Good morning. It’s an honor to be back with you again to worship. For those of you that weren’t here on my previous visits, my name is Lavender Kelley and I’m a chaplain at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. I’m a graduate of Louisville Seminary and have been a chaplain in the 4 years since then. Actually, some of your youth recently met Adam Fischer, a classmate of mine from seminary. He is now at Harvey Brown Pres in Louisville, the host church for the youth mission trip.
As a chaplain and cancer survivor, I’m very involved in volunteering for causes near and dear to me. Some of you may recognize that I have more hair than I did last time I was here because I had shaved my head in a fundraising event one month prior to that. Anyway, I mostly just want you to know that I’m grateful to spend some more time with you in this holy time of worship.
Our scripture text that John read for you this morning is from Psalm 107. The lectionary guide for this week chose only to include verses 1-9 & 43. That means you heard the introduction, 1 story illustration, and the benediction. But if we were to read the whole psalm, what we would see might seem more like a full sermon. Because the whole psalm contains an introduction, 4 very similar sermon illustrations, a conclusion, and a benediction.
This Psalm focuses on God’s “steadfast love” or “hesed” as it is read in Hebrew. Scholars frequently refer to this as the model psalm of God’s “steadfast love.” They say this because the psalm in its entirety contains repeated stories of God’s unrelenting love for people. That’s part of what I find remarkable about this psalm. Many of the psalms are written to God as prayers. Those prayers reveal what people believe God should do or how they want to interact with God. But this one is written from a different perspective. In this one, the psalmist shares their previous experience with and of God… how God intervened and delivered them from distress.
Verses 4-9 are the first of those similar stories that the psalmist shares of God’s loving intervention. The writer tells us:
Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no path to an inhabited town; hungry and thirsty, their soul withered within them. Then they cried out to the Holy One in their trouble, and God delivered them from their distress; God led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town. Let them thank the Holy One for this steadfast love, for God’s wonderful works to humankind. For the Holy One satisfies the thirsty, and fills the hungry with good things.
Within this story and the other three that follow later in the Psalm, there are different details but the plot is the same. It begins with the people feeling hopeless and lost. They are not just suffering with physical hunger & thirst. Their soul is withering. Next the people cry out to God for help. This is followed by God delivering them from their distress. And finally, the people encourage thanksgiving and gratitude toward God.
Several things strike me about this story. First, like I said earlier, this was written about their experience of God rather than what they wanted God to do. Second, God delivers them only after they call out for help. And third, God’s deliverance does not magically transport them out of the desert. Rather, God’s deliverance was to help them along the way.
So let’s look at these pieces a little further. When we read this psalm, it tells stories of the people in the wilderness and deserts. It’s easy to imagine the early story telling that led to writing this psalm. It might have arisen from the experience of the Israelites being led out of Egypt by Moses. They traveled and searched and kept getting lost. They called out to false gods and idols for help but still were lost. It was only with the help of the one true God that they found their way. Or maybe the story was of shepherds traversing wild terrain looking for grazing lands and becoming lost. They seek and try all the ways they know to get their bearings but are still lost.
Regardless of the story’s origins, the images make sense given the history of the people in that era. Yet, even sitting here we can imagine such an experience today. Though few of us have been lost in a literal desert, many of us find ourselves lost in the wilderness of finding or keeping a job. We feel lost in a maze of ethical decisions like whether to choose financial security for ourselves at the expense of others. False gods offer us quick and easy ways to get rich but never ask what God’s calling on our life is.
Others of us have confronted illnesses that leave us feeling in the dark, struggling to make sense, find answers, and build a new path home. We ask questions, look for understanding, and use all our best methods to get our bearings but we are lost.
Still others of us have struggled through traumatic events where we just can’t seem to find our way home. We sit in what feels like a wilderness of sorrow and loss feeling all alone. We grow tired not knowing how to help ourselves and soon we start to feel our soul wither.
And let’s face it, even without extreme events, our day to day lives can feel daunting and draining and like we’re all alone. We try all kinds of things to help make the journey better… to help us find our way. But for all our best efforts, sometimes we still find ourselves in a wilderness, wandering and hungry. We were still hungry for that which only God can provide.
This psalm recognizes that hunger and tells the story of how others that came before us were filled. I find great comfort that this is not simply a prayer for what we want God to do but rather people touched by God telling of the great things from God. I don’t know about you but sometimes my most hope-filled moments are hearing the stories of others and this one is no different. It gives hope.
It is that hope that brings me to the second point in this passage. As they talk about their experience, they say that God delivers them after they call out for help. Why do you think that is? As a hospital chaplain, I often sit with people who feel alone and abandoned. They truly are in the darkest places of their lives. So if God’s love is so steadfast, why does it take calling out for them to experience deliverance?
Maybe the answer is not that simple. This is a story of people who knew God intimately and already believed God was there for them. They were already believers and they struggled like the rest of us. So what are they trying to tell us? I think they are sharing their story from their point of view. Think about it. When we talk about our experience of something, there’s a particular way people talk about the timing of things happening. They talk personally rather than a big picture point of view that might explain how God was always with them but they could not see it. But more importantly, I think the psalmist’s story of calling out to God reminds us that we usually aren’t open to help until we ask for it.
