A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Soul of faith

Psalm 130, Preached at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, August 9, 2009

This guy is meeting a friend in a bar.  As he goes in, he notices two pretty girls looking at him. "Nine," whispers one as he passes. Feeling pleased with himself, he swaggers over to his buddy and tells him that one of those hot girls just rated him a nine out of ten. "I don't want to ruin it for you," his friend says, "but when I walked in, they were speaking German."

There are some things that are very difficult to say. One is, “I am sorry.” Another is, “I was wrong.” Another, and perhaps the worst of all, is, “I need help. I cannot do it on my own.” I think that what these all have in common is they make us turn down our pride and choose hope. Pride goes before the fall, it is said, and this is why pride, too much, hard-heart pride, can be our greatest enemy.

Psalm 130, often referred to as De Profundis, which is the Latin for “from the depths,” speaks about how we deal with times in our lives when we reach “the depths,” when we have fallen. It is a penitential psalm. It starts at the lowest depths of despair, but it progresses steadily upward until at the end there is encouragement. In this sense Psalm 130 is in itself is a literal Song of Ascents. It climbs from the abyss of depression to the high ground of steadfast hope. Many Psalms start down where the tough times of life sometimes find us, describes the situation, then turn God-ward, focusing us on the God who delivers us from these times. Finally, the psalm ends with great words of praise, hope, and testimony. This is the truth about our God. So lift up your hearts. Focus on the Lord who watches not for sin or error, but seeks to help and forgive. Don’t give up on hope, the soul of our faith.

The Founder of Methodism and the Methodist church, John Wesley had a conversion that took place in the evening of May 24, 1738, when he attended a meeting in a little nonconformist chapel on Aldersgate Street in London. There he heard someone reading from the introduction to Martin Luther's book on Romans. It was the occasion when he described his heart as being "strangely warmed." What is not so well known though is that on the afternoon of that same day Wesley attended a vesper service at St. Paul's Cathedral, and in the course of that the service Psalm 130 was sung as an anthem. Wesley was greatly moved by the anthem, and it became one of the means that God used to open his heart to the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Martin Luther also loved this psalm. He called it one of the Pauline Psalms, and he classed it with Psalms 32, 51, which we heard last week, and 143. He did this because of its offer of forgiveness by grace apart from human works.

Often, the first step to getting out of the depths is to realize that we are there.  Many people do not want to realize that they have reached a bottom.  Sometimes, it takes a long time to admit that we have fallen down a big hole and cannot get ourselves out of it. Other times, it is all too obvious where we are. Things happen that for a time stop us in our tracks, like the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, or only having an inadequate job. The real question is what we do once we are in the depths. Some people lie face down in the mud and wait for it all to end. This may actually work. Just hug routine and wait. God can work with that. Others wait for somebody else to find them and pull them out. This way may be a little passive, but it isn’t so bad either, though you’ve got to know when the right person has shown up, unlike the guy who was sitting on the top of his house above the flood. Three times a fella in a boat came by to rescue him, but each time the guy said God would save him. The waters rose and he drowned. When he met God and questioned why he didn’t help him, the Lord said I sent that nice man three times. Still others face facts, admit the truth they’ve fallen and need help getting up.    

It is very easy for us to look to the wrong things, often preferring a sort of quick fix rather than a more long-term but usually slower solution.  Where do you turn when you get low or stressed or just feel like you need to take a break?  Entertainment/TV? Chocolate?  Vacations? Drink? Sports?  Work?  Friends?  Family? How about the Bible? How about the Psalms? If you ever want to find your faith in God, a renewed hope in the Lord, if you’re ever in need of a quick fix and the long term solution, then look no further. Take to the good book. You will meet there the Lover of your Soul and the Giver of your Faith, strength for your weakness, grace for your sins, love for your loneliness. We have a God who knows all about us, a God who knows every single detail of our lives, our “depths”, and all our secrets. God does not suffer from compassion fatigue and God does not give us quick fixes. There are no limits to what we can say to God. It is never too early in the morning, or too late at night to call to God. It is never “a bad time” with God. God will never say, “not you again.” There are no problems that are too big and no problems too small. There is nothing that God cannot handle. 

The truth is when our backs are really up against the wall the most natural thing to do is to call on God. During the night before the Titanic sunk the evening was filled with revelry and everyone was making a party of it. Here's a ship that’s never supposed to go down and all of a sudden it hits an iceberg. Now they know tragedy is ahead. We are told the band immediately changed its music and started playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” We don't have to go back very far in history either: 9-11. In one day, “Amazing Grace” became the anthem of many Americans. We knew where to go to when our backs were against the wall! And the reason why that is so is because of our very nature. The cry for God is the natural utterance of the needy soul.  

