobs had a hard time praising God in adoration because he has not yet entered into that unfailing, loving friendship that the Father and Son share in the Spirit.  That community of who God is in God’s very being is always beckoning us, always wooing us, always yearning for us to join in.  Have you responded to that invitation?  Have you joined in the love that God shares within God’s very own self?  What’s stopping you?  You need not do anything to prepare yourself, because you will never be able to fully prepare yourself.  God’s love is unconditional, unfailing, and never ending.  Will you join it?

Just sayin: Praise God for what God does, but even more so, praise God for who God is!

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