10 June 2018

Sermon – “Out of the Depths” (Psalm 130)

This past week, the news media had about all they could handle with the G-7 summit in Quebec, the Ontario election, the Washington Capitals’ win of the Stanley Cup and the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. But all those stories were quickly overshadowed by two others—the deaths of two of the world’s most highly successful people: Kate Spade, whose handbag designs became a multi-million dollar business, and Anthony Bourdain, the travelling gourmet, whose books and TV shows have enjoyed almost universal popularity for the past two decades.

Tragically both deaths were by suicide and they served to underline a growing concern among health professionals. It is the rising rate of suicide in our society today. According to a recent article in USA Today that rate has risen by nearly thirty percent in the past two decades. Among middle-aged men the increase is even more alarming at forty-three percent. As I look at these statistics, I am forced to ask myself, what is it that makes life for some people so bleak that there is nothing left to live for? What has entrapped them to such an extreme that they are not able to see any other way out than to end it all?

The psalm that we read a few moments ago begins with the lament, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord…” The words express the desperation of a person who is drowning. They are not unlike those we hear from the lips of the prophet Jonah as he languished in the belly of the great fish: “In my distress I called to the Lord… From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help…” (Jonah 2:2). Life has carried him far beyond the point where he can any longer contemplate helping himself. All he can do is shout for dear life and hope that someone will hear him and come to his rescue. Tragically there are some people for whom that is not an option. They feel they are caught in a swirling vortex that will drag them down only deeper and deeper.

There are seven accounts of suicide in the Bible, six of them in the Old Testament. Probably the best known, though, is that of Judas Iscariot. In remorse over the horror of what he had done in betraying Jesus to the authorities, he went out and hanged himself. And while the apostle Paul likely did not have Judas in mind, I believe his words to the Corinthians have something to say here. He writes about a godly sorrow that leads to repentance and contrasts it with a worldly sorrow that leads to death (2 Corinthians 7:10).

Well, where does all that bring us this morning? If my own experience is anything to go by, then there are times when most of us find ourselves “in the depths”. Sometimes the depths in which we find ourselves are the result of circumstances beyond our control—a severe illness, a long period of severe strain, an impossible situation at work or at school, a tragedy of one kind or another, a bereavement… And sometimes those depths are of our own making. I believe this morning’s psalm has something to say to each of us when we find ourselves in the depths, no matter what it was that landed us there.

I cry


The psalmist’s opening words (as you have probably already observed) are an expression of desperation. Listen to how Eugene Peterson renders them in The Message:

Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life!
     Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears!
     Listen to my cries for mercy.

It may not seem apparent at first, but hidden beneath the psalmist’s anguish there lies a conviction, and that is, that while his situation may be desperate, he still has one upon whom he can call for help. He is not alone.

I recently listened to a radio interview with Kate Bowler. She is a professor at Duke University Divinity School in North Carolina. Married to her high school sweetheart and with a two year-old child, she was given the news that she had stage-four incurable cancer of the bowel. I cannot begin to imagine what a devastating blow that must have been for her. Yet here is what she said:

I gave up most of the spiritual clichés, I think—that every good thing was going to come back to me or that I could be, you know, the architect of my own life. But one of the only certainties I actually truly latched onto was the sense that in the worst moments that there can be an unbidden God and that I don’t have to earn it. And I don’t even have to like worry that I won’t have it—but that maybe the hope is that when we come to the end of ourselves, that we’re not alone.[1]

“The hope is that when we come to the end of ourselves, we’re not alone.” The hope that Kate Bowler cherishes in her soul is the same hope that enabled the psalmist to cry out from the depths. It is the hope in a God who is with us, no matter how dire the circumstances, no matter how high the flood.

Do not fear, [that same God says elsewhere through Isaiah]
     for I have redeemed you;
     I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
     I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
     they will not sweep over you…
Do not be afraid, for I am with you. (Isaiah 43:2,5)

More than that, the psalmist can rely on the God who is with him because that same God is a God of mercy. Underlying all the history of Israel and underlying the psalmist’s faith is the conviction that the God to whom he prays is the same one who revealed himself to Moses amid the cloud and thunder of Sinai as “the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” (Exodus 34:6-7).

