Nothing Lasts Forever

"Nothing Lasts Forever, Not the Good, Not The Bad"

Psalm 121
February 21, 2010

1-2 I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains?
  No, my strength comes from God,
     who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

3-4 He won't let you stumble,
     your Guardian God won't fall asleep.
  Not on your life! Israel's
     Guardian will never doze or sleep.

5-6 God's your Guardian,
     right at your side to protect you—
  Shielding you from sunstroke,
     sheltering you from moonstroke.

7-8 GOD guards you from every evil,
     he guards your very life.
  He guards you when you leave and when you return,
     he guards you now, he guards you always.

I decided to go out of the lectionary texts this week, the lectionary being the
recommended list of Scriptures to be preached on a regular three year cycle, because,
well, frankly, the recommendation fell on Luke 4, and I had already preached on Jesus’
temptation in the wilderness—in fact, it was the basis of a sermon series I preached
here a few years, using that same Luke 4 text for the four week series . Nothing else
appealed to me about the other recommendations, and frankly, it was as if I needed to
hear something different, something that spoke to me during this time, and about the
difficult experience we’ve had in losing so many good friends and members to the other
side of eternity. I know you can’t imagine that I would choose a text for my own selfish
reasons (hah!), but I did this week, because it was one of the suggested Scriptural texts
for use in funeral services, something we experienced once again as a congregation,
with the passing of Celia Miller from this life to the next.

The text is Psalm 121, which we heard a few seconds ago, and the version read was
from THE MESSAGE, and, admittedly, it’s not the most poetic of translations, at least
not in this case, but I was going for plainness when I chose for it to be read in this
translation. Sometimes you need to hear the truth and hear it simply, because some
things are simply true, simply the way things are, and sometimes one needs to hear it,
the simple truth, in order to remember to have hope again, to believe in the God who
believes in us, and who give us more, more than we can ever imagine. That is why I
have chosen this text—I chose to preach it because I needed to hear the truth of it,
again, and so that I can remember whose I am and whose we are. And, I suspect that
there are some of us that need to hear its message again, not only because of the loss
of members we’ve experienced recently, but also because there are other shadows
pressing on our hearts, and we just need to hear a word, a word that’s true about what
it means to be cared for, to be loved, and to never be let go of by the God who created
us.

So, we have this Psalm, Psalm 121, perhaps the second most memorized Psalm in the
Bible, the first, of course, being Psalm 23.   Scholars have noted that the ancients
grouped it into what is called the Psalms of Ascents, that is, it is as if the writers of
these groups of Psalm are going somewhere, they are on a journey, and the journey is
upward, up towards Jerusalem, up to Zion, which was simply another word for
Jerusalem, an idealized expression of the eternal city of God. This particular Psalm has
been called the Traveler’s Psalm, or Sojourner’s Psalm, almost as if was meant to be
said before a journey, as if it was a promise that needed to be heard before one set out
one’s travels through the more mountainous regions around Jerusalem, where robbers
and bandits were a real danger. Not even the mountains are protection from the
worries of this world, they cannot protect them, and so help must come from the one
who made the mountains, the Creator rather than the creation. This is a God who
protects, almost like a guard, a soldier, who won’t fall asleep at the wheel, or at the
post—this kind of God is pointed to, is promised to the traveler about to embark on a
journey. This God shields from the sun and the moon, the moon also believed to be
capable of giving one a stroke if you experienced too much of its moon rays. The
psalmist, almost as if he was giving a blessing to the one about to embark on the
journey, he promises that this God is who guards us from beginning to end, from the
start of the journey at the bottom of that mountain, until the moment we reach our
destination, the place we’ve been ascending to on the windy and rough roads to the
city on the hill, beautiful Zion, beautiful Jerusalem.

