The redemptive work of God

2 Samuel 5:1-5; 8:15-9:13 

 Handsome and talented, winsome and strong, also deeply flawed, proud and punishing, and then wise and benevolent in his old age, David is the ideal on-screen hero. I am, frankly, stunned there isn’t already a six season Netflix series about him. The bible gives him a hefty portion of Old Testament airtime with 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles, casting for him the perfect villain in King Saul. Predecessor to the throne, this former army general with real main character energy, is both immensely kingly then increasingly mad. He’s super jealous of David and hungry to hang onto power. Dangerous and prone to fly into terrible rages, King Saul is calmed only by the gentle harp playing of his nemesis, young David, which must drive him all the more mad.

Then we’ve got the wise Yoda figure in the prophet Samuel (whose own life is also a compelling show waiting to be made). He anoints Saul to be Israel’s very first king, and then later secretly anoints David when David is only a shepherd boy - the youngest and least likely of his many brothers to be anything but a country bumpkin, but he’s got skills, battling lions and bears to protect the sheep, and he’s a songwriting savant, making music all alone out in those green pastures near quiet streams, so maybe the series could be a musical. 

 

Then there’s the bond of a soulmate, a deep, abiding friendship with a close and intimate confidant, Jonathan, who, as a boy, watches the little kid David slay the giant Goliath in front of two mighty, cowering armies, (thatscene would be the title sequence for sure!) and then introduces himself, and the two become fast friends, and Jonathan loves our hero as he loves his own heart.

 

Jonathan also happens to be the mad king’s son, and he stands between the two to protect David’s life on several occasions. They meet up in fields and caves when David is in hiding from Saul’s fury, amassing a pirate crew of renegades and living off the land. Jonathan tries relentlessly to make peace and bring David back into the king’s good graces, and finally, in grief and sorrow, lets him go when he sees Saul will never relent.  Jonathan and David promise forever to stand by one another no matter what, and then Jonathan and Saul die in a different battle with the Philistines. (Goliath’s side gets them after all).

 

There is the love of a princess, who becomes his wife, and later is horrified by David’s unrestrained public display of emotion. Then another woman, Abigail, who saves her own husband from David’s wrath, deeply impressing him and then marrying him when her husband dies, and more women who become wives as well.

 

And there’s his sleezy, cascading into evil, obsessing over the married Bathsheba and impregnating her, then sending her husband to the front lines of battle commanding the rest of the army to retreat so he would be killed, and David could marry Bathsheba and cover up his shame. David’s greed, arrogance and cruelty are exposed in a humiliating confrontation with the new prophet, Nathan, whom God sends to David to set him straight. Crushed with grief and regret, David repents. And even though that baby does not live, he and Bathsheba remain married and other children follow, including Solomon. And Bathsheba herself rises to power, advising her own son once he assumes the throne.  

 

David’s vivid life is dogged by the threat of death, frequent betrayal, sheer terror and staggering loss, and along the way he builds the city Jerusalem, and unites the tribes and establishes the nation of Israel. He steals, cheats, rapes, lies, kills, and sacrifices those he loves for his own power and well-being. And he is also rules with wisdom and love, and is generous, kind, loyal, trustworthy, tender, and heartwrenchingly vulnerable. He ends his life passing on drawings and plans for the construction of the temple like a mantle and blessing to his son Solomon. 

 

But what’s especially compelling about David is how his heart is laid bare in the Psalms. Trust and gratitude, anguish and wonder, contrition and pettiness, anger, longing and love – half of the book of Psalms is written by him. It’s like having a glimpse of his inner world, his relationship and ongoing conversation with God. David’s prayers became the prayerbook of the Church, and of Judaism before us. Jesus himself was raised praying these same Psalms that we pray. For three thousand years - from sanctuaries to hospital bedsides, at caskets and christenings, chanted by monks and whispered in concentration camps, David’s words have been recited in every language on the planet, and the conversation with God continues. 

