Gettysburg Presbyterian Church

Praying Your Hope
Psalm 130
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
August 10, 2008

How are you? How are you really? Feeling good about yourself? The psalmist felt down and separated from God. He wailed:
Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to my supplications!

The psalmist ejaculates frustration and bewilderment, guilt and shame. Loneliness and separation erupt from the pit of his soul.

We are not told what he had done. We don’t know the specifics. But, do we need to know? It is enough that we hear the pain. God is far away. Things are not right in the soul, nor in the relationship. The psalmist does not walk with God. He cannot sing, “There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God, a place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God.” ---not sing it as real, maybe as a wish. Ever felt separated from God? I have. It has been called the “dark night of the soul.”

He pleads with God to listen to him. “Take me back, God! Listen to me, God! Just listen!”

Reminds me of a young couple in one of my parishes. On the surface, they appeared to be the ideal couple with two small children. Then one day, I heard that she had left, just moved out, leaving him with the children. I hurt for them. She would not talk with me, saying that she wanted her freedom—period. He and I spoke several times. Then, two years later, he told me, “She wants to come back. She wants to make up.” I hear the psalmist plead, “Take me back, O Lord!”

I commend the psalmist, because he has taken a significant step: he prays his hurt, he prays his sense of separation from God. So often when couples in conflict talk with me, what I hear is blaming and defensiveness, see finger pointing and forearms protecting the face. Until both get past the posturing and self-rationalizations, and get to truth, the couple probably will not make any real progress toward reconciliation. Thankfully, the psalmist is not into those destructive emotions. He does not detour into accusing other people.
He comes straight at God.

There is therapeutic value in verbalizing what we feel. Is not that the method used by many counselors? Do we not get pressure so built up inside that we just have to talk? I have observed that in myself. I will be out socially, and start talking about something that hurts. And I talk and talk. Later, I have felt embarrassed, and asked myself why I talked so much. It was because there was a hurt that needed to be released---one that I may not have thought about consciously.

For 38 years, I preached three or four Sundays a month. Some sermons came flowing forth. Others were just hard work, and never seemed to come together. I recall one Saturday afternoon when I was writing and getting tired, had writer’s block. At the time I was on the staff of The National Presbyterian Church. Another pastor, Lynne Faris, stopped by and engaged me in conversation. I rambled on verbosely. God bless her. She was patient. I just needed to talk. Nerves. I felt more alive after talking. Verbalizing in prayer helps us clarify what bothers us, and gets it out. The psalmist prays his sense of separation.

He trusts that God will be faithful, will stay in character, will forgive. He plays no games with God; well, one little one. He sort-of-reminds God of who God is:
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
Little ingratiating flattery. The psalmist wants to be free from his guilt. If God keeps a record of sins, then who can stand up straight? Everyone has to hang the head in shame. Everyone is condemned. Effort is meaningless. Intimacy with God is impossible. It is hopeless!

Yet, faith---he has faith that God is faithful to God’s nature to be loving and to be merciful.

I mentioned the young couple. The wife left for freedom. Two years later she approached the ex-husband wanting to come back. What do you think that the husband did? Did he take her back? [Ask for nods or shakes.] He did not take her back. He said, “She misses the children and the house, and the lifestyle that we had. She wants them back.” I asked, “Are you getting back together?” “Absolutely not! She does not love me for me. She just wants to use me.” The psalmist waits and hopes for God!

We have read about what the psalmist prayed. What about you? Here, I ask a very significant question (are you thinking?): For what do you wait and hope? For what do you pray?

It is summer. The flowers bloom along the driveway. The sunshine feels warm. On August 10 when I was a kid, I waited and hoped for the county fair. Wouldn’t be long till football season, and school would start. Those are on the surface. Important, but get deeper. In your depths, for what do you wait and hope? Are you articulating it in prayer? God wants to hear it.

Is it the finest for which you could wait and hope? If for all you wait and hope is to be free from your pain, to have yours sins forgiven, to be released from your guilt, to get healthy, to get married, whatever, then you are missing the fine bond that you could have with God.

What is most appropriate, what brings blessings, is waiting and hoping for God! Pray your desire for God!

While living, pray, and soak up God’s Word.
For Christians, waiting is not a static state. Living creatures, including you and me, are not like one of the bricks in the wall of this building---sitting there while things happen around it. We are dynamic. Living is process. I realize that every time I look at myself in the mirror. I used to have a lot of hair! I weigh about the same as always, but parts moved. Life is happening! Waiting in a static condition is not an option! It is outside of reality. Does not exist. However, I may delude myself by getting into a state of mind in which I do not live today, because I really want to be somewhere else. When I win the lottery, when I get married, when I get healthy, when I retire, when I graduate, then I will live! Fantasy. God does not call us to live in the future or in our fantasies, but to live where we are planted, to live while we wait.

While we are in the dynamic process called living, and our minds project ahead, and we pray for that future to become reality---in this living yet waiting time---what do we do? Pray and fill ourselves with God’s word. “In his word” I hope, says the psalmist.

Note: the psalmist does not say, “I hope because I have a top job. I hope because of my gorgeous body. I hope because I am smart. I hope because I have plenty of stocks---in oil.” As Christians, we know. But, we have to be reminded every so often, because we drift into the values sold us by society. We need to remember what Jesus knew when he was tempted in the wilderness. After Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights, Matthew reports he was famished. (That has to be the biggest understatement in the Bible.) The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:3-4 The job, the body, the intelligence, the stocks all have their place of importance---as tools for living and for service to God. The nourishment of the soul that energizes hope is God’s word. It is, as Jesus said, like bread is to our bodies.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
And with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

John Wesley started the movement that became the Methodist Church and wrote three of the hymns in our Hymnal. He was transformed after reading this psalm. In his Journal, he records that it was the hearing of Psalm 130 sung at St. Paul’s Cathedral which prepared him for the transforming experience of God’s grace which came to him the same evening. “With the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem!” the psalmist shouts! Wesley experienced it!

The proclamation is that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them”. God’s love in Jesus Christ has power to redeem us from sinful values, attitudes and behaviors.

Back in 1990 a creative Canadian cinematographer named Denys Arcand produced an astounding satire entitled Jesus of Montreal. In this movie, a despondent Catholic priest named Father Leclerc tries to put some pizzazz into the cathedral’s dreadfully dull production of the passion play. He recruits a new promising actor named Daniel and commissions him to develop a new script and to enlist a cast for a fresh production. Daniel needs the work, but he knows absolutely nothing about the gospel message. He spends weeks in the library, absorbed in volumes about the historical Jesus. He is transfixed by what he discovers. [God’s word!] Daniel contacts Constance, a single mother who has been sleeping with Father Leclerc, to play the role of Mary the mother of Jesus. He chooses a beautiful friend named Mireille, an actress who plays in television ads, to render the part of Mary Magdalene. His buddy Martin agrees to leave his job dubbing for porno films long enough to play the part of a disciple.

These actors are transformed by each performance. The story of Jesus touches them profoundly. Their electrifying production becomes the talk of Montreal. Daniel becomes more Christ-like in behavior. His adaption of the gospel text discloses the sham of contemporary church. The officials of the cathedral order that the production be closed on Holy Week. In and act of civil disobedience, Daniel and his crew present one last performance. When a security guard tries to halt the production during the scene of the crucifixion, a patron pushes the guard. The resulting scuffle topples the cross [on which Daniel hangs]. Daniel’s head lands on a stone. He lives only long enough to recite, in streams of conscience, the eschatological speeches of Jesus.

Daniel dies. [He has been redeemed from his former life through exposure to Jesus Christ through the Written Word, his life transformed to be more Christ-like. How might the situation be redeemed? How might the tragedy be transformed?] He has no relatives. So, his actor friends give his body parts to the medical center. The movie ends with scenes from operating rooms: a woman receiving first sight through a cornea transplant, a man receiving David’s heart, and another patient saved through an organ transplant. None of the actors return to their old professions. They enter the streets of Montreal, embodying the message of redemption that has been demonstrated by their friend Daniel, the Jesus of Montreal.

That is being redeemed from iniquities. That is God’s steady love, always there, always working to redeem us, always transforming us into Christ-like disciples.

Conclusion
While you wait for what you hope will be, be dynamic! Live! Pray your feeling. Pray your hope. Pray for God! Feed upon God’s Word, and let the steady love of God embodied in Jesus Christ redeem and transform you.

Paul Christopher Warren, “The Hymnbook of the Ages”, (U. Presbyterian Women of the U. Presbyterian Church U.S.A.), p. 24.

“Pulpit Digest,” April, 1998, pp. 68-69.