Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 13: How long?

How long?



How long will you forget me, O Lord; for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long shall I have anguish in my soul

and grief in my heart, day after da?

How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
Look upon me and answer me, O Lord my God;
lighten my eyes, lest I sleep in death;
Lest my enemy say, ‘I have prevailed against him,’
and my foes rejoice that I have fallen.
But I put my trust in your steadfast love;
my heart will rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt so bountifully with me.

‘How long?’ ask the journalist. ‘How long will we be shut down,’ they say. ‘How long will it take to bring this virus under control?’  Well it could be that this initial phase of the fight against this invisible virus will go on until September. Six months, said the deputy chief medical officer Jenny Harries. ‘How long?’ is always a hard question to answer. For it stretches out into an unknown future. We don’t control the future. We barely control the present. And the past seems like a faraway land, a happy dream; a distant world of close relationships, and seats in cafes, and handshakes and conspiratorial conversations head to head, and streets crowded with home-coming football fans, and free movement, and pubs and cinemas and gyms and  and weddings and baptisms and even funerals – and worship and the Eucharist, that great place of communal remembering and refashioning for the faithful.

‘How long?’ asked the psalmist. This was the cry of someone with outstretched hands, who despairs and yet who hopes, who has experienced agony, but also ecstasy. This was the prayer of someone who is impatient for a change, a transformation, in their circumstances. Four times comes the questions ‘how long?’ This is a cry from the heart which seems to take the psalmist deeper into a pit of despondency in four stages. ‘You’ve forgotten me… You’ve hidden yourself from me… You have caused me pain deep and sorrow in my soul…  You have been deposed by my enemy.’

What is always refreshing about the prayers of the psalms is both their brutal honesty and their tenacious conviction that God has to hear and see and act. What, above all, stands out from this psalm is this theme of unswerving faith. Although the poet at prayer feels isolated, abandoned, forgotten and separated from God by the huge crisis in their life (are they seriously ill? are they dying?), yet still they complain to God rather than give up on God. There is a sense that the poet at prayer knows themselves very well. They have emotional intelligence.

They know they are shaken to the core. They know they need the reviving strength that can come only from God. They know everything seems bleak. Yet they also know (from previous experience? from reflection on past answers to desperation) that something can shift an inner disposition from despair to hope. And this transition from defeat to victory is accomplished not by self-reliance but through trust in God’s steadfast love. The future isn't closed down by the present, it is somehow opened up by the past.

The psalm begins with the question: ‘How long?’ It ends with the statement ‘How good.’ How good is this bountiful God that will make my heart sing again and my soul rejoice.

As we enter now into Passiontide, we begin to turn our face with Christ to follow his painful journey to the Cross.  He prayed for us and all the world, especially those who know pain and sorrow and defeat and despair. He continues to pray for us. And he hears our supplications.  For how long? For all time.

I end with the prayer written for this psalm in Common Worship: Daily Prayer, the liturgical resource for the Church of England at prayer each day.

Jesus, Christ, Son of God,

Who passed through the dark sleep of death,

Remember those who cry to you

In shame and silence and defeat

And raise them to your risen life,

For you are alive and reign for ever.

Amen.

Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 12: Help me, Lord

Help me, Lord[1]



¹Help me, Lord, for no-one godly is left; the faithful have vanished from the whole human race. ²They all speak falsely with their neighbour; they flatter with lips, but speak from a double heart. ³O that the Lord would cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks proud boasts! ⁴Those who say, ‘With our tongue will we prevail; our lips we will use; who is lord over us?’ ⁵‘Because of the oppression of the needy, and he groaning of the poor, I will rise up now,’ says the Lord, ‘and set them in the safety that they long for.’ ⁶The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver refined in the furnace and purified seven times in the fire. ⁷You, O Lord, will watch over us and guard us from this generation for ever. ⁸The wicked strut on every side when what is vile is exalted by the whole human race.



‘Help me, Lord!' Probably the three most important words anyone of us will utter in our lives. Psalm 12 opens with powerful messaging. We are all used to the two or three-word slogans on the Prime Minister's podium aren't we. Well the psalmist knows how to hammer home a message too. 