 

Now, having reacquainted ourselves with David, let’s imagine this week’s episode of our King David TV series begins with a flashback. A messenger, racing and breathless, arrives at Jonathan’s house, and stammers out to the servant who opens the door that Jonathan and King Saul have just been killed in battle. The household flies into a panic, people race around grabbing what they can and prepare to flee. A nursemaid bursts into an upstairs room where a young boy of five is napping. She snatches him up out of bed and carries him out, half asleep, still limp in her arms. Running to the stairs she whips around a corner and the boy slips from her grasp, dropping over the railing to the stone floor below. She screams and races to his side, and the flashback ends. 

 

We jump 20 or so years ahead to today’s reading. David has been king for some time, and most of the rest of Saul’s family has long been wiped out by David’s side in the ongoing battles for power.  The battle dust and construction dust died down, I imagine David finds himself in a period of relative peace. Perhaps he’s standing at a window on a beautiful sunny day, a soft breeze rustling the olive trees in the garden below. Calm is nice, but it can also bring up sorrow and ghosts, and David longs for his dear friend Jonathan. There is nothing David can do to change the past. But in the quiet of this pause, the question arises, What will I do with what’s left of my life?

 

And here comes up again that word we learned with Ruth – whose whole story is an illustration of this. The word is hesed, which means something like belongingnesss; here it is translated simply kindness. From the willingness to listen deeply, the song of God’s way rises up, and David summons a servant and asks, Is there anyone left of the family of my enemy who tried to destroy me, that I may embrace in God’s belongness, for the sake of Jonathan who did that for me?

 

And there is one person left, Mephibosheth, the boy whose tragic fall on the day of his father’s death began this episode. He survived all the killings between these enemy households over the years, overlooked, perhaps, because his disability made him seem unworthy of notice. Certainly, he was not seen as a threat or a player on the political gameboard. So David finds Mephibosheth. And the man must think he’s finally been discovered as the last of Saul’s household, and will surely die at the hand of the king. But instead, David raises him to honor, to eat at the King’s table for all his remaining days, giving him servants and Saul’s former lands. David goes on to care for him as his own son, and act as surrogate grandpa to Jonathan’s grandson Mica. 

He who was forgotten and forsaken, living in obscurity in someone else’s household, is welcomed in, given home, security, and belonging in the loving care of his father’s best friend and grandfather’s mortal enemy.  

 

God’s redemption is relentless and never-ending. In our own places of brokenness and unfinished business, we are met with grace. And from our vulnerability, not our strength, we are drawn into God’s unfolding salvation of the world.  When we seek to live honest and open to God, pouring out our pain and our praise, we’re formed for God’s purposes, and made ready to recognize the nudgings of the Holy Spirit when they come. 

 

Sometimes the task before us is clear and we know what is ours to do. And sometimes the chaos of life’s moment sets the terms and we put our head down and faithfully hang on.  But periodically a chapter ends, or a space opens up, and in the quiet the question may arise, What will I do with what’s left of my life?

 

When the search for an answer involves surrendering to God’s purposes, we will be drawn into the redemptive work of God, and the belongingness of God that embraces the world will be made manifest in our lives. 

 

God joins this human life with us, in all its fullness and its emptiness too. That Jesus rose from the dead means there is no darkness so deep that he is not there, no peace so restorative that he does not share it with us, no journey so difficult that he does not walk with us, no sorrow so great it will define us, no brokenness so complete that it cannot be made into a source of wholeness and life by the God who brings life out of death. This is the belongingness of God. This what God does and is always doing. 

 

Big-screen lives like David’s capture our attention, but mostly God works redemption in ordinary places like around dinner tables, and through ordinary acts like grandparenting a child who needs it.

 

And the work God has for us to do most often begins in our own impossibility, loss or brokenness. It may heal something unfinished in us, reawaken something dormant, or break us open for something entirely new. But always, it will bring deep joy, because we are made in the image of ministering God to minister to others, and when we participate in God’s world-healing hesed, we’re tasting already the meal that awaits us all at the table of the King forever. 

 

Amen.

Sin, Salvation, and the All-Encompassing Belongingness of God

If my week had a theme, it might be noticing sin.

