Home to the Traveler

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

February 24, 2013

Second Sunday in Lent

Home To The Traveler

Psalm 27

We know the words so well:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Both Matthew and Mark tell us that

those were the final words Jesus spoke

as he hung dying on the cross.                             

They are words of desperation,

of utter abandonment.

They are words that speak to a deafening silence.

A final prayer lifted in anguished cry,

only to find nothing in response.

Luke and John give us quite different endings:

they both give us Jesus who not only did not feel forsaken,

but felt God’s presence very strongly,

even as he was hung upon that cruel executioner’s tool

we call the cross.

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,”

is what Luke tells us Jesus prayed,

before saying to his Father with quiet confidence,

“Into your hands I commend my spirit”

and breathing his last.

(Luke 23:34; 46)

                          

John gives us Jesus in full control of the situation,

so certain of God’s presence,

so trusting and faithful.

In John’s gospel we have a Jesus who carries his own cross –

no stumbling on the road to Golgotha,

no Simon of Cyrene to carry the heavy load.

Nailed to the rough wood,

even as the life ebbed from him,

he sees to his mother Mary:

“Woman, here is your son.”

And then, almost like a person

who knows all his tasks are complete

he says so simply,

“It is finished”.

(John 19:26;30)

The words that Matthew and Mark attribute to Jesus

come from the Book of Psalms,

from Psalm 22, a psalm of lament:          

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

What are you so far from helping me,

from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you don’t answer,

and by night, but find no rest.”

(Psalm 22:1-2)

The psalmist feels so completely abandoned,

his voice whispering, shouting, pleading, whimpering,

“God, where are you

God why are you so silent?

God, why have you left me alone?

Why can I no longer hear you,

feel you,     

find you?

The author of those words may well have written

the words of Psalm 27, as well,

for they too speak to a sense of abandonment:

“do not cast me off,

do not forsake me, O God of my salvation.”

“My mother can forsake me,” says the psalmist,

“my father can forsake me,

for that matter, the whole world can forsake me,

but not you O God,

please, O God don’t you forsake me!”

Who among us hasn’t gone through a time

when we have felt alone, forsaken,

abandoned,

unable to feel God’s presence,

fearful that God had turned away,

lost interest,

left us, never to return.

Who among us hasn’t lifted up our voice to God,

“God hear my prayer,”

only to find silence in response,

not even the echo of our own words to break the stillness.

“God, where are you?

Are you there?

I need you.

I need you to hear my prayer,

I need you to answer my prayer

for I have just lost my job,

my marriage is collapsing,

I fear for my health,

my loved one is dying,

my world has turned bleak,

dim, cold.

I’m frightened,

and struggling to hold onto hope.

Hear me, God.

Answer me, O Lord.”

We put all our trust in God,

and then it seems that when we need God the most

we feel ourselves speaking as though to a void,

leaving us feeling bereft, alone.

But the psalmist reminds us first,

that we are not alone in feeling that way;

that many of God’s children have felt the same way.

So many that God inspired the psalmist

to give voice to those feelings,

to write them down so that,

generation after generation,

the faithful could read them,

identify with them,

have them to speak to their own feelings;

and ultimately find hope in them.

For the psalmist does gives us hope –

we just need to keep reading.

He doesn’t hold back from expressing his anguish,

but then he goes on and tells us:

“The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

of whom shall I be afraid?...

I will be confident,

for God will shelter me,

care for me,

protect me.”

                                   

The psalmist is anguished,

and his feelings are real,

yet still he trusts in God:

“I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord.”

The author of Psalm 22 walks the same path.

We hear him pleading for twenty-one verses,

fifty lines,

the words of a person who seems lost beyond hope.

But then, as we continue reading,

without any word of explanation,

the tone changes, changes radically,

turning 180 degrees:

“you have rescued me!”...the psalmist exults,

and then he proclaims to all the world:

“God did not hide his face from me,

but heard when I cried to him.”

As we walk through Lent,

as we acknowledge our waywardness,

as we acknowledge those times when we have turned from God,

when we’ve forsaken God, even for the briefest moment,

as we acknowledge when we’ve given into temptation,

we should also acknowledge those times

when we’ve given in to despair,

when we’ve given in to doubt

when we’ve given in to a feeling of abandonment,

of having been forsaken.

We should offer as a Lenten prayer

the words the father spoke

after Jesus healed his son:

“I believe; help my unbelief!”

(Mark 9:24)

Living in faith isn’t easy

and we all have our moments of doubt,

desperation and despair.

The Franciscan monk Bernard wrote a simple prayer

that speaks so elegantly to our wobbly faith:

“Lord, I want to love you, yet I’m not sure.

I want to trust you, yet I’m afraid of being taken in.

I know I need you, yet I’m ashamed of the need.

I want to pray, yet I’m afraid of being a hypocrite.

I need my independence, yet I fear being alone.

I want to belong, yet I must be myself.

Take me, Lord, yet leave me alone.

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.

O Lord, you are there, you do understand, don’t you?

Give me what I need but leave me free to choose.

Help me work it out my own way, but don’t let me go.

Let me understand myself, but don’t let me despair.

Come to me, O Lord - I want you there.

Lighten my darkness - but don’t dazzle me.

Help me to see what I need to do and give me strength to do it.

O Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

It is a wonderful prayer to use throughout Lent.

It is wonderful prayer to build on,

as we acknowledge the times we’ve felt lost,

forsaken, abandoned.

As we acknowledge those times when

we’ve felt like we’ve lifted up our voices

in fervent prayer only to hear silence in response. 

The psalmist won’t abandon us;

he is right there, arm around us

telling us to take a step back,

take a deep, relaxing breath,

and then listen for God’s word to us,

telling us,

“Be still and know that I am.”

(Psalm 46:10)

Be still, and then be patient:

“Wait for the Lord,” says the psalmist,

“be strong and let your heart take courage!”

Be still.

Wait.

Trust.

Fear Not.    

For silence too is a sign of God’s presence.

As Barbara Brown Taylor has written so poetically,

“Divine silence is not a vacuum that speaks to God’s absence,

but a mystery to be entered into,

a holy of holies for us to enter into,…”

calmly, peacefully, confidently.

(When God is Silent, 118)

And in that silence, once we find ourselves calm,

centered,

we can pray with the psalmist,

“One thing I asked of the Lord,

that I will seek after:

to live in the house of the Lord

all the days of my life,

to behold the beauty of the Lord,

and to inquire in his temple.”

And then, having offered that prayer

we can wait patiently and confidently

for God’s sure, loving response:

“Come in, weary traveler.

Come into my house and rest,

for this is your home, too.

Here you are safe,

here you can find rest and renewal.

Come in and know that I am;

know that I am with you,

just as I always have been,   

and just as I always will be.”

AMEN