Ask any poet, and they will you they use words with great care and sparseness – weighing every one of them in order to help the hearer (or reader) enter with imagination and emotion into the world that the words are creating.



Today’s psalm focuses in on the power of words and the danger of the unbridled tongue of the ‘double-hearted’ – or two-faced – person. They are placed in direct contrast with the truthfulness of God who watches over those who have no voice. God’s words are pure words (vs6), or ‘flawless’ (NIV), purified like silver.



The articulate, the able speakers, those who can flatter with falseness and achieve all they can with the power of speech, these are the ones targeted by Psalm 12. It seems that the prayer-maker has identified a whole raft of acquaintances who deny the Lordship of God and are content that, by the power of speech, they can prevail in all situations. In this psalm the faithful individual (or community) seems to be alone in the world and everyone else seems to be accountable to no-one. Again, the psalmist suggests that it is the faithful who are helpless and no voice while those who hog the microphones of the culture have no compunction to speak truth.



It all feels bleak, doesn’t it? In the psalmist’s world, the powerful, who control the media and have a voice in high places, seem to be undefeated and in total control. They expect no response from God.



So where is the good news in this psalm? It is found in the fifth verse, which is the focal point of the whole poem. Yet again, the psalmist is utterly convinced and confident that the cry of the voiceless is heard by God, even if it is not attended to by the word-rich and powerful. God does not give ear to the words of the powerful or the propaganda of the culture-setters. God only responds (‘rises up’) when he hears ‘oppression of the needy and the groaning of the poor’. God helps those who can not help themselves! This is the good news. God comes to the aid of the underdog and sets them in the place of safety ‘that they long for’. This fifth verse is the focal point of the whole psalm.



What does this mean for us today. Well we need to weigh the words of others, especially those in authority over us, with great care – like a poet. Yes, of course we need to take heed of the words of warning and advice of the Government and the public health specialists. We all know the mantra: ‘Stay home: Protect the NHS: Save lives’. It is effective messaging. And it is essential.



But the most effective messaging, for me, today, is not from the mouth of the PR machine of Downing Street but from the psalmist speaking to me from maybe 2,500 years ago: 'Help me, Lord.' Three words of power for all of us to articulate. 

In a rather beautiful prayer fashioned to succinctly sum up Psalm 12 in Common Worship: Daily Prayer, the Church of England’s prayer book for each day, we are encouraged to seek God’s word ‘of power and purity’ to restore us all. I end with the prayer:

Lord, when faith is faint

and speech veils our intentions,

restore us by your word of power and purity,

both now and for ever. Amen.

---

[1] Common Worship: Daily Prayer; Church House Publishing © The Archbishops’ Council 2005; p663

Psalms for turbulent times - Psalm 11: Taking the wings of faith

A psalm seeking security in turbulent times

¹ In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to me,
    ‘Flee like a bird to the mountains;
² for look, the wicked bend the bow,
    they have fitted their arrow to the string,
    to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart.
³ If the foundations are destroyed,
    what can the righteous do?’
⁴ The Lord is in his holy temple;
    the Lord’s throne is in heaven.
    His eyes behold, his gaze examines humankind.
⁵ The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked,
    and his soul hates the lover of violence.
⁶ On the wicked he will rain coals of fire and sulphur;
    a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
⁷ For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
    the upright shall behold his face.

Today the psalmist is being advised to flee for his or her life. Their case is not hopeful. It is as if they have been charged with something and it is unlikely they will be found innocent. In a striking and poetic image, we hear the advice (of friends? or enemies? we know not) to take wing and head for the hills, like a fragile bird.

Lately, on the daily Government-regulated walk round the woods, the birds have become our companions. The evening chorus in the high beeches of Warley Woods has been something to look forward to. It is possible certainly to pick out the territorial calls of robin and blackbird, thrush and parakeet, magpie, crow and green woodpecker. And then there is a the twittering of other unidentified tits and others. As yet, the migrant species – chiffchaffs, swallows and swifts – have yet to gladden our hearts. But the year-round residents flit in and out of sight. Today, being windier and colder, their song has been muted, though.