This week I’ve been forced to own up to the way I let a relationship go and chose avoidance and dishonesty over facing challenging conversations.  And in coming to terms with it, I have had to see that, compounded by years of silence, honestly dealing with it will cause more hurt, and the only way out of it with integrity is to go ahead and tell the truth anyway.

It’s uncomfortable to see sin, both past and present, in my life, and it feels awful, but also good to see it so I can deal with it.

Sin is when we fail to live consistent with who we are made and called to be – when we violate our belonging to God and one another.  It can be personal and internal – letting go of anger, dealing with pride, or self-judgment, and we’re stuck to wrestle inside ourselves with our failure to live consistent with who we are made and called to be. It an be between us, words and actions that hurt or degrade people, that violate the bond we’re meant to share as human beings and act as though we are against instead of for one another.  But most often, it’s both.

This country has a deep sin, our original sin, the sin of racism, which means first of all categorizing people as fundamentally different by the color of their skin, and then labeling some people better, more human or more worthy, and other people worse, less human and less worthy. Then that belief is built into a whole society’s structures and functions so that consistently, both overtly and subtly, for generations, some people are treated as less than and other people as more than, rooting this lie deep inside all people.

Right now our nation is noticing its sin.  

By virtue of the sin itself some people have always noticed it, because it affects their every waking day and it can never be escaped, and others, because they don’t often feel directly impacted by it, can ignore it and look away for weeks, years, even decades at a time.

But right now we cannot look away. 

And it feels awful to be staring at this thing together, this sin at our core, both past and present, but I imagine for those who among us who have stared at it their whole life, it feels good too, to see so many other faces staring at it at once. 

Right now most of this country is looking at the same ugliness and evil and calling a thing what it is. This is a huge part of God’s salvation.

Calling a thing what it is, naming your own story, your own culpability, your own participation in evil, recognizing and saying aloud the way Sin works in you and through you is the only way to salvation. 

We call it Confession or Repentance. 

It’s what comes before forgiveness, but after the grace of God.

God’s grace always comes first. God’s grace is where it starts. 
We begin in abundance and enough for all, harmony and unity in crazy wild and vibrant diversity, all people sharing together in caring for this gorgeous earth and its creatures, all of us made more human by our shared humanity, learning and growing alongside one another. The Way of God is our beginning and our end. 
Anything that takes us away from that is a lie.

We live the lie every day in our country. 

Whether we feel the sting of it in the moment or not, we participate in that lie. Just to illustrate this lie at work, I live in the neighborhood where Philando Castile was shot. He had been pulled over by police 52 times in 13 years. Want to know how many times I have been pulled over in my 26 years of driving? Four.  I was speeding all four times. Two of them I was let off with a warning. As a white woman, I have always felt safe with the police, confident that they are there to protect me. And if I get in trouble it’s because I deserve it, and they are upholding laws that keep us all safe.

Respect, kindness, mutuality, safety - these should not be a privilege. 

We belong to God and we belong to each other.  

Anything less than that is violence to the image of God.

But here is part of the trap – the way of fear, the sin of division, and devaluing each other is so ingrained, that we operate out of that without thinking, without noticing. 

In longing for justice for all, we could settle for revenge against some.  

And wouldn’t it feel so good to hate haters with a more hate than they hate? 

But choosing which people to hate has never been and will never be the answer. And just trying really hard to be good and right and never mess up or hurt others isn’t the answer either (not least of all because it is impossible).

The answer is facing our sin with honesty, letting the sorrow and horror of it wash over us, stepping into our brokenness alongside each other is the place God can meet us and heal us.  In Jesus Christ God so loved the world that God plunged right in alongside and with us into all of it, calling all people children of God, calling all people back to God.  And taking on all sin and evil and division into his very self, God-with-us let it take his life, and then came back to say love is stronger than death. In Christ's complete connection to God and each other, we find the belonging that sets us free to truly live.

Our Psalm today has a repeated refrain: God’s steadfast love endures forever.

