Text: Psalm 22:25-31
Theme: “It’s Psalm 22 Again!”
5th Sunday of Easter
Mother’s Day
May 10, 2009
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! And along with that, happy Mother’s Day! The following words aren’t on a Hallmark card, but they do come from the Scriptures. Here’s something for the mothers from Proverbs 31:
Her children rise up and call her happy; her husband too, and he praises her:
“Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
There you have something of a Mother’s Day card from the Lord.
Our Bible text for today does not come from the book of Proverbs. It comes from the book right before it which is the book of Psalms. Psalms, of course, is the hymn book of the Bible. Now, the current Presbyterian hymnal has six hundred and five hymns, songs, or psalms, you could even say. The Bible’s hymnal has one hundred fifty of them – and we rejoice that they’re represented in the Presbyterian hymnal as well; they’re set to music.
This morning, specifically, we’re at Psalm 22 again. We last bumped into Psalm 22 during Holy Week (more on that later).
Psalm 22 is a real humdinger of a psalm. How shall we describe it? It is sort of like Rayzor Ranch over on Bonnie Brae; you’re never quite done with it. It’s this vast, sprawling thing, a piece of holy literature! It covers a lot of ground in its thirty one verses. We are told that it is a psalm of David. That would be King David who also wrote Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”) which we heard in the liturgy last Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday, and also at many funerals. FYI: there are six versions of “The Lord’s My Shepherd” in the Presbyterian hymnal. I heard one of them, for the first time, nineteen years ago last month. CNN, on cable TV, broadcast the funeral of a young man named Ryan White to a national audience. Ryan White, you may recall, was the Indiana teenager who suffered from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (A.I.D.S.). In those fearful times, some did not want him to go to public school. But Ryan did – and he went! In his few years, he educated a nation. Barbara Bush, Phil Donahue, Michael Jackson, and Elton John were all in attendance at the funeral at 2nd Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis. The CNN camera focused on Elton John as he sang right along with #170 in the Presbyterian Hymnal: “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want.”
But that’s Psalm 23. Today, we have Psalm 22 before us. At the top of Psalm 22, there is a note to the leader, presumably the worship leader, which says …according to The Deer of the Dawn. That was most likely a tune – like “Greensleeves” which is the tune for “What Child is This” that we sing at Christmastime.
But this is the Easter season, and the last words of Psalm 22 have Easter written all over them. Listen: To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
That’s a happy confidence beyond the farthest reach of death, and it extends to us and our future: Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
When the Lord has done it, it’s done. But one does wonder at times if Rayzor Ranch or Loop 288 will actually be done before the Lord returns!
And also, you have to wonder why Psalm 22, which ends in such a lofty and joyous way, begins on such a dismal note. As the late great radio personality Paul Harvey used to say, “You’re about to know the rest of the story.”
Psalm 22 begins, at verse one, with these words: Eli Eli lama sabachthani?/My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus Christ quoted those words on Good Friday -- as He hung dying on a cross. Did He sing them – cry them! – according to the tune? Good Friday was when we last bumped into Psalm 22.
To be forsaken is be left behind or left alone. There is no one there for you. There’s no one to band-aid your boo boos, to hold your hand or dry your tears. For that matter, there’s no one to offer reassurance for your uncertainties and no one to answer the nagging questions that life in this world raises. There’s no one to offer positive reinforcement or even constructive criticism. There’s no one to rage with you at the unfairness of it all. There’s no one to speak up for you when you can’t speak for yourself or defend yourself. There’s no one to answer that all-but-damnable question of “Why”. You have to go it alone. When that happens in our lives, one option is to put a stiff upper lip on it and smile it all away as if it doesn’t matter. We get all Epicurean: “Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we die!” We grin with that bit of doggerel that says: “Mine is not to reason why; mine is but to do and die,” or as Jerry Jeff Walker sings: “Just gettin’ by on gettin’ by’s my stock in trade…Livin’ it day to day…Pickin’ up the pieces wherever they fall. Just lettin’ it roll; lettin’ the high times carry the low. Just livin’ my life easy come, easy go.” But that doesn’t stop the questions from their relentless pummeling! So if we can’t rationalize the questions away, if our little philosophies of life fail to deliver, we seek escape. We want anything to stop the stampede of thought going on in our heads. Maybe it’s alcohol; maybe it’s a drug. But eventually you sober up, and the hits – the questions – just keep on coming! Why? Why? Why?
