Bridging The Divide

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"Bridging the Divide"

Psalm 40:1-11
January 16, 2011

I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the LORD.
Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those
who go astray after false gods.
You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward
us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be
more than can be counted.
Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt
offering and sin offering you have not required.
Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not
restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.
I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness
and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from
the great congregation.
Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your
faithfulness keep me safe forever.

Many of us have been saddened and horrified at the events in Arizona only 8 days
ago, the tragic shooting that killed 6 people, including a 9 year child. The following is
from an Associated Press report: TUCSON, Ariz. – As the funeral for the youngest
victim of the mass shooting in Arizona was set to begin Thursday, the largest flag
recovered from Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center was
unfurled and raised, flanked by two fire trucks with ladders extended.
Nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and featured in a
book called "Faces of Hope" that chronicled one baby from each state born on the day
terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people. Christina's funeral is the first for the six victims
killed when police said a gunman opened fired on a crowd at an event for Rep.
Gabrielle Giffords, gravely injuring the congresswoman and wounding 13 others.
The third-grader had an interest in politics and had recently been elected to her
student council. She was also the only girl on her Little League baseball team.
When I was picking out the scripture from which to preach from this Sunday, I was
drawn to this text, though I rarely tend to preach from the Psalms. Preaching from the
Psalms is sort of like preaching on the words of songs, and as rich as those words may
be, I often find it hard unpack what is said and sung more eloquently and more
beautifully than I could ever imagine ever being able to. But not this Sunday—these
words, these words of thanksgiving and praise, just leapt off the page because of what
happened less than two weeks ago in Arizona. The writer of this Psalm, Psalm 40, is
giving thanks to God because of what he has survived—some close brush with death,
some moment when the miry clay he was bogged down within was seemingly going to
engulf him, pull him down and under, and thus end his life.

And, of course, for Representative Gifford, the Congresswoman who was shot in the
head, but who survived, I can only imagine how powerful these words might one day
become for her, because they certainly resonate with her situation—a life dangerously
close to death, saved by an intern whose long ago certified nursing training in high
school seemed to instinctively kicked in, thus probably saving her life. And those of
you in this room, certainly there are those of you have had brushes with death, or the
possibility of death, and can thus echo the psalmist words here, when he says: I waited
patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the
desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps
secure. Scholars are generally of one accord that this image is of God rescuing
someone from a place filling up with water, a miry bog, an image from nature meant to
elicit from its hearers an scene of impending death. Think of all those scenes from the
movies of persons getting stuck in the quicksand, and, as they thrash about, the
person sinks lower and lower into the sand, unable to get out. And then, of course,
there is that moment when a branch or a hand is thrust out, and the person grabs it
and pulls herself back to safety. That is the image the Psalmist is likely trying to get us
to imagine, this image of God rescuing us from the seeming nightmare of death.
But, of course, it needs to be mentioned here that in the world when this psalm was
written, hundreds of years before Christ, the idea of any kind of afterlife was very
limited, very narrow in scope. Like the Egyptians, the Jews believed in an afterlife, but
one in which all were destined to go to the same place, the place of dead, whether one
was good or bad on this side of eternity.   There were no conceptions of heaven and
hell, at least not until about a couple of hundred of years before Christ was born, and
so the world to come was neither something to look forward to—heaven—or a place to
dread—hell—but rather was something to be avoided as long as possible, though not
dreaded or feared in the way hell is often feared. Throughout the book of Psalms, the
psalmist would often make a plea to God to help him avoid Sheol, the place of the
dead, and the reason he would often give is that he could not praise God in that place,
that place of the underworld—death would silence his ability to go to the temple and
praise the living God, to praise Yahweh. As the years moved closer to Christ’s life and
death, historical forces used by God pushed the Jews to reconsider their
understanding of the afterlife, though even in Jesus’ time there were debates going on
about what happens to us when we die.

But certainly we humans have tried to avoid death, and when we have brushed too
close to it, and yet survived, sometimes the first words out of our mouth are words of
thanks to God for sparing our life. And yet, we Christians, in general, really do believe
in a world to come, believe in the idea there is more to the story than this world, though
we still continue to debate what that world to come looks like, feels like, is like, frankly.
We are not quite ready to say what John Owen, the great Puritan, said to his secretary
who was dictating a letter to a friend, while lying on his deathbed. “I am still in the land
of the living.” “Stop,” said Owen. “Change that and say, ‘I am yet in the land of the
dying, but I hope soon to be in the land of the living.’”   As much as I appreciate that
story, and the real hope it carries, I’m always a bit wary of these kinds of sentiments,
because I think they too quickly dismiss the good gift of life that we are given by God on
this side of eternity. If life wasn’t good, if life wasn’t worth living, God wouldn’t have
given us a life to live in this world in the first place. No doubt we are strangers in a
strange land, no doubt we are pilgrims in this world, but we are not ONLY that: to see
this life as only as a precursor to the life to come is to miss the goodness of life in this
world, even as we are still living that life.

