Psalm Series:
Hope through Hard Stories
Psalm 78
This morning we begin a sermon series on the Psalms:
the How long, O Lord?[i] laments and
You have turned my mourning into dancing[ii] celebrations;
a collection from which so many of our great scriptural quotes come.
Often these poem-prayer-song-chant-liturgies get skipped over in preaching, unless we need
a bit of comfort at a funeral. Yet they hold such a powerful place in Judeo-Christian worship.
Some monastic communities read through every one of the 150 psalms each year—
cycling through praise and dancing and rage and despair;
accusations toward God
and demands for violent retribution on enemies;
remembrances of falling short and
promises to do better next time.
It’s all in our collection of psalms in the Hebrew Bible.
Liturgy professor Don Saliers describes this intense content of the psalms as an example of
“humanity at full stretch before God”—nothing is hidden.
Saliers laments that much of Christian worship has settled for a “domesticated middle”:
we don’t do much shouting our pain at God,
or suddenly jumping up in ecstatic joy,
or grieving aloud our big and little failures at faithful living.
The psalms, as an ancient form of worship, reveal an entirely different model of community—
not closeting our strong responses to life in our private homes behind closed doors,
but sharing in their expression corporately.
We’ll hear psalms of many styles over these next several weeks.
~~~
Including today’s Psalm 78, which has as its theme hope: for the present and the future.
“I will open my mouth in parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things…that our ancestors have told us.”
I will tell the stories, says the psalmist—the good, hard stories—of those who’ve gone before us:
the faithful, fault-filled people who tried and failed and tried again to
do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.
Like the story of Abraham and Sarah and the first covenant, not trusting God and waiting for their own offspring, but taking the next generation into their own hands by conscripting their slave Hagar into the deal—
a hard story, but one that says so much about
human anxiety and jealousy and protective love for our children:
like Sarah loved Isaac, and Hagar loved Ishmael.
“We will not hide [these dark sayings] from our children,
we will tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of Adonai,
God’s might, and the wonders that God has done.”
Yes—these good, hard stories of our broken yet beautiful forebears in faith are still to be shared. Why?
Because God never abandoned them. Adonai was present through their failures to trust in the covenant.
And therein lies our hope—and our children’s hope: God is with us! No matter what.
Even as Sarah laughed at the possibility of pregnancy at her age,
God was with her.
Even as Hagar was cruelly kicked out into the desert wilderness with her son,
God was present with her.
Even as these ancient tribal people lived life and understood God in ways that we cannot connect to today, God was present with them.
“God commanded our ancestors to teach to their children;
that the next generation might now God; the children yet unborn;
and rise up to tell their children, so they should set their hope in God.”
Do you know the stories of which the psalmist speaks? Are you able to teach the hope that our ever-present God has revealed generation after generation?
That is what the psalmist speaks of today, and encourages of us:
hear hope in these ancient stories,
and know that, even when times are hard, God is present and keeping covenant with us.
Psalm 78 is often considered an historical psalm. In the many verses that follow the ones the liturgist just read, there is outlined a brief history of Israel’s relationship with God:
stories about the numerous times and varied ways the people erred—in judgment, in action, in faith.
~~~
However, Psalm 78 is not historical in the sense we may commonly think of such things: a recounting of events as accurately and objectively as possible. Progressive Christians sometimes neglect these stories because we don’t take them literally as history—and yet, even the psalmist here knew that what he was doing was retelling Israel’s story to teach—not facts, per se—but to make a specific point.
That is: to inspire hope.
I’m sure you’ve used this particular technique yourself: in order to make a point about something—to get a bigger laugh at a funny situation, for example—you tell certain parts of an experience and not others, perhaps embellishing or exaggerating a bit.
Many of you are familiar with Greg Mortenson’s now controversial book Three Cups of Tea.
I know one of Plymouth’s book groups read it, and several of you encouraged others
to read what had so inspired your minds and your hearts for the work being done
with the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan:
reducing poverty and
building schools for girls where few education opportunities had existed.
And now that “60 Minutes” has exposed some discrepancies in the book’s information—
that a number of the schools he built are not being used,
and perhaps events didn’t happen the way he described—
because of his story-telling, many people feel that Mortenson is a fraud
and his book a waste of time.
But: if we were ever really inspired by his story,
and if the Central Asia Institute that he founded continues to do much of this work,
is the story not still “true” in some sense?
Perhaps not factual, but true in its telling about
human need and human relationship?
And is it not, perhaps, more true now
as we find Mortensen is a human being
(like any of us!)—flawed and broken;
and still a vessel for inspiring hope!
In Psalm 78’s telling (in the verses that follow what we read) there are many stories of the Hebrew people left out (all the times when they kept the covenant and did good things), and other events in Israel’s history are exaggerated (all of the times they weren’t at their best);
again, to teach, to make a specific point. To inspire hope in its hearers:
hope that God is present even to these flawed, broken, lying, angry, struggling human beings.
~~~
This past week Plymouth’s young adults group gathered to talk about this text.
And by the end of the evening we’d discerned that
several of us had learned the more famous Bible stories as kids—
singing songs about Noah’s arky-arky and
Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho and
even Jonah’s sojourn in the belly of a whale—
the outlines of the stories may be there, but what meaning? Where is God in these stories?
Because surely God is there, in the stories of these people,
if God is with us in all things.
But have we been taught God’s hope-filled presence enough to teach our children?
Or do we need to hear them again?
One commentator on the text reminds us: “It is true in every era that the faith of the people of God is only one generation away from extinction.”[iii] And knowing that many of us adults were not taught as children,
the young adults group decided to begin re-studying these stories! Adam & Eve, Noah, David….
Read them again to hear how God is still speaking through our ancestors in faith.
~~~
Psalm 78’s historical record of Israel focuses largely on the Exodus story—
a major example of God’s continuing presence through struggle.
In verse 13 it remembers, God “divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap.” (I love that phrasing!). “In the daytime God led them with a cloud, and all night long with a fiery light.” “God [even] split rocks open in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.”
And still, the psalmist retells, the people feared their thirst, wondered if they’d have been better off remaining slaves in Egypt instead of in this terrible desert-passage—this dark night of the soul.
They feared; and even then God was fully present with them.
This is a psalm of troubled people; a story we all have known within our own troubled spirits—
in times of (personal) emotional drought or during some (communal) anxiety.
This is a psalm of Israel’s humanity laid at full stretch before God.
And it’s a reminder of our full humanity—
laid out in all its truth before God.
Failure and return;
doing justice, loving kindness, walking humbly…
and then not.
And still God is present.
We learn these stories because they’re the story of today.
The truth that through everything—
in struggle and hardship,
in failing and getting back on the path,
in succeeding in beauty and goodness and faithfulness:
in the full stretch of life—
God is present.
And that is our hope.
May it be a part of your story now, and in generations to come. Amen.
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