But the image of the fragile bird, easily taking fright, and fleeing from prey, is powerful in the 11^th psalm. It is a motif which is contrasted with the continued, repetitive, claim of the poet that God is a refuge in whom we can trust. Fast-forwarding a moment to a later psalm, 139, we are told of the ‘inescapable’ God, from whom we cannot flee even if we were to want to. ‘Where can I go from your spirit?’ asks the psalmist. ‘Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle in the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me fast.’[1]

The conclusion: everywhere is a refuge; nowhere is far from God’s presence.

But there is more wisdom in Psalm 11. It is a prayer of contest, a plea to stand firm in the face of those who ‘stand in the shadows’ (NIV translation) or ‘in the dark’ (NRSVA) and shoot arrows at the upright of heart. And then it asks the question – if (or when) the foundations are being destroyed, what can the upright do?

We can sense, day by day, as life is stripped away from us, that the foundations of society as we have known it are (currently, at least) being shaken. It is so odd to stand at a garden gate to talk to a neighbour on their doorstep (at least we can still do that). It is odder still, learning a new ‘dance’ in the aisle of a shop, a dance demanded by social distancing. But it is the hardest thing of all to hear the sorrowfulness of families parted from loved ones on their deathbeds because of fear of infection, of funerals restricted to four family members and an officiant, of bereaved widows having to drive to their husband’s service because limousines are no longer offered by funeral directors. These small seismic shocks feel like the prelude to something much greater.  What can the upright do? We can pray and stay real. 

The psalm says don’t flee from reality. Stand firm. Stay. For though the situation may seem hopeless and overwhelming, remain faithful to God’s rule. For God’s rule is certain. The choice is flight or faith. For God watches all and examines the heart of all and longs to see us face to face – not at a distance.

I find Eugene Peterson’s translation in The Message so helpful:

I’ve already run for dear life  straight to the arms of God.
So why would I run away now when you say,

“Run to the mountains; the evil bows are bent, the wicked arrows
Aimed to shoot under cover of darkness at every heart open to God.
The bottom’s dropped out of the country; good people don’t have a chance”?

But God hasn’t moved to the mountains; his holy address hasn’t changed.
He’s in charge, as always, his eyes taking everything in, his eyelids
Unblinking, examining Adam’s unruly brood inside and out, not missing a thing.
He tests the good and the bad alike; if anyone cheats, God’s outraged.
Fail the test and you’re out, out in a hail of firestones,
Drinking from a canteen  filled with hot desert wind.

God’s business is putting things right; he loves getting the lines straight,
Setting us straight. Once we’re standing tall, we can look him straight in the eye.

---

[1] Psalm 139 vs7-10 (NRSVA)

Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 10: Hope-filled struggle

Psalm 10[1]

¹ Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
    Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

² In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
    who are caught in the schemes he devises.
³ He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
    he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
⁴ In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
    in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
⁵ His ways are always prosperous;
    your laws are rejected by him;
    he sneers at all his enemies.
⁶ He says to himself, ‘Nothing will ever shake me.’
    He swears, ‘No one will ever do me harm.’

⁷ His mouth is full of lies and threats;
    trouble and evil are under his tongue.
⁸ He lies in wait near the villages;
    from ambush he murders the innocent.
His eyes watch in secret for his victims;
⁹     like a lion in cover he lies in wait.
He lies in wait to catch the helpless;
    he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.
¹⁰ His victims are crushed, they collapse;
    they fall under his strength.
¹¹ He says to himself, ‘God will never notice;
    he covers his face and never sees.’

¹² Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
    Do not forget the helpless.
¹³ Why does the wicked man revile God?
    Why does he say to himself,
    ‘He won’t call me to account’?
¹⁴ But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
    you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
    you are the helper of the fatherless.
¹⁵ Break the arm of the wicked man;
    call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
    that would not otherwise be found out.

¹⁶ The Lord is King for ever and ever;
    the nations will perish from his land.
¹⁷ You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
    you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
¹⁸ defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
    so that mere earthly mortals
    will never again strike terror.



Here, in this Tenth Psalm, is a dilemma of faith. Why do the powerful get away with injustice? Why does it seem as if God is hiding or standing far off when the vulnerable, the weak, the oppressed, the victims of crime, the fatherless and the orphan suffer? How can we claim to follow a God of justice and mercy and compassion and kindness when it is clear to all that there is so much injustice, merciless cruelty and hatred in this world? Is God impotent rather than omnipotent?



