Stop, Then Choose

Transcript

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[0:00] Well, let's go now to our time for our sermon and turn in your bulletin or in the Bible that you have with you to Psalm 25. I'll say a few words of introduction, but I'll start by saying this. Frederick Buechner, a great author, he writes this in the Alphabet of Grace. If you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because your feet take you, where your feet take you, that is who you are. If you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are. And we'll be talking about the road and being on the road and where our feet take us today.

[0:39] We're preaching from the Old Testament today. This psalm is from the lectionary for today. It's an alternate reading for our lectionary. And we want to try to preach from the Old Testament. I kind of promised that a while ago. We want to preach a little more from the Old Testament, although we do preach a fair amount from the Old Testament. So I'm kind of proud of us, but I think we can do better.

[0:57] I also said I think we need to preach about the Holy Spirit and the Trinity more often than just once a year. And we will do that too. This is a psalm of comfort. It's a declaration of confidence in God's loving kindness.

[1:12] So this is a beautiful psalm. And it has something for us today. We're going to be seeing what does it have for us today. It has something for us today. But I just want to ask you, without me saying too much about it beforehand, to start by listening for the comforting words. In this psalm. Listen to the comforting words. And also ask yourself as I read, what challenges is the psalmist having that I can relate to? That you can relate to? What can we relate to? What challenges is the psalmist having? And what comforting words are being read or spoken out? So let's go to our reading now, Psalm 25.

[1:51] The entire thing. And it goes like this. To you, O Lord, I lift up my heart. I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust. Do not let me be put to shame. Do not let my enemies exult over me. Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame. Let them be ashamed for wantonly treacherous.

[2:15] Make me to know your ways. O Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth. And teach me for you For you For you for for for for for I wait all day long. Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions. According to your steadfast love, remember me for your goodness sake, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore, he instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep his covenant and his decrees. For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.

[3:13] Who are they that fear the Lord? He will teach them the way that they should choose. They will abide in prosperity, and their children shall possess the land. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him, and he may not fear him. He will teach them the way that they should choose. He makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and bring me out of my distress. Consider my affliction and my trouble and forgive all my sins. Consider how many are my foes and with what violent hatred they hate me. O guard my life. Deliver me. Do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. Redeem Israel, O God, out of all of its troubles. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word, and we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name, amen.

[4:23] Well, a few words about who wrote this. It's kind of important. The scripture, if you have it, says it's the Psalm of David. Though, interestingly, one manuscript that we have lacks that. So, what does that mean? It's possible that this was added later. They said somebody edited the book of Psalms, ordered them all together, and said, this sounds like a Psalm of David, and it does. And so they might have said, okay, this is David's Psalm. Or the manuscript that's missing the name of David in front of it just left it off for some reason. So, we don't really... We don't really know. But it definitely sounds like a Psalm of David.

[5:00] And the reason why, because a lot of the Psalms of David, we have him worrying about his life. He's beset by fears. The King Saul and his army is chasing him across the countryside. He's worried about a lot of things. And so, a lot of the words in this Psalm sound a bit like David could have written them. Now, I actually would like it better if it wasn't David who wrote it, right? Because I think the feelings in this Psalm there, they're universal. We don't just need to locate them with one person. I think anybody could have written a Psalm like this. The sense of being alone. Have you noticed the word alone or lonely appears multiple times in this Psalm? Being worried. Being worried about enemies. Being worried about the future. And calling on God for help. Anybody could do this. Not just David. So, it could be an every person's Psalm. Now, there's a few other interesting things about this Psalm. It's what's called an acrostic.

[5:57] And because, I don't want to define the word acrostic for us necessarily, but in this Psalm, each verse starts with an ascending letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So, the first line or the first verse starts with the Hebrew letter Aleph. And the second, Beit and Gimel and so on. And so, you go all the way through the Hebrew alphabet. It's like a poem in English that goes from A through Z. Now, what does that do? Well, for one thing, it tells the reader how long the Psalm is. They're like, oh, it's one of these. So, there's only, you know, 22 verses in it. 21, 22 verses in it.