Steadfast love is one of the ways the Hebrew word Hesed is translated. Remember Hesed? It was in the story of Ruth and Naomi that we told years ago, and it is all throughout the bible. It’s translated many ways, love, kindness, lovingkindness, mercy, loyalty, favor, devotion, goodness – it captures something of the inner connection and commitment God has toward us, so for years, we’ve called hesed: belongingness.

The belongingness of God is eternal. Nobody is outside of it; nobody gets to put others outside of it. It lasts forever. 

Human beings who have been judged less than and treated as unworthy, they belong to God and belong us.  

Human beings who have grown up sheltered from the suffering of others, benefiting where others don’t, they belong to God and belong to us.  

Human beings who are so filled with hatred and violence they forget their own humanity and purposely dehumanize others, they belong to God and belong to us.  (So then is incumbent on human beings who long for justice and peace not to agree with them and let them off the hook by dismissing them as monsters when they act inhumanely, but instead to call them back to their humanity and hold them accountable it).

The way of fear that says there is only so much belonging to go around – that if we give it to some we must withhold it from others. But the belongingness of God is neverending – eternal – constantly replenishing, spreading and multiplying, claiming us back to the love we came from, the love we are here for, the belongingness we are meant to live into and out of alongside each other.

It doesn’t let us go when we hurt each other, or when we believe the lie about others or about ourselves. Instead it calls us back to confession and repentence, the place where salvation can meet us.

The salvation of God, often called in scripture, the rest of God, is returning to our core, belongingness, being brought back into harmony with God, ourselves and each other, where our souls can be at rest in trust, and we can live consistently with who we are and whose we are. 

Our Psalm today tells of God’s specific salvation, restoration of belongingness, felt right where people needed it most – in their sin and its terrible consequences, in times terror and helplessness, when they were lost or alone, or had reached the end of their capacity to adapt or cope in a crisis.  Each vignette is a story of people who confessed, who recognized their situation – noticed it and cried out to God- And God saved them.

Salvation comes as deliverance from what is holding us captive, wholeness where we are broken, direction where we are lost, and connection where we are severed. It comes as hope in despair and new beginnings after bitter endings.  As this Psalm illustrates, the salvation of God always brings to us just what will heal us – even if it isn’t necessarily what we think it should be – because it is always about restoring us to belongingness in God, and that is not always comfortable, or easy, or fun.  

And it doesn’t mean dead people come back (yet), fortunes are reversed, the world is suddenly fair, or pain we’ve caused can be taken back and erased. But it means the way forward in Christ is deep and true connection to God and each other.  This is where it all began and it’s where it will end up when all is said and done.

So, as brothers and sisters in Christ, the Body of the living Christ here on earth, embodying God’s belongingness in and for the world, we are not to fear the lie that tries to mislead us, or hide us from the pain and suffering of others. 

We are not to fear the lie that says violence is stronger than love, or that hating is ok as long as you direct it at the right people. 

And we are not to fear looking into our own souls and our own actions for the evil and sin that keeps us from belongingness and withholds it from others.

We are to confess them out in the open where salvation can meet them.  

And we are to live the crazy trust that God’s abundant and neverending love and steadfast belongingness is bigger than our sin, wider than our divisions, deeper than our pain and our alienation, and higher than our human goals and aspirations.  

God’s steadfast love is eternal and beyond us, and right here next to us; it embraces and claims us, so we can see each other, listen to each other, confront each other, forgive each other, and thank the Lord for God’s steadfast love, For God’s wonderful works to humankind.

This Psalm was written to be read out, sung out, spoken by a community as a kind of call and response; it was meant to be shared by a diverse gathering of people rejoicing together.  It places them within a bigger story, the eternal belongingness of God throughout history, in the lives of those gone before and yet to come, God redeems and heals and restores. And so it becomes an invitation to honestly recount the stories of their need, and share how God has been faithful in their lives, and to name where they need salvation now, and remember God’s belongingness that holds and heals them even as they are belonging to each other in this act of sharing it all aloud.