We remember from yesterday that this psalm is woven together with the ninth by virtue of its acrostic pattern – each verse beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The ninth psalm began with praise but soon dug deep into the biblical tenet that God is on the side of the afflicted ones – that there is an inherent bias to the weakest and neediest in the divine character. And the psalmist extolled God as a refuge to the afflicted.



Yet, here in Psalm 10 we hear a contrasting voice which speaks of God being far off, distant and hidden. Things remain unsettled for the poet. As he pours out his heart about the injustices he sees, he seems to lose focus on the eternal character of a God of justice. He appears, like many of us who feel overwhelmed by wrongs, to feed his anxieties with account after account of the relentless strength of the wrong-doers. It is a powerful list; they are:

·      Arrogant and persecute the poor with carefully devised schemes

·      Boastful, greedy and renounce God altogether

·      Proud and sure that there is no God anyway

·      Prosperous and confident that their winning ways will last through the generations

·      Full of cursing, deceit and oppression and have mischievous tongues

Then, all of a sudden, as if waking from a bad dream, the psalmist rediscovers focus. And the poem regains a sense of balance and purpose. ‘But you O God,’ says the psalmist with renewed confidence in verse 14, ‘do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits to you; you are the helper of the fatherless… You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.’



While the powerful think God does not see, it takes a weak and oppressed and helpless person to know better. How? What is going on here that enables a crushed person to nonetheless put their trust in this hidden and far away God?



Great is the mystery of faith!



Somehow when we are at our lowest ebb, when we cry out maybe for days, weeks, months or even years about something that has afflicted us we reach a turning point.  Somehow in that faithful process of crying out because we just KNOW that this affliction is not right (either ours or, most likely, someone else’s), this crying out shifts something in us. We move from disorientation to reorientation, as the great bible scholar Walter Brueggemann.  It is in the descent to the depths that we discover the eternal policy of God’s justice which rises from the dead. ‘The psalmist’s confidence is ultimately founded on the conviction that God rules the world and that God will enact the royal policy of justice,’ writes J Clinton McCann Jr in his commentary on the Psalms.[2]



Jesus, for whom the psalms were like meat and drink, taught this same psalmic truth in his famous Sermon on the Mount. Because God rules the world, the meek will ultimately inherit the earth, he said (Matthew 5.5).



It is only human to be at a loss and to know helplessness. It is also only human to experience triumph even amidst a sense of Godforsakenness and to ‘discover the conviction and hope which impels humanity into the struggle to join God in God’s work in the world’.[3]


As huge efforts are being made tonight to build two super hospitals – a strong refuge for the afflicted – in London’s docklands and Birmingham’s NEC – may all those who engage in this struggle against Covid-19 also find renewed conviction and hope to act. It is fitting that these hospitals are being named after Florence Nightingale, whose Christian convictions inspired the dedicated and hope-filled actions of the nursing profession worldwide. Nurses and their medic colleagues at their best epitomise the opposite of arrogance, boastful, greedy, proud, scheming and wicked people. They are those who inspire sacrifice, service, faithful love and mercy. May God bless these huge places of refuge in the coming days - and may those who enter them for treatment discover they are cared for as individuals, not as statistics: one person at a time. 

---

[1] New International Version - UK (NIVUK) Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

[2] The New Interpreters Bible Vol IV © Abingdon Press 1996 p719

[3] Ibid; p720

Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 9: Take me to the afflicted ones

