Psalm Meditation 744
Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
September 21, 2014

Psalm 40
1 I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
3 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.
4 Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.
5 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.
6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8 I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
9 I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation;
see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.
10 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.
11 Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.
12 For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me.
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me; O LORD, make haste to help me.
14 Let all those be put to shame and confusion who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire my hurt.
15 Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”
16 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!”
17 As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.
(NRSV)

One of the difficulties of an individualistic view of religion is that we tend to jump into things with lots of enthusiasm but without focus and refinement. When the psalmist writes about having spoken of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, it begins in the great congregation. In the congregation, in the midst of others who have had their own experience and their own encounter with God, a word of witness can be turned from an enthusiastic rant into a compelling and captivating word for those who have yet to have a personal experience with God. The folks in the congregation offer a person who has just had an encounter with the living God a place to gush about their experience without scaring away someone who neither knows nor understands what the witness has gone through.

A willing ear and a guiding hand from one who has had their own encounter with God can help drain some of the wide eyed recklessness out of the story so that the power of the experience remains. To have a person or group make the time to help us practice, edit and refine the words of our witness takes us from scary ‘buttonhole evangelists’ to powerful witnesses to the love God has for each and all of us. The great congregation helps make each of us stronger as we push, pull, lift and lower together.

The collective wisdom of years, decades and centuries of experience of and encounters with the living God make the great congregation an excellent group of which to be a part. The accountability of the group keeps us from holding our relationship with God so close that we become as Gollum holding his ‘precious’ in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is in the mix of the great congregation that we “seek you, rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!””

September 15, 2014
LCM