The thing is we get so out of practice. We often are in need but we don’t want to bother God. Everyday issues seem to come and go and we get by, so why bother God about them. And as we get older, we simply have more physical problems, medical issues, so it doesn’t seem right to pester the good Lord with these or other normal human conditions. Of course, for some, it’s not easy to realize that aging has begun to occur, like the elderly woman was sitting in the waiting room for her first appointment with a new dentist. She noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name. Suddenly, she remembered that a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in her high school class some 50-odd years ago. Could he be the same guy that she had a secret crush on, way back then? Upon seeing him, however, she quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way, way too old to have been her classmate....or was he? So after he examined her teeth, she asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School. "Yes. Yes. I did...I'm a Morgan Mustang," he gleamed with pride. "When did you graduate?" she asked. He answered, "In 1959. Why do you ask?" "You were in my class!" she exclaimed. He looked at her closely... then he asked, "What did you teach?"

I want to make one thing clear. When we ask the question of what constitutes a problem that’s big enough for us to take to God, there is an easy answer. When you start to lose hope, get to God. When you begin to lose soul, get to God. When you begin to falter in faith, get to the Lord. This happens to everybody. Sometimes we get run over by life, run roughshod by situations, people, and problems. This past year has certainly been full of scary and extremely difficult examples of what can befall individuals, families, even a country. But with God there is hope, and hope is the soul of faith. So turn to the Lord when you are in need; wait upon God to lift you up. Don’t give up and don’t give in. As Psalm 130 says, “Hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and … great power to redeem.”

In May of 2009, author and speaker Gordon MacDonald was invited to spend a weekend at the Mount Zion Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Mount Zion's pastor, Bishop Joseph Walker, III, had invited MacDonald to preach to his congregation on a day devoted to honoring those who were graduating from one level of education to another. In an article for Leadershipjournal.net, MacDonald shares how the weekend showed there was good reason for hope in the midst of the seemingly hopeless times in which we find ourselves. Early in a two-hour (plus) service, the graduates paraded, single-file, to the front of the sanctuary to be acknowledged by the audience, to receive a gift, and to pose for individual photos with the Bishop. I'm guessing at the number of people in that parade, but I'll bet it was well north of 200. First came beautiful children who were transitioning from kindergarten to first grade. They were followed by handsome teenagers who graduate this month from high school. After them: a dignified line of college graduates and those who have just received master's and Ph.D. degrees.

As each—from the smallest to the oldest—was introduced by name, a word was said about what they intended to do with their lives. The five and six year olds: "This is James H. Brown, and he wants to be a police officer … this is Leticia T. Clark, and she wants to be a surgeon." On and on it went. This child wanted to be a pilot; this one wanted to be a filmmaker; this one wanted to be an Olympic track star. There were future basketball players, barbers, astronauts, and firefighters. Some indicated a desire to be actors, teachers, or musicians. There was even a wannabe preacher or two. Every child had dreams of doing something. No small thinking among them. Each high schooler was introduced by name and by the college or university they would attend in the fall. They were all headed somewhere up the educational ladder. One girl was headed for Princeton; others were on their way to University of Tennessee, Spellman, Morehouse, and Georgetown. And the college grads? More than a few of them were pointed toward graduate school with the intention of tackling medicine, theology, law, biology, or music. You had the feeling that each of them was going to do something very, very good in the coming years.

As each child, youth, and young adult stepped to the bishop's side for his or her picture, the audience cheered, and whistled, and applauded. You would have thought that these young people were superstar athletes being celebrated by a sellout crowd at the Tennessee Titan stadium just a few miles away. To me the whole affair was like a great church party. And I found myself as enthusiastic as anyone even though I had never met anyone in the parade. Why?

The answer, I suddenly realized, was that I felt a rush of simple, unadulterated hope. In these young men and women, I saw possibilities for tomorrow. I had visions of them carrying the love of Jesus into airplane cockpits, classrooms, biology labs, and operating rooms. And the visions made me glad. The last six months haven't been that hopeful for a lot of us. We have come to dread the morning news because so little of it has been good. We've watched economies tank, suicide bombers create havoc, leaders crash in scandal, and tornadoes and floods destroy ways of life. It's been like living in the tabloids. But the weekend at Mt. Zion altered my mood. There once was a man named Zechariah. In his aging years he and his wife birthed a son named John. Of this child, Zechariah sang these words: "And you, my child, will be a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him … " And John did. But only because … his father, started pouring hope into him when he was still fresh from the womb.

Let God pour hope into your soul. And may our church continue to grow hope among us, and pour hope into our children. 

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