[6:32] But it also builds up to a final point. So, you know that as things kind of grow, you're kind of moving towards this sort of full kind of end to it. And it sends the message of completeness, right? Just as I, so the Psalmist says, I'm using all the letters. So, this Psalm is a complete understanding of this topic. So, kind of, this is a very interesting part of biblical stuff. And it's a very interesting part of the Bible studies. Is it's not just the content of a piece of writing that gives it meaning. But the form of the writing gives it meaning. And this one has a particular form. It's an alphabetical form, you know? And it's, there's other forms. Like there's forms of poetry. There's forms of parable. There's sort of things like that. And when we put all these things together, not just the content of the words, but the shape of the document itself. Then more meaning. And more meaning starts to flow out of it. And this is, this is the beauty of reading the Bible. Is that you find extra meaning by looking at all the extra details that are given to you. And it's not quite like a puzzle or a mystery. But it's like a beautiful piece of work of art that you can kind of, the longer you look at it, the more detail you see.

[7:45] And the more, sort of, more meaning that comes out of it. Now, this one feels to me like we're Eve's children. And it's like Eve's dropping on a prayer. Normally it's not good to Eve's drop on other people's prayers, right? Those should be private. Of course, if they were really a private prayer, they would pray in their own head. But it's like we're watching somebody pray.

[8:08] And here's a person who's writing it who is sort of figuratively, I'm having trouble today. Who's figuratively, at least, they're on a road. So you can imagine. And, you know, they didn't have cars. So they're walking. You know, maybe they have a donkey or some other animal. Probably just walking. They're on a road. They're like King David. They know that enemies might be up there somewhere that we have to watch out for. There's threats ahead. And they're not quite sure in this moment which direction they should go. They're not sure if they should come to a fork in the road, say. And they go, should I go to the right? Well, there could be some enemies up that way. Should I go to the left? Well, maybe they sort of. They sort of marshaled their forces and went on that side. Right? You come to maybe a bridge. One side goes on one bank of the river. The other, you go across the bridge and you go over the river and into the country far beyond it. And so just imagine that this person pauses in a quiet place. Maybe the shade of a tree. They stop. You know, there's a mile marker somewhere or something like that. They sit down on a rock and they begin to pray. Because they don't know what to do. So I imagine myself being like a tiny bird that sits on a small branch just above their head.

[9:27] And kind of, if I put my wing up, I put my wing up to my ear and I can listen to what they're saying in this silent prayer to God. And this is what they're saying. They're saying, Lord, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of being shamed. I'm afraid of what will happen if my enemies capture me.

[9:47] I know I have sinned and I have repented. So don't hold those old sins against me now. And I'm lonely. And I'm alone. And I'm on the road and I don't know what to do. I don't yet know the right way. But I have trust in you. I have trust that you will show me the correct path ahead. I have trust that you will start with my heart and forgive me of my many sins and teach me. That you're going to teach me your ways. Not just the correct way to go in this moment. But that you'll teach me your ways for the rest of my life.

[10:25] And I know that you will show me the correct path for this journey I'm on in this moment. I know you're going to tell me which fork in this road I should take. And I come to you with a heart that's pulled in two directions. There's loneliness, guilt, and shame that have isolated me. But I know that they will not consume me. I know you will deliver me and guide me each of my steps and bring me safely home. That might be the prayer, right? That's kind of a paraphrase of the psalm that we just read. And the little bird goes, oh what a nice prayer and sort of flies away. That's the prayer.

[11:06] Now I think this is a good word for us. Oh by the way, I wanted to say one other thing about this psalm. And it being an acrostic. Is that this psalm, we believe, was written in the Bible. And it was used in worship by the people of Israel for hundreds of years after it was written. And that acrostic is something that actually helps you memorize the psalm. Because you say to yourself, well now what's the next verse? Well I know it starts with the next letter of the alphabet. And that helps you remember it. And so the other function of an acrostic would be to help you memorize something. So that you could use it in worship extemporaneously, right? So this is a good psalm for us. We could say this psalm as a prayer together. As a family. We could use it in our thinking as a church.

[11:53] But I want to talk about you right now. And ask you, have you, even right now, maybe you're not sure which path you should take. You have a decision ahead of you. My sister just sent me a message. I'll tell Brian this. My sister works for NASA in Cleveland. Well she just accepted a job with Northrop Grumman. And she's going to work on their iteration of the next space station that's going to go up. I guess. Very exciting. But she was at a road there. Should I stay with NASA or should I take this other road? They're going to move to Houston. You know. That's a real big step. And so I can just imagine my sister praying about this. What should I do Lord? I'm at a stopping point right now. I have two paths that I could go. Or there's some other issue in your personal life where you're like, I'm uncertain. And I'm feeling heavy because I've made mistakes in my life. But I also know that God is going to show me the way. Then this is a psalm for us. It's really powerful. It's really wonderful.