So here is what I would share:

Some were forced to acknowledge that their own actions had wounded another.  By avoiding conflict and distress, they’d let dishonesty and division grow.  They felt ashamed and dismayed at the further hurt coming clean would cause.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,

And God delivered them from their distress:

God helped them look honestly at themselves, and confess to the person,

to see that forgiveness and reconciliation can only emerge when you tell the truth.

Let them thank the Lord for God’s steadfast love,

For God’s wonderful works to humankind.

For God persists in calling us to belonging,

and offers endless opportunities to make things right, even when it feels hard.

Some were watching their country in turmoil,

as deep sin and evil rose up from within and made itself known once again.

Anger, violence, sorrow and distress surrounded them,

And they felt like they were drowning in the noise of arguing and blaming, 

lamenting and shaming, calling to action and name calling,

and they longed for clarity, direction and hope.

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,

And God delivered them from their distress:

God brought them side by side with someone in silence to lift up this nation in prayer. 

God reminded them that forgiveness and salvation can only come after confession and repentance. And God showed them stories of people facing our sin and turning toward each other in belonging.

Let them thank the Lord for God’s steadfast love,

For God’s wonderful works to humankind.

For God brings life out of death, always, and God will never stop, God’s justice will prevail.

Let all who are wise give heed to these things,

And consider the steadfast love of the Lord.
Amen.



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Some helpful articles:
"What I told my White Friend When He Asked My Black Opinion on White Privilege."
"What I saw in Charlottesville" 
"For Our White Friends Desiring to be Allies"
"How To Make Fun of Nazis" 
"The Power of Non-Violent Action: South Africa and Poland" (High school curriculum)

This sacred life, the ongoing conversation

King David Playing the Harp, 1622, Gerard van Honthorst

1 Samuel 16:1-13 and 2 Samuel 6:1-5

I have kept a journal almost since I could write.  The early ones are sporadic, fancy satin covered or beaded, pretty and impractical – age 8 on vacation with my family, complaining about my little sister, age 11 on a visit to my far away best friend Christy, who was showing signs of puberty earlier than I was. 

Then in junior high, at just about the most awkward time in a person’s life, the journaling became a bit more regular.  I taught myself the Greek alphabet from a textbook in my father’s office, and a friend and I became prolific in writing in pseudo-Greek, so whole swatches of my journals from then are written in code, as though so intensely private I needed to hide these thoughts even from myself if I was going to get them out into the light of day. I could write in my “Greek” as fast as in English.

By high school journaling became a coping mechanism, and in college, a journal was a constant carry-on. If I didn’t have a journal, I would write on a napkin, the back of a flyer, a receipt.  Sometimes the urge to write something was so strong I would ask a total stranger for a pen.

For a good 15 years, they were all prayers. Every single thing going on in my life – every crush, every worry, every mundane conversation, if I thought it important enough to write down – and I didn’t have qualms about considering most things just that important – it became part of the prayer. The ongoing, long-term, never-ending prayer.  The top of every page began with the date and the greeting: “God,…”

For a long time, journaling was what made things real; I could feel something had actually happened when I had recorded it, told it to God, put it into ink. 

After a time it became less that, and more where I would vent terrible sadness or work out new ideas, questions or struggles.  I would find that I’d have no idea what I would say when I cracked open the book, (many start with “I’m sitting at Starbucks…”) and then by the time I had finished, I had reached a new perspective on the issue, I had come to some clarity or relief. 

When Andy and I were newly married 16 years ago, we added a $20 a month coffee shop journaling line item to our shoestring student budget for the maintenance of my sanity, and that continues to this day.

I’ve looked back at my journals from time to time. Some of the entries are insightful, and a line here or there is beautiful. But mostly, they are really, really embarrassing.  Context-less raving, whining or pining.  And sometimes, they’re heartwrenching. Rereading them is like reliving the losses, deaths, hard lessons.  But I have also found compassion stir in me- for how hard things felt when they don’t seem hard looking back.  Or great humor at little moments I captured without meaning to, or the drama I made of something so hysterically human.

But looking back is hard, because it also makes me aware just how fleeting it all is. Just how fast it all goes. 

It’s only a handful of pages between my son’s birth and his first day of kindergarten. 

