Procession to Praise
Luke 7:11-17 & Psalm 146
Luke 7:11-17 & Psalm 146
Preparing for this morning was a challenge. Poor Lisa, I changed the bulletins around 3 times because I just didn’t like what the lectionary text offer us this morning. Two that we read, and another from I Kings in which Elijah raises a young boy from the dead, very similar to the story read in Luke. For us, for a church who – beginning almost a year ago – has been actively grieving, it didn’t seem right to celebrate that Jesus restored life to the son of the woman in Nain to relieve her grieving because the same has not been offered to us, at least in this life. We have all suffered losses, some more significant than others, we have all been a part of a funeral procession but none of those have ever ended the same way it did in Luke’s scripture, never has an encounter with Jesus restored the one who was lost to those who grieve.
And so I tried to go another way, I prayed and scowered my Bible for a different, random scripture that could be the focus of our worship today, but God would not let me out of it. I turned to Psalm 146 and as I was studying it, it seemed every line brought me back in one way or another to the widow in Nain, to her son and to Jesus. Because no matter what our personal and emotional reactions are to that story it is a story of God’s grace, of Christ’s compassion, it is a story that began in darkness and ends in light. And while for most of us, the journey from darkness to light does not happen so quickly, certainly not in the midst of a funeral procession…it is the same journey we are all on.
The Psalms, my way out of talking about all of this, actually demonstrate it beautifully. Scholars have divided the 150 chapters of Psalm into 5 distinct books, beginning with book one and progressing to the conclusion with book 5. While each chapter and sometime the verses within each chapter transition from joy to lament and question to reconciliation – many argue that the book is not entirely random but was “purposefully shaped to tell a story.” Nancy deClaisse-Walford describes the full story of the Psalms as beginning with David’s reign in Book 1 where there are many individual cries or laments, continuing through divided monarch and destruction of the kingdoms in books 2 & 3 where you hear more communal laments, book 4 goes through the exile in Babylon and book 5 concludes the Psalm with the return from exile and rebuilding of the temple. As we follow this journey there is an emotional progression as well…a progression – much slower than the funeral procession in Nain’s – but a progression all the same from darkness to light. In book 1 psalms of lament dominate – well over half of the psalms are lamentations like Psalm 13:
How long O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heard all day long?
how long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
For it was a long wait…a long journey. The exile from beginning to end lasted 59 years…the book of Psalm spans not only the circumstances but the emotions from beginning to end…book 5 is the conclusion, a book of praise . Our passage this morning Chapter 146 is the beginning of the end of the book, that ends on a high note, the first of the final 5 chapters that all begin and end with the words: Praise the Lord!
That makes sense right, it is easy to praise the Lord at the end, once everything is resolved, once things are back to normal. But unlike the story in Luke, the book of Psalms gives us a clearer picture of the reality we know, things never go back to normal, the way it was before. As the people return to Jerusalem after almost 60 years in Babylon, there are new generations who never knew life in this place, it is not a return home to them, it is a move away from home. Relationships were made, there was struggle and pain and loss that does not end with the opportunity to rebuild. It takes something more, something deeper than going back - to move into that light - to rediscover or maybe discover for the first time what it is we all so desperately desire, happiness.
On a very simple level it seems that happiness is what Jesus offered the widow in Nain. When he saw her, he saw her grief, her torment, even her fear of what life would be for her now. For a woman with no husband and no male heir – she was not only alone but marginalized, sentenced to a life of poverty as she could not own anything herself. Jesus reacted, out of compassion, Luke tells us, and brings her son back to life. Luke doesn’t tell us of her reaction, but in that moment certainly she experienced happiness unlike any she had experienced before. Happiness.
This is something we all want. We seek it, pray for it – for ourselves and our children – it is the American dream right – the pursuit of happiness and yet more often then not Jesus does not walk into our funeral processions and raise the dead. So we have to ask: are our pursuits in vain? Is happiness attainable?
What we find in Psalm 146 is an insight, clues on happiness. But the Psalms are not written by a widow in Nain but from a people who have cried out in pain, from those who have lost lives and land and hopes and security.
