Friday 1 April 2011

Sunday 27 March 2011, Lent 3, Psalm 95, Bruce

Welcome to this latest sermon on the Psalms as we travel together through Lent. Psalm 95 is sometimes called the Venite after the Latin for O Come. It is a command, an exhortation, to be active, to do something. It implies movement. It is extravagant and involving. Make a joyful noise! Shout aloud! It is more than an attitude, but rather an impulse. It is central to our understanding of what it means to be Anglican, for many of us will be familiar with it as part of the liturgy for Matins or Morning Prayer. It is an invitation to join together in worship and prayer. It is possible to be Christ’s and never take part in worship, but this is like having a sports car that never leave the garage, or a splendid cooker but just to eat sandwiches.

Why are we to do this? Because he is the great God, the great King above all Gods. This is a ringing statement of faith in the face of adversity and confusion. Each of the psalms is full of meaning, but it the way that they are arranged is also significant. Book Three of the psalms, ending with Psalm 89, bemoans the ruin of Israel and the way that they have been taken into captivity; it poses the question whether God is really in charge after all, and how are we to make sense of suffering. Book Four, from Psalm 90 on, is a series of psalms celebrating the kingship of God, written from the perspective of those enduring captivity in Babylon.

He is the great God, the creator of all. He made the deepest mines, the highest mountains, the sea and the dry land. We appreciate the wonders of creation and the creator by partly looking at nature, but chiefly by engaging in worship. As Jesus says to the woman at the well, God is looking for those who will worship him in spirit and in truth, in other words with their whole being, and not looking for their own benefit.

So come! He says it again with a different verb in verse six; bow down, kneel, respond, because he is the Lord our Maker, and he is also our Shepherd, the one who saves and protects us. For the Hebrews, this meant the one who delivered them from a life as slaves in Egypt, brought them through the Red Sea, and the wilderness to the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. This was when the fiery cloudy pillar led them all t.heir journey through. It connects for us with the salvation that God has brought us through Jesus. We also were slaves to sin and selfishness, cut off from knowledge of God until Jesus freed us. We also have been through the waters, not of the Red Sea but of baptism. We also travel together towards the land promised to us, where we can share in God’s rest.

But there was a problem. The Israelites faced many trials in fact, but there was one main problem. When Pharaoh first said they could leave, he changed his mind and sent a pursuing army, and the people were cut off by the sea in front of them. They were sure they were doomed. Later they found a well but it was full of bitter water and the people blamed Moses and God; God showed Moses how to sweeten the waters. They were hungry and convinced that God would allow them to starve in the wilderness; God gave them manna and quails to eat. They were thirsty, and God told Moses to take the staff with which he had poisoned the Nile to strike a rock at Horeb, and water came gushing out. This is when God opened the crystal fountain. This last occasion took place at a location that Moses named Provocation and Quarrelling – literally Meriba and Massah.

And so the psalmist reminds us that we are the sheep, the flock of God, under his shepherd-like care, and yet we also may be tempted to an attitude the same as that of the ancient Israelites.

Now let’s have some compassion for the people of God, our forebears. To be cut off by a murderous army with all the latest heavy weapons is not a light matter. To be in a trackless waste with women and children and infants, with no food and no fresh water is a most serious matter. These were not the trivial complaints that they did not know the hymns or the sermon was not to their taste; it was truly a matter of life and death.

We also can find it hard to trust when faced with intractable problems. When the costs of running the church seem out of control, when we need an unfeasible amount for the building, when a relative falls seriously ill, when the job falls through, when our relationships are in chaos, then we are forced to depend on God.

But that is the point. We are called to encounter God and grow in him, now, in real life. On 27 March 1860 the corkscrew was patented by M.L. Byrn. On 27 March 1899 the first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi. What is significant about 27 March 2011 is that today God calls us to worship him with all our beings. This will involve us in singing his praise, but also in lives of obedience. We face challenges, both as individuals but also as a community. Is God our Maker, our Great God, our Shepherd, or not? The great problem for the Israelites was that whether or not this was objectively true, it was not true in their own experience. They had observed his miracles and his relationship with Moses the man of God, but it was not true in their own hearts. In fact, they had hardened their hearts. To believe, to trust, is a choice.

The result, the psalmist says in verse ten, was that the whole nation was delayed in their quest for the Promised Land, their Rest, until the disobedient generation had passed away. The implication is that in an important sense, the people of Israel never got there. We read in Joshua and Judges about the conquest of the land, but it seems the hearts of God’s people were never conquered or submitted. That is why, the psalmist seems to be saying, we find ourselves all these years later in captivity in Babylon. We are still in the wilderness, still looking for Rest. And we face the same choice today. We can choose to see God at work, even in the midst of hardships and seeming reverses, or we can assume that he is not among us after all. The writer to the Hebrews also warns Christians considering giving up to consider their relationship with God ‘Today’.

When troubles come, are we shallow soil or weedy soil, where the good seed shrivels or is choked, are we good soil which bears fruit?

To “enter into rest” is to trust God, that he is good and all powerful, and that we whatever he allows or chooses for us is good. Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord ...

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