A whole entire lifetime fits in the dash between dates on a tombstone. 

And I feel longing. To stop the clock.  Pause, read it slower, relish it more. Write it all down. Live every moment to its fullest. 

David was a journaler. 

He worked out his inner life in words, in songs, in poems.  He sorted his feelings, vented and raged, burst out in praise or celebration, processing with God all sorts of different circumstances and situations.  He put down random snippets, that apart from context, are sometimes beautiful, sometimes boring, sometimes completely relatable and sometimes utterly foreign.

A few years ago I found a timeline of King David’s life, and it reads like the outline of the plot for an HBO series.  I found myself craving the chance to see it on the screen, in color and action with a soundtrack. It’s epic, his life. It’s definitely the stuff movies are made of. The person who assembled the timeline prefaced it with these words:

 “ Of all the lives in Scripture, David’s is the only one that is exhaustively examined from the time of his childhood to his death. It is an open book like no other. Even his state of mind is revealed in the Psalms, like a diary open to our review. How would our own lives look if subjected to this type of scrutiny? I am humiliated to consider that the day is coming when all the hidden things of my life will be revealed. For that reason alone, we should be kind to the memory of David, recognizing in him many of our own failings and weaknesses, but also admiring his strengths.”

Looking through the vast swath of the Old Testament dedicated to David’s story, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 1 Chronicles, you can easily see that he would be the ideal on-screen hero: handsome and talented, winsome and strong, and also deeply flawed, arrogant and punishing, in his old age wise and benevolent.

And he’s got the perfect villain, King Saul – predecessor to the throne, the former army general, star of the show, powerful and immensely kingly then increasingly mad, jealous of David and hungry to hang onto his power.  Headstrong and dangerous, prone to fly into terrible rages, calmed only by the gentle harp playing of his nemesis, which must make him all the more mad.

This story’s got the wise Yoda figure, Samuel, who first anointed Saul to be Israel’s very first king chosen by God, and then later secretly anointed David by God’s command when he was only a boy. Samuel, the prophet who advises both Saul and David, and to whom God tells the plans God has for the kingdom.  Samuel to whom David runs for advice and comfort, but Saul does too – so reliant on his direction that Saul even hires a witch against his own laws of Israel prohibiting magic, to summon Samuel from the dead to ask his advice, only to find out from the passed-on prophet that he would die the next day. 

Then there’s the bond of a soulmate, a deep, abiding friendship, a close and intimate confidant, Jonathan, who as a boy watches the boy David slay Goliath and then introduces himself, and who loves our hero as he loves his own heart. 

He also happens to be the mad king’s son, and he stands between the two to protect David’s life on several occasions. They meet in fields and caves when David is in hiding from Saul’s fury, amassing a pirate crew of renegades and living off the land, Jonathon trying relentlessly to make peace and bring David back into the King’s good graces, and finally, in grief and sorrow, letting him go when he sees Saul will never relent. 

Jonathan and David promise forever to stand by one another no matter what, and years later, well after Jonathan and Saul’s deaths, which David grieves horribly, David searches far and wide and discovers there is a son remaining to Jonathon, a man whose legs are crippled.  And he finds him and brings him to eat at the King’s table for all his remaining days, giving him servants and land and caring for him as his own, in honor of his bond with Jonathon, and despite the fact that most of the rest of Saul’s family is wiped out by David’s side in the ongoing battles for power.

There is the love of a princess, who becomes wife, and later is deeply mortified by David’s unrestrained public display of emotion, then another woman who saves her own husband from David’s wrath, deeply impressing him and then marrying him when her husband dies, and more women who become wives as well.

And there’s the poignant brokenness and public fall of a great man, his weakness and failure, obsessing over the married Bethsheba, and impregnating her, then sending her husband to the front lines of battle commanding the rest to retreat so he would be killed and David could take his wife as his own and cover up his shame. 

His foolish and arrogant and reckless caving in to his own greed and gluttony are exposed in the humiliating confrontation with Nathan, the new prophet, whom God sends to David to set him straight.  And in terrible sorrow and dismay David breaks down and repents.  And even though that baby does not live, he and Bathsheba remain married and other children follow.