Take me to the afflicted ones

¹ I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;     
    I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
² I will be glad and exult in you;
    I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
³ When my enemies turned back,
    they stumbled and perished before you.
⁴ For you have maintained my just cause;
    you have sat on the throne giving righteous judgement.
⁵ You have rebuked the nations, you have destroyed the wicked;
    you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.
⁶ The enemies have vanished in everlasting ruins;
    their cities you have rooted out;
    the very memory of them has perished.
⁷ But the Lord sits enthroned for ever,
    he has established his throne for judgement.
⁸ He judges the world with righteousness;
    he judges the peoples with equity.
⁹ The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
    a stronghold in times of trouble.
¹⁰ And those who know your name put their trust in you,
    for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
¹¹ Sing praises to the Lord, who dwells in Zion.
    Declare his deeds among the peoples.
¹² For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;
    he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
¹³ Be gracious to me, O Lord.
    See what I suffer from those who hate me;
    you are the one who lifts me up from the gates of death,
¹⁴ so that I may recount all your praises,
    and, in the gates of daughter Zion,
    rejoice in your deliverance.
¹⁵ The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
    in the net that they hid has their own foot been caught.
¹⁶ The Lord has made himself known, he has executed judgement;
    the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah
¹⁷ The wicked shall depart to Sheol,
    all the nations that forget God.
¹⁸ For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
    nor the hope of the poor perish for ever.
¹⁹ Rise up, O Lord! Do not let mortals prevail;
    let the nations be judged before you.
²⁰ Put them in fear, O Lord;
    let the nations know that they are only human. Selah

This, the Ninth Psalm, presents two realities. God is God. We are only human.

When we forget we are only human and that God has a bias to the oppressed, the weak, the afflicted – then all life goes out kilter.

But God values life. And the psalmist tells us that it is in God’s character to remember the cry of the afflicted (vs12), while the enemies of God, even their names are blotted out (vs5).

Psalm 9 begins as a hymn of praise to the Most High Lord who is enthroned (vs 7), is judge of all the world (vs8) and is a stronghold ‘for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble’ (vs9). It is a very personal thanksgiving. The poet tells how his or her ‘whole heart’ is full of thanks and wants to tell all who will hear all God’s ‘wonderful deeds (vs1). And it is God’s name that is remembered and praised.

What might the setting – the context – be for this psalm? We can’t be for sure. Some scholars think it was a communal song sung by the generations after returning from the long exile (a deep scar and sorrowful memory which has shaped Judaism, again and again). It is linked very closely with Psalm 10. Indeed, some scholars think they are one and the same because, together, they share an acrostic pattern (the verses start with letter A, then B, then C and so on – in Hebrew of course).

This psalm links the personal thanksgiving (for something that God helped an individual face) directly to an international reality.  Each individual struck down anywhere in this world is linked, not just as a statistic, but in reality with people from every nation who are struck down. This psalm teaches us the age-old biblical truth that God takes the side of the afflicted - one person at a time - while judging everyone with equity. Justice is God’s personal and international policy. He remembers the afflicted, the poor, those laid low, those struck down, those unfairly treated – and he ‘avenges blood’ (vs12): in other words, God values life above all things. 

Tonight, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people stood outside their front doors or hung out of their windows and clapped (or rang bells or bashed bin lids and pots and pans, or set of fire works) at 8pm for those who work for the NHS. They value life. And they value life-savers. The personal stories of those who are afflicted might not all be heard. But those who come to their aid are valued. We have had other wonderful news in these last few days. As I write, more than 500, 000 people from all walks of life in the UK have offered to volunteer to support the work of the NHS and those who are stuck at home struck down with Covid-19. Each one of them will have a personal story of help. Each one of them make up a national narrative of hope.

‘For the needy shall not always be forgotten,’ exclaims the psalmist, ‘nor the hope of the poor perish for ever.’ The afflicted, as we are learning in the theology of the psalms, are those who know they are not self-sufficient. They need help. And they entrust their lives and their future to God.

The great contemporary jazz composer and singer Gregory Porter, wrote a most wonderful song a few years ago which sings of a king who comes to town. All the great and the good line the streets to welcome this king with all their ‘shiny things’. But the king is not interested in their acclaim. He says, instead, ‘Take me to the alley, take me to the afflicted ones.’

Well they gild their houses in preparation for the king
And they line the sidewalks with every sort of shiny things.
They will be surprised when they hear him saying
‘Take me to the alley.
‘Take me to the afflicted ones.
‘Take me to the lonely ones that somehow lost their way.
‘Let them hear me saying. I am your friend.
‘Come to my table. Rest here in my garden. O you will have a pardon.’

Christ goes with those who say, ‘Take me to the afflicted.’

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA)

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 8: An invitation to wonder

An invitation to wonder [1]


¹ Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
   You have set your glory in the heavens.
² Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
³ When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?
⁵ You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honour.
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:
⁷ all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild,
⁸ the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.
⁹ Lord, our Lord,  how majestic is your name in all the earth!

In the last few clear evenings of these strangely blue sky days, there have been some magnificent star-studded vistas overhead. Looking west into the heavens at around 8.30pm there have been Orion’s belt to the left, the faint red glow of Mars slightly higher up in the middle (as it were) and there, straight ahead, quite low in the sky, is the brightest of them all – Venus, the second planet from the sun, named after the Roman god of love and beauty.

Taking that one walk of the day in the quiet of the evening across Warley Woods (what a blessing this 100-acre mix of woodland and meadow is for the surrounding community in these days), vivid Venus lights the path through the magnificent beech trees onto the bowl-shaped open space where, in the day, children have played (two metres apart, dogs have chased sticks and tennis balls, and folk have sat on benches noticeably with spaces between. And you feel so small. The unfamiliar expanse of the cosmos of God’s magnificent creativity overhead, the little familiar paths and tracks of our lives before us. And at present, we give grateful thanks that we can take these little steps out of the enclosure of our homes, be it for only once a day.  

Here is one mind-blowing fact for us today, on March 25^th 2020. This is mined from Bill Bryson’s magnificent book A Short History of Nearly Everything. If you have ever wondered at how you exist and have feet on terra firma, just grasp this: Carl Sagan calculated the number of probable planets in the universe at as many as ten billion trillion – a number vastly beyond our imagining. But what is equally beyond our imagining is the amount of space through which they are lightly scattered. ‘If we were randomly inserted into the universe,’ Sagan wrote, ‘the chances that you would be on or near a planet would be less than one in a billion trillion trillion.’ (That’s 10³³, or 1 followed by 33 zeros.) ‘Worlds are precious.’[2]

The psalmist brings us down to earth with poetry and lifts up with unashamed praise. Yes, we are small. Insignificant in the vastness of the cosmos. And yet God cares for us. God cares for all 7 billion of us who are humans on this earth (one quarter of whom are now in ‘lockdown’). He cares for each individual (and each creature - not to be dominated, but to be cared for too by us). For each is significant because each has been given the freedom to participate in regenerative living, in creative expression, in divine work. God is no autocrat or puppet master. This magnificent creator, the psalmist tells us, gives away dominion and invites us – as those crowned with glory and honour – to share in the care of all creation. Oh that we would learn how much better we can do this work. And maybe this enforced quietness will open our ears and eyes again to wonder and to caring for it all.

How far does our part in this creation care extend? What kind of sharing are we invited into? This psalm invites us to blow our minds with the knowledge that even children and infants can rejoice in – and that is to blow our minds with wonder.

In these incredibly care-worn days, may we step outside of the familiar tracks of our thoughts and spend a few minutes just being blown away by these two truths: the vastness of the universe and the delight God has in each one of us. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

---

[1] New International Version - UK (NIVUK) Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 [2] A Short History of Nearly Everything ©Bill Bryson 2003, published by Doubleday, pg26

Psalms for Turbulent Times - Psalm 7: O love that will not let us go

Children have been painting pictures of rainbows all over the UK as a sign of hope and loving care in our current health crisis. This rainbow sprang up over Warley Woods one summer. The picture was taken by Simon Lea Photography

O love that will not let us go


1    O Lord my God, in you I take refuge;  ♦
save me from all who pursue me, and deliver me,
2    Lest they rend me like a lion and tear me in pieces  ♦
while there is no one to help me.
3    O Lord my God, if I have done these things:  ♦
if there is any wickedness in my hands,
4    If I have repaid my friend with evil,  ♦
or plundered my enemy without a cause,
5    Then let my enemy pursue me and overtake me,  ♦
trample my life to the ground,
and lay my honour in the dust. [R]
6    Rise up, O Lord, in your wrath;
lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies.  ♦
Awaken, my God, the judgement that you have commanded.
7    Let the assembly of the peoples gather round you;  ♦
be seated high above them: O Lord, judge the nations.
8    Give judgement for me
according to my righteousness, O Lord,  ♦
and according to the innocence that is in me.
9    Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,
but establish the righteous;  ♦
for you test the mind and heart, O righteous God. [R]
10  God is my shield that is over me;  ♦
he saves the true of heart.
11  God is a righteous judge;  ♦
he is provoked all day long.
12  If they will not repent, God will whet his sword;  ♦
he has bent his bow and made it ready.
13  He has prepared the weapons of death;  ♦
he makes his arrows shafts of fire. [R]
14  Behold those who are in labour with wickedness,  ♦
who conceive evil and give birth to lies.
15  They dig a pit and make it deep  ♦
and fall into the hole that they have made for others.
16  Their mischief rebounds on their own head;  ♦
their violence falls on their own scalp.
17  I will give thanks to the Lord for his righteousness,  ♦
and I will make music to the name of the Lord Most High.


Pursuit. This is a word that stands out in today’s psalm, for me: that sense of being chased down. When our children were younger, they got a great thrill out of being chased by us, their mum and dad. Especially if we walked or ran oddly or had weirdly exaggerated expressions on our faces. And if the chasing game started in the sitting room, running round, it would escalate in fun and noise as they scampered up the stairs with us in pursuit.

But being chased down is not great fun, most of the time. It has a sinister edge. It is the stuff of nightmares. Our subconscious in sleep tries to exorcise these horrible feelings of being stuck while our pursuers seem to speed up. I reckon we all have that latent fear of being caught by some unseen enemy, whether an imagined creature or hooded human.

Yet, the Gospel, indeed the whole of Scripture, sings aloud of another pursuit; that of a love that will not let go of us. One of my favourite hymns is the Victorian composer George Matheson’s most popular pieces, O love that will not let me go. It is a pursuit which goes down into the very depth of human suffering. It's a pursuit which takes God, in the person of his Son Jesus, into the place of identifying with the neediest person's plight. It is a pursuit that does not dodge suffering but goes through it and beyond it. Christ would not let go until the work of redemption was done even as he was hounded down by false accusers who were threatened by this love. This love is our refuge, our safe person, our safe place, where racing hearts can find a calm rhythm. In the daily rhythm of morning, evening and night prayer in the Church of England, we always begin our worship by acknowledging this pursuing loving God. We say: 'O God, make speed to save us; O Lord, make haste to help us.'

In today’s psalm, we hear the prayer of an almost breathless person whose enemies are bearing down on them. It appears that he or she have been falsely accused and cry out a protestation of innocence, not unlike Job. The psalmist is so convinced of their sense of righteousness that they have the courage to stand by their convictions, even if they are overtaken by their pursuers. Even if their life is trampled out of them and their ‘soul’ or ‘glory’ (vs 5) is lies in the dust. The writer is so convinced that God’s knowledge of their righteousness is strong, that God will be roused to action on their behalf. What’s more, we see again the hyperbole of the Hebrew poet – God’s anger against unrighteousness is such that in the end it is inevitable that these enemies will be chased down. ‘Their mischief returns upon their own heads, and on their own heads their violence descends,’ he says in triumph (vs16).

So we have a pursuing God who is indignant ‘every day’ (vs11) and a God of faithful loving mercy who will not let us go when we are being chased down. This love will not run out of energy and will not be overtaken by our pursuers. I am comforted by a loving God who can out-pursue my fears. I am comforted by an indignant God who will never stop being indignant on behalf of the needy and inspires others in indignation, even when they are not given permission to speak out – like an intensive care nurse from a hospital in the north of England on Channel 4 news tonight who spoke of her sense of  pursuing fear for her colleagues who are going to put their lives on the line for others in the coming weeks as the tsunami of cases hits our shores. She called on the Government to ensure all critical care nurses and doctors are properly protected from the virus as they care for those who have been overtaken by its virulence. 


Even as we watch this unfolding battle for the lives of the vulnerable and the weak, as if a slow-motion film, may we know the loving pursuit of an indignant God who is urging us on and who will not let us go. Here is a stunning rendition of this compelling hymn: 

1.     O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

2.      O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

3.      O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Psalm 7: Common Worship: Daily Prayer, material from which is included here,
is copyright © The Archbishops' Council 2005 and published by Church House Publishing.

O love that will not let me go: sung by the Westminster Chorus www.westminsterchorus.org