Something about this text has struck a chord with me, as it has with so many that have
listened to it words over the many centuries it’s been said aloud and listened to and
read. Something about it reminds so many of us readers that the God who has set us
out on this journey of this life, is the same God who is going to bring us safely home,
and the for the ancient Jew, who composed and read this text, no place was more
home, especially symbolically, than Jerusalem. If life is a journey, this psalm is meant to
be our blessing at the beginning of our travels, and it’s meant to be the benediction at
the end, a reminder of how God has been present and at our side through our whole
story, through all the ups and downs of this life, and the difficulties of this life. It
reminds me of the old saying and belief that you hear a lot of, especially in Protestant
circles, that we are strangers in a strange land, that we are pilgrims on this earth, until
we pass from this earth and go on to our true home, heaven. This idea is reflected in
the story, set in the last century, of an American tourist traveled to Poland to visit the
famous rabbi Hofetz Chaim. Noticing that his room had only a table, a chair and some
books, the American asked, "Rabbi, where is your furniture?"

The rabbi replied, "My furniture? Where is your furniture, my friend?"

"But I am only a tourist, passing through," said the American.

"So am I," replied the rabbi.
--William Simpson Jr., cited in Context, November 15, 1997, 6.

Now, I certainly understand the sentiment, and certainly there is some real truth to that
idea, to this truth that that our sojourn on this earth is just part of our eternal journey,
and I want to acknowledge that truth because it has always been part of the Christian
story, the Christian faith, this belief that beyond this veil there is more life and a better
life, one where the shadows will no longer appear, because we will be back in the heart
of God, who first gave us birth, and in whom there is no shadow.

And yet, we must always be careful of this kind of language, because it also seems to
sometimes dismiss the goodness of this life and life on this earth and this journey we’re
in the midst of, the one where God is with us, from beginning to end, as the psalmist
says here. I’ve voiced that concern in this congregation before, about when people
speak as if we are ONLY tourists on this earth, as if all that mattered was the life to
come, rather than the one being lived right now. It dishonors God’s creation to speak
this way, or if we only speak this way, and never speak lovingly about life in this world.
So, we need to be careful with what we say, and even what we believe, because this life
is a good thing, this world is a good world, and God has declared it good, even with the
shadows that sometimes haunt us in the journey, the dangers that are a part of the
ascent, the journey upwards to Zion. The reason why we grieve the loss of loved ones
is because we instinctively know what a gift their lives have been to us, and the
goodness that was given to us on this side of eternity through the gift of who they were,
and are—as I have said in many funerals, our grief is a sign of our love for others, and
how deeply that connection goes, even its incredible complexity.

Finally, I want to bring in something that Rita Miller mentioned at Celia’s funeral,
something that Celia used to say all the time—and it was this truth: nothing lasts
forever, not the bad and not the good. I was really struck by that, by how really true
that old adage really is, this deep acknowledgement of the transient nature of all things,
how life and history and all things churn and churn on, always changing, always moving
on, moving on from the good times, moving on from the bad times, as well. In some
odd ways, that is why I love living in this world, the change that is always happening, the
“never quite knowing what is going to happen next” part of it, the excitement of living a
life that can be rich and meaningful if you are paying attention to the wonder of it, and
even the sorrow of it. And I’ll tell you what makes life even more livable, more rich,
more doable, more wondrous, is the presence of God next to me, next to you, next to
the ones we love and the ones we struggle to love. For some reason, God hasn’t given
up on this world, this place that is surely a part of the eternal story, and God has not
given up on you and me, in particular, we who are part of that eternal story as well.
The bad will come, and it will devastate us, and it make take a piece of our heart, our
soul, as the theologian Simone Weil has said, but the bad will pass as well, and the
good will come again, and we will revel in the richness of that goodness—of children
being born, of love being made, of reconciliation finally happening, of wars coming to
an end, even the small graces that make simply make life and love a good thing—and
then they too will pass, these good things, they too will pass. The cycles, the rhythm of
the universe, goes on and on, in this life, from good to bad, and everything else in-
between, and then all over again, and yet there is one constant, the one thing, the one
truth that remains as we make our way up that mountain, ascending to the holy place,
and that is that God is here with us, in the good times, and the bad times, that God is
with us during those seasons of sadness and the seasons of joy, and all the times in-
between. Obviously, I do not know what will happen to us next, to you, to me, to this
beautiful and sad world, but I do know this—I know from where my help will come: my
strength will come from the Creator, the One who has made the heavens and the earth,
and who said it was good, so very good. Amen.