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord O my soul
I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God all my life long
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God
Happy are those whose help, whose hope is in God…
The word translated happy is the Hebrew word ashre which comes from a verbal root that means “go, straight, advance, follow the track.” It is a bit different than the synonyms we would use for happy that would be more like joyous, worry-free, and glad. So maybe happy is a mistranslation or maybe this Psalm is trying to teach us something about what happiness really is. Maybe it is not a lifetime of sunshine and roses – because ultimately that doesn’t exist for anyone. The widow in Nain whose son was brought back to life also lost her husband, she too had experienced and had to endure the pain of loss. Maybe happiness is something different, maybe it has less to do with a state of being and more to do with an action. The Psalmist continues, letting us know a little bit more about the God that is to be praised…
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith for ever;
who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
Do you hear the action words…keeps faith, executes justice, gives food, sets prisoners free, opens eyes, lifts, loves, watches, upholds.
If we find our happiness in the help of such an active God, and happiness truly means to follow the track…then maybe happiness comes to us as we too are active…as we keep faith, as we execute justice for the oppressed, as we give food to the hungry, as we set prisoners free, open the eyes of the blind – who do not know God, do not know love, lift up those who are bowed down by addiction, by economic failure, by mental or physical illness, by regret – love and watch over strangers and uphold those that society has cast aside…
I have heard many people talk about the ways their lives have been transformed when they have come beside one who is suffering and showered them with love that the giver did not know that she or he had to give. Some might think that working with the sick or the poor helps to put things in perspective, saying “compared to them, my life isn’t that bad,” but I am not sure that does anyone any good. Instead, when we act as God acts, when we keep faith and give food and set free and open eyes and uplift and love we find meaning and hope in all the miracles that God can and does do. And sometimes those miracles take place through the work of our own hands. And when they do we are filled with something deeper than happiness, something lasting, something pure, something divine.
Now I don’t want you to think of these things as a check list…if I give food to someone who is hungry and I love my neighbor and watch out for a stranger then, then all of a sudden one morning I will wake up and be happy. But hear the psalmist…happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. It is not either or but a both/and. We must lean into God, trust in God and ask God’s strength and courage and audacity to go, to follow the track of action to move closer to God’s light. The love of God is always with us but there are dark nights of every soul.
Remember I said over half of the Psalms from book one of Psalms is full of laments…this is true but that means that there are a good many praises that come in and among those laments as well. Even in the same chapter, chapter 13 that I read earlier that started out, “how long O Lord”…even though in hindsight we know the answer to David’s cry is too long…59 years…in that same chapter David says: I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me.
I will sing…in desperation and despair David will do, he will act, he will follow the track of God…he will sing.
Ultimately that is what Psalm 146, Luke 7, the entire book of Psalms, the church, and even life… is… a call to sing – to praise God – singing, giving, loving, upholding, opening eyes, setting free, lifting up and watching over. When we do, with a heart and a hope in God, we journey from darkness to light! There will be moments when like the grieving mother Christ gives us what we need to celebrate instantly and in that moment we must praise God but there will be other times that like David our hopes and dreams will be dashed and in that moment we must praise God. Praise God through our living and through our being and doing.
There are days when our pain is too great and we have no words to offer God in praise, on that day when we are desperate for happiness…put your hope in the Lord your God, follow the track of Jesus, and care for someone else. Turn your sadness, your pain into joy. Even if it is not your joy, but the joy of a hungry man receiving food or an oppressed woman receiving justice, or an outcast being welcomed – God’s light will shine brighter…
My mentor from the Bethany Fellowship group I am a part of has listened to me talk about our church, our grief, he has prayed with me and a few months ago he wrote me a note of encouragement and included Psalm 126
May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy
Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing shall come home with shouts of joy carrying their sheaves
In all pain, in all sadness God desires us to find joy, happiness in our creator. We all have the seeds to sow…in our journeys of struggle whether long or short, let us reap with shouts of joy.
This service follows that progression, we began with songs of sadness let us continue our worship, moving closer to light – to the joy, following the track, the path of God. Amen.