In the Anglican Book of Common Prayer there is a beautiful prayer that runs like this: “We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.” Like the psalmist we can come to God in the confidence that no matter what the circumstances he is with us and that he is a God of mercy.

I wait


And so the psalmist prays. And he waits. According to my Hebrew dictionary, the verb he uses here means “to wait or to look for with eager expectation”. And if that were not enough, the psalmist tells us that that is exactly what he means: “I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits…” Then he goes on to give us the most beautiful picture:

My soul waits for the Lord
     more than watchmen for the morning,
     more than watchmen for the morning.

Can’t you just picture it? The sentinel has been on the ramparts all night long. Rumours have been rising that an enemy is on the approach. What was that noise in the bushes? He strains his eyes to look out through the darkness of the surrounding countryside. His fingers grow numb in the frostiness of the chill night air. Then over the horizon there appears the first glimmer of dawn’s light signaling a new day. And the fears brought on by the shadows and the strange sounds of the night begin to melt away.

In the same way there will be times, seasons of our life when we find ourselves waiting—and sometimes with deep anxiety. But that does not mean that we are doing nothing. The Bible does not equate waiting with idleness. Those of you who know your Bibles well will recall that the apostle Paul had some rather harsh words for those who used waiting for the Lord as an excuse for laziness. His advice instead: “Never tire of doing good.” (2 Thessalonians 3:13)

Besides this, I do believe that in those times of waiting (and indeed in times of suffering) the Lord can come to us in ways that we may never have anticipated and give us strengths that we never knew were there. I have seen it again and again in the lives of my parishioners. At times when I have sought to bring them comfort, I find that they already have a strength that is far beyond anything I can offer. I never cease to find encouragement in the words of Isaiah:

Do you not know?
     Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
     the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
     and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
     and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
     and young men stumble and fall;
but those who wait for the Lord
     will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
     they will run and not grow weary,
     they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31)

I hope


So it is that the psalmist says, “Put your hope in the Lord.” Notice that he does not say what to hope for. Rather, it is whom to hope in. And between the two there is a world of difference.

Somehow it seems to me that what this psalm is saying is that when we find ourselves caught in the depths, we do not control the outcome. Ultimately we are confronted with our own powerlessness. No doubt we have a preferred way in which we would like things to end up. But we cannot dictate that to God. We can only place ourselves in his hands in the faith that he is a God of mercy who loves us more than we could ever imagine. Allow me to give the final word to Kate Bowler:

Cancer has kicked down the walls of my life… But cancer has also ushered in new ways of being alive… Everything feels as if it is painted in bright colors. In my vulnerability, I am seeing my world without the Instagrammed filter of breezy certainties and perfectible moments. I can’t help noticing the brittleness of the walls that keep most people fed, sheltered and whole. I find myself returning to the same thoughts again and again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.[2]

I would love to trade the life I have for one in which I imagined I could always spend it with my husband and my son. But it did feel like cancer was like this secret key that opened up this whole new reality. And part of the reality was the realization that your own pain connects you to the pain of other people. I don’t know. Maybe I was just a narcissist before. But like all of a sudden, I realized how incredibly fragile life is for almost everyone. And then I noticed things like—and that felt like a spiritual—I don’t know—like gift.

It’s like you notice the tired mom in the grocery store who’s just like struggling to get the thing off the top shelf while her kid screams, and you notice how very tired that person looks at the bus stop. And then, of course, all the people in the cancer clinic around me. That felt like I was cracked open, and I could see everything really clearly for the first time. And the other bit was not feeling nearly as angry as I thought I would. And, I mean, granted—like I have been pretty angry at times. But it was mostly that I felt God’s presence. And it was less like, here are some important spiritual truths I know intellectually about God. There are four of them. I have a PowerPoint presentation. It was instead more like the way you’d feel a friend or like someone holding you. I just didn’t feel quite as scared. I just felt loved.[3]

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
     for with the Lord is unfailing love
     and with him is full redemption.




[2]     “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me”, The New York Times, 13 Feb 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html?smid=tw-share
[3]     NPR interview, 12 Feb 2018

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