This tale has family drama to beat the band, horror between siblings, killing and redeeming honor and grieving the loss of loved ones who were enemies and adversaries as much as they were sons or brothers.  It’s got Bathsheba, the kidnapped woman turned wife of David, then mother of Solomon, rising to some power herself, advising her own son once he assumes the throne. 

And it’s got a little kid killing a giant in front of two mighty, fear-paralyzed armies, for pete’s sake.

David begins a humble shepherd boy, the youngest and least important in a large family, and becomes a battle hero, about whom women sing in the streets.  He’s a poet and musician, friend, husband, and lover, called a friend of God and wise ruler of the people, and builder of Jerusalem, and he ends his life passing on drawings and plans for the construction of the temple like a mantle and blessing to Solomon.

 But in his life he also experiences betrayal and the pervasive threat of death, terror and staggering loss, a torn-apart family and being constantly at the center of the drama of a whole nation in war and peace, the building of a city, establishing of a nation.  He steals and cheats and rapes and lies and kills and sacrifices those he loves for his own power and well-being, turning from God in violent ways, and he also rules in wisdom and love, generosity and care, and shows deep and abiding loyalty and trustworthiness, and heartwrenching vulnerability and tenderness.

So I’m thinking this baby needs a full orchestra and a thousand extras, sweeping vistas of land, pounding horses and clanging swords, lavish feasts and secret rendezvous, bloodcurdling grief, and quiet moments of sheer beauty and stillness, queens and slaves and naked prophets whirling around bonfires in ecstasy and enchantment.  It could fill out several seasons in surround-sound, high-def, absolutely satisfying cinema.  I’m telling you, it’s an epic story.

But when all that is said, what I’m most struck by in all of it, are the journals.

The lyrics set to music. The poems. The litanies of complaints.  The unabashed celebration.  The words between a man and his God.

 

Behind all the armor and underneath the bravado is the heart language we all bear: shame. grief. joy. rage. peace. longing, hope, gratitude.  

The words that come when awakening in the sharp bite of morning air next to warm sheep.  Or hiding out in damp caves for fear of your life.  Or breaking down in utter dismay over something you’ve done that can never be undone. 

Words of trust and a bond between God and this man. 

Who, in the end, was really just a person. Like every person. But whose story was recorded and writ large by onlookers and historians, and whose journals gave words to centuries of longing, and ashamed, and overjoyed hearts seeking a way to say it outloud to God, with God. Seeking a way to seek God, to listen to God, to dwell in the Hesed – the lovingkindness, mercy, grace and belongingness – of God. 

And so the psalms have become our prayerbook.  Prayers lifted in Cathedrals and concentration camps alike, shaping the faith of generations, giving voice to the inner longings of our souls and glimpses into God’s heart for us.

 From Psalm 3

A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom.


O Lord, how many are my foes!
   

Many are rising against me; 


many are saying to me,
   

‘There is no help for you in God.’
  

        


But you, O Lord, are a shield around me,
   

my glory, and the one who lifts up my head. 


I cry aloud to the Lord,
   

and he answers me from his holy hill.
  

        


I lie down and sleep;
   

I wake again, for the Lord sustains me. 


I am not afraid of tens of thousands of people
   

who have set themselves against me all around.

 From Psalm 6

Prayer for Recovery from Grave Illness

To the leader: with stringed instruments; according to The Sheminith. A Psalm of David.




O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
   

or discipline me in your wrath. 


Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing;
   

O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror. 


My soul also is struck with terror,
   

while you, O Lord—how long?


Turn, O Lord, save my life;
   

deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love. 


For in death there is no remembrance of you;
   

in Sheol who can give you praise?


I am weary with my moaning;
   

every night I flood my bed with tears;
   

I drench my couch with my weeping. 


My eyes waste away because of grief;
   

they grow weak because of all my foes.

 From Psalm 8

Divine Majesty and Human Dignity

To the leader: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.