[12:58] So is it possible that when we're in a situation like that, we don't know where to go, it might make sense to stop in the moment and pray a prayer like this? You know. And wait. Wait. Even wait. Delay a decision until more peace comes, more indication comes from God. And I would say this is hard for goal-oriented people. And I can kind of be like that sometimes. They're much more likely to just kind of keep on trucking. Right? They just want to keep going. They want to keep moving. They want to get to the destination because it's more important than the journey. Right? We have to get there. Even if it's the wrong destination. Right? Even if I end up where the danger is. Because we want to check it off the list. And then of course there are some people who love the journey so much that they never arrive anywhere either. They could sit here and pray all day long. But once God shows them the path, do they take it? That's the other side of it. So I think this psalm is just really good because you stop for a while. But all throughout the psalm it says, once I know the right way, there's every indication that I will then take it because I know which way to go then.

[14:09] So I think this is true of us. We can use this psalm when we have a tough decision ahead, when we are lonely, when the enemies seem larger than us. And there's this great confidence that God will use this moment to forgive us, to show us his loving kindness, to teach us, and then to direct us. And what does that look like? When you make a decision. I mean I'll tell you how it's looked for me. I've been in many times in my life where I have two choices to make. And I don't know if I hear an actual voice from God saying, God, I'm sorry. Turn left. Turn right.

[14:44] But you kind of edge towards one and you feel peace. You feel less conflicted about it. You feel like, ah, things are lining up in this way. And it's not an audible voice from God, but it definitely seems to be a sign from God. And you say, is this in alignment with what God wants for me? Is this in alignment with what God wants me to do? And so that's where we have this confidence that God will actually show us the right way. But sometimes we have to wait a while for it.

[15:16] Again, Frederick Buechner says, if you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because your feet take you. Where your feet take you, that is who you are. And so it kind of defines you. Which way you go, it defines you as God's child. And that's who you are. Now that's an individual thing, but I think this works for the church as well, which is interesting, right? So from time to time, our church, just for an example, we have big decisions to make sometimes.

[15:43] And honestly, I don't think we've made any really big decisions in an overly hasty way. We've been very thorough when we've made big decisions. We've talked about them a lot. I think maybe perhaps more often we let worries push us to a place of inaction, right? Where we only make a little bit of progress at a time. And I think that's something we can get better at, right? We could be too hasty or we could be too slow. I think there's a certain amount of deliberation that all churches should do. And I think that's something that we should make when they make a decision. And the bigger the decision, maybe the more energy you put into that decision-making process, right? But what if we as a church were to pray this psalm, right? Because churches make mistakes too, right? God forgives, He renews, He redeems, and if we're open to it, He teaches us these things even from our own failures. And so as a church, I believe, and I'm thinking, you know, at 60 years, right? That's not necessarily a fork in the road, but it's a milestone. And it is a good place for even a church at 60 years to say, Where have we been and where are we going? And can we pray in this moment for guidance so that God would teach us the way?

[16:53] This is really the theme of the psalm. Teach me your ways, O God. That's how we start and that's how we're going to end today, right? We're going to want to pause, and I think in the year to come maybe, I mean, in the grand scheme of 60 years, I think taking one year to pause and think is not a bad thing. To chart the next 60 years. You'd want to spend some time, maybe not a year, but you know, to be thinking, What is God calling us into? And I'll be honest, I think already God has been showing us what God is calling us into. We're having more of an emphasis on racial justice. We're having an emphasis on our children and ministering to our children. A lot of things are happening. And so I feel like God has already been shaping us and forming us and pushing us in the right direction. But we can use resources like this in the scriptures to make decisions together as a church. So we're going to want to pause sometimes, lift up a prayer like this. But then, that's the other theme of this psalm, is confidence. Then when you know you move forward with confidence in God's loving kindness, over and over again, this isn't a psalm of doubt. It's a psalm of confidence. It's a psalm of repentance. But there's this confidence that God forgives.

[18:11] It's a psalm of uncertainty about where to go. But then there's this certainty that God will give the way. So there's confidence here. And that's where we want to end today. There's confidence. And so I want you to turn in your bulletin to the front page to our call to worship and say it again with me, right?

[18:28] We're going to end the sermon the way we started the service, with verses 4 and 5 of Psalm 25. Let's read this together. Make me to know your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation. For you I wait all day long.