Psalm Meditation 900
Proper 19
September 17, 2017

Psalm 74
1 O God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
2 Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago, which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage. Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.
3 Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.
4 Your foes have roared within your holy place; they set up their emblems there.
5 At the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes.
6 And then, with hatchets and hammers, they smashed all its carved work.
7 They set your sanctuary on fire; they desecrated the dwelling place of your name, bringing it to the ground.
8 They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”; they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
9 We do not see our emblems; there is no longer any prophet, and there is no one among us who knows how long.
10 How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
11 Why do you hold back your hand; why do you keep your hand in your bosom?
12 Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the earth.
13 You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.
14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
15 You cut openings for springs and torrents; you dried up ever-flowing streams.
16 Yours is the day, yours also the night; you established the luminaries and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the bounds of the earth; you made summer and winter.
18 Remember this, O LORD, how the enemy scoffs, and an impious people reviles your name.
19 Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals; do not forget the life of your poor forever.
20 Have regard for your covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.
21 Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame; let the poor and needy praise your name.
22 Rise up, O God, plead your cause; remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.
23 Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.
(NRSV)

When we hit certain rough patches in our lives it feels as if the initial trauma will last forever. The searing grief and pain burn holes in our hearts and lives and we are sure that we will never feel anything but this pain for the rest of our lives. In those first few days we join the psalmist in crying out, “O God, why do you cast us off forever?” Some people curl up into their grief and never return. Most of us lift our heads, open our hearts and our eyes and we see that we are not alone, we are not abandoned.

Yes, we ache for the rest of our lives. In varying shades of grief, we are dimmed but not extinguished. In some ways we are able to use our own grief in order to touch the grief of others in ways that heal each of us. From our depths we are touched by the salvation that God carries into every situation and into every encounter. We are not set free from our burden, we are salved, healed in a way that redistributes the woundedness into a new kind of wholeness.

While it feels as if we are abandoned by God and others in times of trauma and grief, that is not the case. God is with us in every time and place. God knows, as we know, that some wounds are better left untouched in the early stages. And some scars are left numb initially. As touch becomes appropriate, and as time provides renewed sensation we are able to receive the healing touch of God, and we, “the poor and needy praise your name.”

September 11, 2017
LCM