O Lord, our Sovereign,
   

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

….


When I look at your heavens,

the work of your fingers,
   

the moon and the stars that you have established; 


what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   

mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
   

and crowned them with glory and honor. 


You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
   

you have put all things under their feet, 


all sheep and oxen,
   

and also the beasts of the field, 


the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
   

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.


O Lord, our Sovereign,
   

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

 From Psalm 34

Praise for Deliverance from Trouble

Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.

I will bless the Lord at all times;

   his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord;

   let the humble hear and be glad.

O magnify the Lord with me,

   and let us exalt his name together.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me,

   and delivered me from all my fears.

Look to him, and be radiant;

   so your faces shall never be ashamed.

This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,

   and was saved from every trouble.

The angel of the Lord encamps

   around those who fear him, and delivers them.

O taste and see that the Lord is good;

   happy are those who take refuge in him.

O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,

   for those who fear him have no want.

From Psalm 63

Comfort and Assurance in God’s Presence

A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.




O God, you are my God, I seek you,
   

my soul thirsts for you;


my flesh faints for you,
   

as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 


So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
   

beholding your power and glory. 


Because your steadfast love is better than life,
   

my lips will praise you. 


So I will bless you as long as I live;
   

I will lift up my hands and call on your name.


My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
   

and my mouth praises you with joyful lips 


when I think of you on my bed,
   

and meditate on you in the watches of the night; 


for you have been my help,
   

and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. 


My soul clings to you;
   

your right hand upholds me.

From Psalm 122

Song of Praise and Prayer for Jerusalem, which David built.

A Song of Ascents. Of David.




I was glad when they said to me,
   

‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ 


Our feet are standing
   

within your gates, O Jerusalem.


Jerusalem—built as a city
   

that is bound firmly together. 


To it the tribes go up,
   

the tribes of the Lord,
as was decreed for Israel,
   

to give thanks to the name of the Lord. 


For there the thrones for judgement were set up,
   

the thrones of the house of David.


Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
   

‘May they prosper who love you. 


Peace be within your walls,
   

and security within your towers.’ 


For the sake of my relatives and friends
   

I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ 


For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
   

I will seek your good.

From Psalm 51

Prayer for Cleansing and Pardon

To the leader. A Psalm of David, when the prophet Nathan came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

Have mercy on me, O God,
   

according to your steadfast love;


according to your abundant mercy
   

blot out my transgressions. 


Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
   

and cleanse me from my sin.


For I know my transgressions,
   

and my sin is ever before me. 


Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
   

and done what is evil in your sight,


so that you are justified in your sentence
   

and blameless when you pass judgment. 


Hide your face from my sins,
   

and blot out all my iniquities.


Create in me a clean heart, O God,
   

and put a new and right spirit within me.

Psalm 131

Song of Quiet Trust

A Song of Ascents. Of David.




O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
   

my eyes are not raised too high;


I do not occupy myself with things
   

too great and too marvelous for me. 


But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
   

like a weaned child with its mother;
   

my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.


O Israel, hope in the Lord
   

from this time on and for evermore.

Probably nobody is going to write a book or make a movie about your life or mine.  
And just like all who’ve gone before, our lives too will go by in the blink of an eye.  
But while we are here on this planet, every moment, every pause, every tear, every argument and each deep, contented sigh is part of the ongoing conversation, the dialogue with our maker.

No life is insignificant, no moment unseen, no heart-longing unheard.  Nobody is all saint or all sinner, neither deserving nor denied. David’s life shows us that. 

So you, with all of your hidden shame and unspoken fears, your grief and your glory, your regrets, and the things that thrill you and make you come alive with delight and awake to the wonder of God’s world, God hears you and sees you and knows you, and holds your precious, sacred life in God’s loving hands.

And the language of your heart – whatever it needs to say - in the rawest or most poetic, most stilted or confused, desperate or grateful expression – your prayer is welcomed into the heart of God.  Nothing can separate us, remember?

So come, sisters and brothers, come like David into the presence of God with singing.  
Lift up your voice in prayer.  
And let your heart find in God a home.
Amen.