Perhaps the answer is found in religion, or spirituality, or yoga, or jazzercise, or golf, tennis, bowling, boating, or jazzfests. Not that any of those things, in and of themselves, are bad. But they become dangerous when use them to refuse life on life’s terms, when we use them only as a means of escape. Yes, there are times when we want the “Midnight Express” – which is an old prison term for escape.
But we cannot escape because, sooner or later, they come at us again: Why is God so AWOL when I need Him? Why does it feel as if the Lord is missing in action? Why is the only option six months without the chemotherapy or twelve months with it? Why did 28 days in the rehab center not work for my son or daughter? Why has the 401k been cut in half? Why did I get laid off along with another one hundred ninety nine folks in my department? Why do nice guys – and/or gals – finish last? (I seem to remember reading that on Facebook recently!) Why the swine flu? Why the flag-draped coffins? Why the panic attacks? Why the autism? Pick your own personal poison and ask why. Why? Why? Why? Any time you ask why, it’s a mini version of Psalm 22 verse 1 all over again. The more you ask and the more the answers don’t come, the more forsaken you feel.
Get frustrated enough and you might even sit down, start writing, and make a list of all those questions. You’ll come to the quick conclusion that not a lot in this life makes any sense.
You see a cheesy billboard that reads “Jesus is the answer!” My mind always responds with “What’s the question?” Let me share a personal experience with you. A number of years ago, I had to deal with a pretty significant depression. On one occasion, my psychotherapist asked me a question that I will never forget. He said, “Paul, step out of the roles you play in life. Step out of the role of son, brother, father, husband, pastor, president of the Kiwanis club, and so forth. Now, ask yourself a simple question: Who are you?” I didn’t have an answer. And, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure our why I didn’t have an answer. It made me mad – mad at myself, mad at the psychotherapist, mad at life, mad at nothing, mad at everything. Looking back, it was Psalm 22 again! The answer had, in a word, forsaken me.
But there is something about the first verse of Psalm 22 that is so easy to overlook. As the Eagles sang it all those years ago: “So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.” Simply put, we overlook the obvious!
I grew up in Fremont, Nebraska which is about thirty five miles from Omaha. My family had a cabin on a lake in North Bend, Nebraska which was about twenty miles west of Fremont. About half the way to North Bend, there was a curve in road. At the curve was a tiny village. I don’t even remember the name of it. But I do recall that the sign said “Unincorporated.” We would often, when driving by, say of that little village, “Be careful! If you blink, you might miss it.”
In the same way, be careful with Psalm 22, verse 1. If you blink, you will miss it. We’ve considered what it means to be forsaken; we’ve looked at some of the why questions in life. But, dare I say, ladies and gentlemen and brothers and sisters in Christ, we’ve saved the best for last!
King David wrote it. Jesus prayed it – on the cross: MY God, MY God! When the chips are down and all of the questions and every bit of the evidence suggests otherwise, what ultimately triumphs is a confession of faith and a declaration of ownership: MY God, MY God! It’s not the God of nature; it’s not the God of the sparrow; it’s not the God of sugary-sweet spirituality that is sold like candy in our society;; it’s not the God of providence; it’s not the God of the Presbyterian Church (USA); it’s not the God of the bishop, the priest, the rabbi, the shrink, or Joe and Jane Six Pack. It’s MY God, MY God! It’s YOUR God, YOUR God!
It’s the God who beat death at its own game! That’s why I can finish precisely where I started – with this: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hip, hip, hooray, and Hallelujah! Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day too! Amen.
Theme: “It’s Psalm 22 Again!”
