wp-plugin-bluehost domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/salvagh0/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114In these weeks before our season of Advent starts, we\u2019ve been exploring the Psalms of our scriptures.
\nRev. Andrea Severson joined us at the end of October to talk a bit about times of transition and journeying and the songs the Israelites wrote to accompany them on the way.
\nLast week, as we remembered our saints, Pastor Todd reminded us of how God walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.
\nToday, we turn our attention to one of the Psalms of Lament. These songs of lament, frustration, and longing make up over half of the psalms within our Bible!
\nThey are the words that we cry out when we are troubled, persecuted, frustrated, and hopeless.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s got to be more than this,\u201d we say. \u201cThere\u2019s got to be more than this.\u201d<\/p>\n
This particular psalm is one written by David and the note in the scripture itself indicates it was during a time when he had fled to the wilderness. Likely, it was written after he had become the King of Israel. His very own son, Absalom, led an insurrection and David was forced to run for his life.
\nAnd there, in the desert, he cries out\u2026
\nNot just for water\u2026
\nBut for the very presence of God.
\nRobin Gallaher Branch writes that \u201calthough his body wastes from dehydration, his spiritual longing for God takes precedence. Hunted and afraid for his life, the psalmist remembers God\u2019s protection and loving-kindness\u2026 his soul longs for God.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the midst of our trials and tribulations, in the midst of the pain in this world, do we, too, cry out with the psalmist?
\nDo we believe \u201cthere\u2019s got to be more than this?\u201d
\nDo our souls hunger and thirst for God?
\nAnd can we hang on to the vision of God\u2019s enduring love in the midst of our longing?<\/p>\n
Last week, brothers and sisters in Christ gathered in a sanctuary in Sutherland Springs, Texas for worship. They were there to pray and to sing and to worship God\u2026 and twenty-six of them lost their lives.
\nYet another mass shooting in America.
\nYet another tragic loss of life.
\nAnd I feel like we are lost, wandering the desert, parched with our longing for the violence to end. Parched with exhaustion from debating types of weapons. Parched with weariness from trying to understand the motivations for such acts.
\nThere has got to be something more than this.<\/p>\n
And so, we are gathered here, today, seeking God\u2026 thirsting for God\u2026 turning our hands and our lips towards the divine\u2026. Clinging to the one who has upheld us before.<\/p>\n
What comes next?<\/p>\n
Do we turn inward and lock the doors?
\nDo we get lost in debate about causes and solutions?
\nDo we stop loving and trusting our fellow human beings?
\nOr is there something else?<\/p>\n
In some ways, I wonder if the lessons of Veteran\u2019s Day are precisely the ones we need in the midst of a desert like this.
\nAfter the Treaty of Versailles was signed, the \u201cGreat War\u201d finally saw peace on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month. It was believed to have been \u201cthe end of \u2018the war to end all wars.\u2019\u201d
\nThe next year, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as Armistice Day\u2026 a day commemorated \u201cby paying tribute to the heroes of that tragic struggle and by rededicating ourselves to the cause of peace.”<\/p>\n
You see, in the midst of all of that loss and pain and grief \u2026 in the midst of the desert of destructions and sacrifice\u2026 as they looked out upon that broken world and believed that there had to be something more than this\u2026 they named what they were longing for \u2013 peace \u2013 and they set it before them as a vision for what they would pursue.<\/p>\n
In 1926, Congress officially recognized the date as a legal holiday \u2013 a \u201crecurring anniversary of this day, commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yet, even with that vision of peace before us, it was not the war to end all wars.
\nThere was a second world war, and then the Korean conflict, and we know that since those days countless of our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors have served our country around this world.
\nIn 1954, aware of this reality, President Eisenhower proclaimed that we would expand this day to honor the veterans of all wars and to \u201creconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the midst of our own desert of perpetual war and violence, we believe there has got to be something more than this.
\nAnd so we cry out every year, longing and thirsting for God\u2019s peace to prevail across this world.<\/p>\n
Maybe the question is\u2026 have we truly reconsecrated ourselves to the task of peace?
\nSimply marking a holiday is not enough\u2026
\nHow are we called to live differently in order to help God\u2019s peace to be known all across this world? How do we lift up our hands and call upon God\u2019s name and allow the divine power and glory to shape our world?<\/p>\n
This past week, a colleague wrote a reflection about the kind of preparation she plans to do in the wake of more violence. Instead of preparing her church for someone who might burst in with a weapon, she wants to prepare her church to work against violence in this world.
\nAnd friends, there are lots of ways we can do that.<\/p>\n
We can mentor students in our schools who are at risk for joining gangs.
\nWe can work to provide better mental health care for our neighbors.
\nWe can respond to domestic violence and take seriously the stories of women who are assaulted and work to not only keep them and their families safe, but provide help for those who are perpetrators.
\nWe can get to know our neighbors and become a part of creating a community where people have one another\u2019s backs and look out for what is happening.
\nWe can talk about the gospel stories that teach us how to respond to oppression and injustice and hatred \u2013 often by heaping on extra doses of love and compassion and working for justice.
\nWe can be a church that helps our children, especially our boys, learn healthy ways to express their emotions and to play so that they don\u2019t grow up to believe that anger has to be expressed through violence.<\/p>\n
If in the midst of this desert of violence, we turned our eyes to God and allowed that vision of peace to quench our thirst\u2026
\nif that was the deep well from which we as a church and as a community chose to drink from\u2026
\nif in the midst of this barren and hopeless struggle we chose to turn our eyes to the Lord and to bless God\u2019s holy name and to cling to the one who has been our help\u2026
\nthen like David, we might find our souls satisfied.<\/p>\n
May it be so. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In these weeks before our season of Advent starts, we\u2019ve been exploring the Psalms of our scriptures. Rev. Andrea Severson joined us at the end of October to talk a bit about times of transition and journeying and the songs the Israelites wrote to accompany them on the way. Last week, as we remembered our…<\/span><\/p>\n