The psalmist in our text doesn’t miss that truth, though, because he is absolutely
thrilled to be in the land of the living, or to be amongst us in the land of dying, to use
John Owen’s words.   He is so joy-filled that he feels as if God has given him a new
song to sing, and that his feet, once unsecure in that mire, are now firmly planted on a
solid rock. His instincts are to tell the whole world what has happened, how God has
spared him from death, and he will now sing to tell the world the story of how God has
saved him. That new song he has been given will be a song that celebrates God’s
willingness to give him a second chance at life—certainly those in this room who have
tasted the dish of death know how such a taste has changed them forever. So often I
hear from those who have survived cancer or HIV or survived car accidents they
seemingly should never have been able to walk away from, so often I hear those words
of wonder and praise to God because they now see what a gift life really is. Maybe we
never know the goodness of something until someone or something threatens to take it
way, and then, then, we realize what we have been given in this world, in this life, by
God. But the psalmist here, the psalmist knows what it means to be in the land of the
dying, in this world, and he is grateful, grateful to be here.

And yet, we Christians live in an odd space, a space between a celebration of the
goodness of life in this world, and a celebration of the goodness of the life to come.
Both are worthy of our hope, of our celebration, but so often what I find is that we tend
to dismiss this world in favor of the next world, the world to come, as if we could not hold
the hands of both truths, both worlds, right here and right now. When 9 year old
Christina Taylor Green died last Saturday, as well as those five other victims, we
Christians have every right to grieve the loss of them to this world, even as we believe
that they go home to be with God in another world. We can love the loveliness of this
world, and even cling to the richness of that beauty, that goodness God has given us in
this life, while still affirming the goodness of the world to come. When Christina died
days ago, I think most of us were especially grieved by that particular loss, because
she was a child, and I think the reason the grief was especially difficult is because we
grieve the fact that she will never experience some of the best of this life—her first kiss,
maybe the love of a spouse or a lover, perhaps children, long and deep friendships,
the sense of accomplishment of finishing high school and maybe even college; and all
the laughter and tears that make up this life we have on this side of eternity. Years
ago, I ministered to a 11 year old sick girl for two years who ultimately passed away,
and when I was officiating the funeral services, I was overwhelmed by the loss of her to
the next world, which surprised me, because I really did and do believe she was now
with God, as we will all be one day. I think what I was grieving for her was all that she
was going to miss on this side of eternity, mourning the fact that she would miss so
much of what was and is best about the world that God created. The psalmist in our
text knows that goodness as well, and he is thankful for gift of having yet more chances
to taste the goodness of life in this world, as we all should.

As to why some are rescued from the miry bog, why Representative Gifford survived,
and Christina Taylor Green did not, I cannot say why, nor can anyone else—and be
suspicious of those who try too hard to find the reasons. Certainly, we will eventually all
have our own experience with the miry bog, and death will all claim us, eventually, but
we will also be given what comes with death, including, I believe, yet more life. Knowing
the goodness of life here on earth, in this world, and the beautiful banquet that is
spread out before us, the banquet of life in this world, should, ought to, make us
appreciate life a bit more. And loving this life, and the goodness of this life—yes, even
with all of its shadows, its difficulties—should probably also help us trust the good God
who has given us this good life. And perhaps, appreciating the goodness of this life
given to us by God will help us to trust in the God who holds our future in God’s own
hands, whose strong arms will catch us on the other side of life’s grand and beautiful
and painful story.

In Mourning into Dancing, Walter Wangerin Jr. tells a parable from his childhood.
“When I was a boy, I told people that my father was stronger than anyone else in the
world …. In those days a cherry tree grew in our back yard. This was my hiding place.
Ten feet above the ground a stout limb made a horizontal fork, a cradle on which I
could lie face down, reading, thinking, being alone. Nobody bothered me here. Even
my parents didn’t know where I went to hide. Sometimes Daddy would come out and
call, Wally? Wally? but he didn’t see me in the leaves. I felt very tricky,” Wangerin
recalls.

“Then came the thunderstorm … It was usual for me to dream in my tree and therefore
not to notice changes in the weather. So if the sky grew dark or gave any warning, I
didn’t see it.”

But one day a wind tore through the Wangerin backyard and hit the tree with such
force that it tore the book Walt was reading from his hands and threw him from his limb.
“I locked my arms around the forking branches and hung on. My head hung down
between them. I tried to wind my legs around the limb, but the whole tree was wallowing
in the wind.”

“Daddy!”

As the wind blew he felt that his arms were going to slip from the branches.

“Daddeeeee!”

Then he saw his face at the back door, peering out. “Daddy saw me, and right away he
came out into the wind and weather, and I felt so relieved because I just took it for
granted that he would climb up the tree to get me. But that wasn’t his plan at all. He
came to a spot right below me and lifted his arms and shouted, ‘Jump!’

“‘What?’

“‘Jump. I’ll catch you.’

“‘I screamed, ‘No!’”

But as the wind continued to blow, he changed his mind. He let go. “In a fast eternal
moment I despaired and I plummeted. ‘This, I thought, is what it is like to die?’”

“But my father’s arms caught me.

“Oh, my daddy — he had strong arms indeed. Very strong arms. But it wasn’t until I
actually experienced the strength that I also believed in it.”

When the times comes to jump, my friends, we have nothing to fear because all the
goodness we have experienced on this side of eternity, will meet us on the other side
as well, and those strong arms that climbed out after us, when we were in a miry bog,
and those strong arms that caught us when we fell in this life, well, those strong arms,
they will be there for us then as well. Amen.