Think of those times when we’re frustrated such as when we’ve been working on something truly difficult. If someone just comes up and offers help, we usually aren’t open to it. I had one of those uncles who would never ask for directions no matter how lost they were. And I once saw someone break 2 bones falling because they refused help in carrying something. Sometimes we don’t ask for help because we’re too proud to receive it. Yet at the hospital I meet people who are too overwhelmed by sorrow and worry to even remember to ask for help. When offered even something simple like water, they refuse because they are too overwhelmed in that moment to receive. We go get them water, a cool cloth, and call their family, all of which they will use. But until they are open to help, they will not have an experience of being supported. They feel alone.
Yet, when we call out for help it is an entirely different matter. It’s us saying that we want and are open to help. It’s us letting go of our ego, our fears, and our walls to be humble and receptive to help. When we call out, especially in desperation, we have our ears, eyes, heart, mind… our whole self open to help.
So it goes with these people of God lost in the desert. They called out and God was there with the help they needed. But what was it exactly that they needed? This brings me to what I find most striking about this passage. What stuck out to me is not that these people were desperate or that they called out to God or that God helped them. What is most remarkable is that this passage tells us the way God helped them and it may not be what we expect.
The passage says that “God delivered them from their distress; God led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town.” God’s deliverance did not magically transport them out of the desert to their destination. Rather, God’s deliverance was from their sense of distress… their withering soul. They no longer felt alone. Though God was already with them before, now they knew God was present with them. Their emotional and spiritual experience of hopelessness was nurtured and they were delivered from their distress.
God also stayed with them and helped them journey on a straighter path that would lead to inhabited towns where they could be replenished along the way. I thought this was an interesting passage so I looked up the history of people finding passage through the desert. What I found out is that there is no path because in the desert, the sand is always moving. Even the sand dunes moved. So the way one group went was not the way another went. What they did was that the leader would get their bearings on the direction they needed to go and they would try to walk a sort of wavy path around the sand dunes. That way they expended their energy more efficiently walking on level ground rather than up and down dunes. The path would be longer but they would not be so tired. So the path they traveled may have made them miss an oasis or small town, thus missing an opportunity for fresh water and a straw mattress.
So when this passage says that God led them on a straighter way that passed through towns, they are not saying that all was easy. Being delivered didn’t mean they were suddenly without work to do. They did not go from roughing it to sitting by the pool with an umbrella drink. And they did not suddenly arrive at their destination. They were still in the midst of a long and perilous journey… but they were not alone. God’s presence in the form of steadfast love stepped in and transformed their experience of the desert.
So let’s linger here for a bit. They clearly understood this as action as God’s love for them. They even said, “Let them thank the Holy One for this steadfast love, for God’s wonderful works to humankind. For the Holy One satisfies the thirsty, and fills the hungry with good things.”
So what happened to them? They found satisfaction and fulfillment along the way. They experienced God’s actions as wonderful works towards them. They were open to help and received it.
But what did this help look like exactly? They don’t say that a booming voice came from the sky directing them. They really don’t say much at all. But they are clear that God was with them along the way.
Honestly, I don’t think their experience of God is much different than our own. When God’s love shines through the faces of other people, if we are open to it, we recognize it as God. When God’s love holds us through the dark places, if we are open to it, we recognize it as God. When God’s love guides us to make decisions that are best for our families and communities, if we are open to it, we recognize it as God. And when God’s love lightens our hearts and fills us with hope, if we are open to it, we recognize it as God.
But the key here that seems to be that their fulfillment and even ours today is that God helped them along the way. So often we pray for things to be fixed. Or we want the miracle cure. Sometimes we desire a change but without all the work. But these people found God’s help along the way.
What do our lives look like when we receive God’s help along the way? Well, it usually means we still have work to do of some sort. But it also means we have something we’re focusing upon. It may not be a destination. Perhaps it is an ideal instead.
Have you ever been involved in one of those trips where everything just seems to go as planned? I think it would be very easy to attribute that to God… and rest assured, God was there. But the times I am more keenly aware of God are when things aren’t going well. Because if we’re open to it, we find unexpected help, meet new people that make our world brighter, and become better people for the journey.
I have spent a lot of time talking with cancer patients during my own treatment. Attitude is what seems to make the biggest difference in how people experience it. I’ve met people who feel like everything that can go wrong will go wrong with them. They feel like the world or God is out to get them. But others who have almost identical circumstances talk of all the great new people they’ve met. They share stories of how they found new interests and hobbies they would have never even thought of otherwise. They share stories of how a certain nurse is surly an angle because she always has the right words to comfort. Life isn’t just happening to or at them. Life is happening with God at their side.
Sisters and brothers, this is a passage about life happening. Life includes the joyous and the tragic and all that lies in between. Not all these events happen because of God but God is in the midst of them and still with us after them. Our job is to be open to God’s help. Our job is to keep journeying. Our job is to share in the journey with others around us. And we do this with hope knowing God is with us all along the way.
Amen
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