Psalm 63:1-8
Isaiah 55:1-9
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
Hymn: 100 (Great Is Thy Faithfulness)
Homilist: Larry Downing

   Psalms 63 provides the structure for our thoughts today.  The scribal interpreters added the superscription “A Psalm of David when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.”  Our intent is neither to affirm nor deny their conclusions. For our purposes, however, David’s wilderness experiences establish context, whether in retreat from Saul or when fleeing Absalom and the rebels who rose against the king.

       From the wilderness place he speaks and proclaims an emptiness of soul, a weariness of spirit and a profound conviction of God’s presence and abiding love, a love that is more precious than life. There is also a confidence that at the end he will be exonerated and the accusers silenced. We know this from reading the verses that end our Psalm. In the last verses  the Psalmists states his case: evil befalls his way and states his wish: that those who seek his life come to a bad end. These words, I suggest, help us understand what promted what we read in today’s passage. 

      Hear the Psalmists voice in these verses as translated by Francis Patrick Sullivan:

      “May the murdering kind who want my life land in the bottom of hell!

      “May death cut them down with a double-edged sword, fit food for jackals.

      “But the king will glory in God, and the rest of the faithful as well, but those who speak lies will end up mute in death!”

       Harsh words. Where is the call for mercy? Where the plea for acquittal? This is the voice of a man betrayed and upon his foes he calls forth vengeance. 

      All who been in the wilderness as David was, this is your psalm.  Hear his message: The lie-speakers shall be silenced. May their ways end in doom.

      The betrayal brings to the betrayed a longing thirst for God that is satisfied by the assurance of the Almighty’s power.  It is this power that shall make short end of the lie-speakers. 

      In his distress the Psalmist turns thought to the sanctuary where abides the holy one and, in his words, “beholds your power and glory.” 

      Sanctuary revives memory of the old stories; the accounts of his people as they wandered through desert places. Yahweh’s people, chosen, protected, guided to Sinai and through the wilderness.  With them as they went, always, was the sanctuary with its lavers, basins, candlestick altars and ark with the Ten Words within. The ark, the  Mercy Seat and the Shekinah glory, the very presence of God, shielded by the two-winged cherubim.  Where is God?  There. Look. The sanctuary; there is God.  Within  reach. When doubts arise? Go. See the Urim and Thummim.

      No surprise the Psalmist looked toward the sanctuary. Sanctuary was much more than trappings of an ancient architectural wonder and performance of complex ritual.  Sanctuary expressed life—life of the person and life of the nation. God is with us. “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”

      What is this love? How is this love expressed?  In what way does this love affect who we are and how we live? Once more the mystery!

      We Christians have our answer.  A view far removed in time from the Psalmist’s, yet, in other ways, quite near.  Two millenniums since the Christ rose from the dead gives some advantage in our court.  And this living Lord is the fulness of God’s ever present love. For God so loved the world that he gave—and we receive. This gift of God’s love gives life.

      Consider again the Psalmist’s words:  “Because your steadfast love is better than life….”  From whence comes this assurance?  Where lies it’s power?  God’s leading through the lives of prophet, patriarch, king, people?  In what ways does this love reach down from the Divine One to lift us for a time above the mundane?  Is this love the assurance that even in great loss there is within that event some greater, lasting purpose?  The Psalmist knows.  “In the shadow of your wings I sing for you.  My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.” Might we find in this assurance our own? If the Psalmist knows God’s love is real, take courage. Can we like he know? 

      “So, I will bless you as long as I live;” Bless “you”? How can it be?  A human bless the divine?  Is it not the other way round?  What pomposity! Or is it that the “you”,” the divine other, identifies so closely with creation that the divine is blessed? What wonder that human kind, formed from dust blesses the One who breathed into it the breath of life.

      “I will lift up my hands and call on your name.” The power of name: the being, the essence, the presence, the power of the Almighty You.  

      What revere!  What bliss! And thus ends our reading, but not the text. There is, as we said earlier, the finale. The ethereal gives way to the grit of life.

      “But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down in to the depths of the earth; they shall be given over to the power of the sword, they shall be prey for jackals.”

      Here within these few verses is a full spectrum of human emotions. Through the mist of the mystical and the anguish of betrayal bursts forth a voice that rings true.  I begin to like this guy!  He lets it all hang out. He calls us to his side and with him we visit highs of praise and inner reflection and we hear his brazen cry for vengeance. We are caught off guard. How can these two extremes, the mystic and the vengeful resolve? Both invite us to explore our own thoughts; our deepest, our most vivid imaginations.

      Have you never felt as he towards those who seek your ill?  “Believe as I do or I shall seek you out and bring your demise!”  “We have Truth and Truth is on our side.  Join us or be lost.”  “We shall gather together those who, like we, are outraged and we shall cover you with our petitions and you shall bend to our will or away with you! For God is on our side.” 

      Any wonder why these imprecatory statements resonate with any who have known the accuser’s voice?  Where is the “turn the other cheek”? or “A quiet answer turneth away wrath”? Not for this man who is certain an injustice is directed his way!   

      There is a time for pious reflection and there is a time to get real. He’s had it up to here and he expects those who seek his ill to experience God’s wrath.

      This man is for real!  He’s not out there in some ethereal la la land.  He has fought the fight, felt the bruises. Struggled with friend and foe and can well express his feelings toward each.  His is the kind of religion that sweeps us into its vortex and invites us to grasp toward the One who is above all. We, like the Psalmist, respond to the realities that life brings, not all of them of the kind we deem a blessing. And often our thoughts are as mixed as his; our soul in need of refreshment as was his. In this time, know there is God, whose steadfast love is better than life.

      The Psalmist brings closure: “But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.” May it be so, O Lord, and that right soon!