5th Sunday of Easter
Mother’s Day
May 10, 2009
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Paul R. Dunklau
+In the Name of Jesus+
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah! And along with that, happy Mother’s Day! The following words aren’t on a Hallmark card, but they do come from the Scriptures. Here’s something for the mothers from Proverbs 31:
Her children rise up and call her happy; her husband too, and he praises her:
“Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
There you have something of a Mother’s Day card from the Lord.
Our Bible text for today does not come from the book of Proverbs. It comes from the book right before it which is the book of Psalms. Psalms, of course, is the hymn book of the Bible. Now, the current Presbyterian hymnal has six hundred and five hymns, songs, or psalms, you could even say. The Bible’s hymnal has one hundred fifty of them – and we rejoice that they’re represented in the Presbyterian hymnal as well; they’re set to music.
This morning, specifically, we’re at Psalm 22 again. We last bumped into Psalm 22 during Holy Week (more on that later).
Psalm 22 is a real humdinger of a psalm. How shall we describe it? It is sort of like Rayzor Ranch over on Bonnie Brae; you’re never quite done with it. It’s this vast, sprawling thing, a piece of holy literature! It covers a lot of ground in its thirty one verses. We are told that it is a psalm of David. That would be King David who also wrote Psalm 23 (“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want”) which we heard in the liturgy last Sunday, Good Shepherd Sunday, and also at many funerals. FYI: there are six versions of “The Lord’s My Shepherd” in the Presbyterian hymnal. I heard one of them, for the first time, nineteen years ago last month. CNN, on cable TV, broadcast the funeral of a young man named Ryan White to a national audience. Ryan White, you may recall, was the Indiana teenager who suffered from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (A.I.D.S.). In those fearful times, some did not want him to go to public school. But Ryan did – and he went! In his few years, he educated a nation. Barbara Bush, Phil Donahue, Michael Jackson, and Elton John were all in attendance at the funeral at 2nd Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis. The CNN camera focused on Elton John as he sang right along with #170 in the Presbyterian Hymnal: “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want.”
But that’s Psalm 23. Today, we have Psalm 22 before us. At the top of Psalm 22, there is a note to the leader, presumably the worship leader, which says …according to The Deer of the Dawn. That was most likely a tune – like “Greensleeves” which is the tune for “What Child is This” that we sing at Christmastime.
But this is the Easter season, and the last words of Psalm 22 have Easter written all over them. Listen: To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
That’s a happy confidence beyond the farthest reach of death, and it extends to us and our future: Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
When the Lord has done it, it’s done. But one does wonder at times if Rayzor Ranch or Loop 288 will actually be done before the Lord returns!
And also, you have to wonder why Psalm 22, which ends in such a lofty and joyous way, begins on such a dismal note. As the late great radio personality Paul Harvey used to say, “You’re about to know the rest of the story.”
Psalm 22 begins, at verse one, with these words: Eli Eli lama sabachthani?/My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus Christ quoted those words on Good Friday -- as He hung dying on a cross. Did He sing them – cry them! – according to the tune? Good Friday was when we last bumped into Psalm 22.
To be forsaken is be left behind or left alone. There is no one there for you. There’s no one to band-aid your boo boos, to hold your hand or dry your tears. For that matter, there’s no one to offer reassurance for your uncertainties and no one to answer the nagging questions that life in this world raises. There’s no one to offer positive reinforcement or even constructive criticism. There’s no one to rage with you at the unfairness of it all. There’s no one to speak up for you when you can’t speak for yourself or defend yourself. There’s no one to answer that all-but-damnable question of “Why”. You have to go it alone. When that happens in our lives, one option is to put a stiff upper lip on it and smile it all away as if it doesn’t matter. We get all Epicurean: “Eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we die!” We grin with that bit of doggerel that says: “Mine is not to reason why; mine is but to do and die,” or as Jerry Jeff Walker sings: “Just gettin’ by on gettin’ by’s my stock in trade…Livin’ it day to day…Pickin’ up the pieces wherever they fall. Just lettin’ it roll; lettin’ the high times carry the low. Just livin’ my life easy come, easy go.” But that doesn’t stop the questions from their relentless pummeling! So if we can’t rationalize the questions away, if our little philosophies of life fail to deliver, we seek escape. We want anything to stop the stampede of thought going on in our heads. Maybe it’s alcohol; maybe it’s a drug. But eventually you sober up, and the hits – the questions – just keep on coming! Why? Why? Why?
Perhaps the answer is found in religion, or spirituality, or yoga, or jazzercise, or golf, tennis, bowling, boating, or jazzfests. Not that any of those things, in and of themselves, are bad. But they become dangerous when use them to refuse life on life’s terms, when we use them only as a means of escape. Yes, there are times when we want the “Midnight Express” – which is an old prison term for escape.
But we cannot escape because, sooner or later, they come at us again: Why is God so AWOL when I need Him? Why does it feel as if the Lord is missing in action? Why is the only option six months without the chemotherapy or twelve months with it? Why did 28 days in the rehab center not work for my son or daughter? Why has the 401k been cut in half? Why did I get laid off along with another one hundred ninety nine folks in my department? Why do nice guys – and/or gals – finish last? (I seem to remember reading that on Facebook recently!) Why the swine flu? Why the flag-draped coffins? Why the panic attacks? Why the autism? Pick your own personal poison and ask why. Why? Why? Why? Any time you ask why, it’s a mini version of Psalm 22 verse 1 all over again. The more you ask and the more the answers don’t come, the more forsaken you feel.
Get frustrated enough and you might even sit down, start writing, and make a list of all those questions. You’ll come to the quick conclusion that not a lot in this life makes any sense.
You see a cheesy billboard that reads “Jesus is the answer!” My mind always responds with “What’s the question?” Let me share a personal experience with you. A number of years ago, I had to deal with a pretty significant depression. On one occasion, my psychotherapist asked me a question that I will never forget. He said, “Paul, step out of the roles you play in life. Step out of the role of son, brother, father, husband, pastor, president of the Kiwanis club, and so forth. Now, ask yourself a simple question: Who are you?” I didn’t have an answer. And, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure our why I didn’t have an answer. It made me mad – mad at myself, mad at the psychotherapist, mad at life, mad at nothing, mad at everything. Looking back, it was Psalm 22 again! The answer had, in a word, forsaken me.
But there is something about the first verse of Psalm 22 that is so easy to overlook. As the Eagles sang it all those years ago: “So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key.” Simply put, we overlook the obvious!
I grew up in Fremont, Nebraska which is about thirty five miles from Omaha. My family had a cabin on a lake in North Bend, Nebraska which was about twenty miles west of Fremont. About half the way to North Bend, there was a curve in road. At the curve was a tiny village. I don’t even remember the name of it. But I do recall that the sign said “Unincorporated.” We would often, when driving by, say of that little village, “Be careful! If you blink, you might miss it.”
In the same way, be careful with Psalm 22, verse 1. If you blink, you will miss it. We’ve considered what it means to be forsaken; we’ve looked at some of the why questions in life. But, dare I say, ladies and gentlemen and brothers and sisters in Christ, we’ve saved the best for last!
King David wrote it. Jesus prayed it – on the cross: MY God, MY God! When the chips are down and all of the questions and every bit of the evidence suggests otherwise, what ultimately triumphs is a confession of faith and a declaration of ownership: MY God, MY God! It’s not the God of nature; it’s not the God of the sparrow; it’s not the God of sugary-sweet spirituality that is sold like candy in our society;; it’s not the God of providence; it’s not the God of the Presbyterian Church (USA); it’s not the God of the bishop, the priest, the rabbi, the shrink, or Joe and Jane Six Pack. It’s MY God, MY God! It’s YOUR God, YOUR God!
It’s the God who beat death at its own game! That’s why I can finish precisely where I started – with this: Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hip, hip, hooray, and Hallelujah! Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day too! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment