Psalm 46 Sermon Part 2 by the Revd Karl Przywala Who has experienced an earthquake? What was it like? Were you afraid? I’ve experienced an earthquake. It was five to one in the morning of 27th February 2008. I was asleep in my bed in my vicarage in Aslockton. Then I awoke. As well as the shaking, I remember the sound – a rumbling that got louder. My rational side kicked in – ‘this is England, we don’t have earthquakes’. Then I thought, just how bad is this going to get? I’ve looked it up: it lasted two minutes and was 5.2 on the Richter scale. Was I afraid? Not as much as I would have been had I been in say Los Angeles, or even Vancouver. And I’m sure I would have been afraid if it had been any worse than it was. The psalmist says, “We will not fear.” The first thing I want to say is that he must have experienced fear to know what it is. I think that faced with a Japanese-style tsunami, I would be afraid. After the shootings in Paris a week last Wednesday, I saw a photograph of a demonstration. The illuminated words “Not Afraid” were held aloft by the crowd. Had I been faced by a gunman intent on killing me, I would have been afraid. Fear is part of our fallen state. I went on the Internet for a working definition of the second law of thermodynamics. This is what I found: The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics describes basic principles familiar in everyday life. It is partially a universal law of decay; the ultimate cause of why everything ultimately falls apart and disintegrates over time. Material things are not eternal. Everything appears to change eventually, and chaos increases. Nothing stays as fresh as the day one buys it; clothing becomes faded, threadbare, and ultimately returns to dust. Everything ages and wears out. Even death is a manifestation of this law. The effects of the 2nd Law are all around, touching everything in the universe. And that is the source of our fear. We’re not as young as we once were. I knew that clothes wore out through wearing them – a threadbare patch on my jacket was pointed out to me on Friday. It came as a shock when I realised that clothes deteriorated even hanging in the closet. The psalmist says, verse 6: “Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall.” The day thou gavest has become such a staple Anglican hymn that it came as a shock to learn that Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1928 to 1942, didn’t like it. What’s not to like? Could it have been the reference to ‘earth’s proud empires, passing away’? The Third Reich was supposed to last a thousand years – it managed barely twelve. Curiously, when Hitler was designing buildings with his architect Albert Speer, one of the consideration was what they would look like as ruins. The question is, where do we turn in the face of all this change, decay and uncertainty. My experience of British newspapers gives a clue. The Daily Mail is notorious for its front page being dominated by two obsessions. Can you guess what they might be? Health and property. And The Times isn’t much better. We try in vain to turn back the effects of time: Hollywood stars have an obsession with facelifts. Each time I have my hair cut, Annette gives a report of the spread of grey. And death is the ultimate taboo. I’ve seen advice on offering condolences that says don’t use the ‘d-word’; instead, we talk of someone ‘passing’. ‘Celebrations of life’ replace funerals, with no body present. Am I to deduce that this means we’re not afraid of death, or the opposite? We think, ‘if only I had...whatever’. If only I had more money. If only I looked different. If only I had that job. If only I had that partner. Friends, every relationship ultimately ends – one or the other person will die. If such things are the source of our hopes, then they are our fears as well. I said that every relationship ends. That, of course isn’t the case. Because one relationship endures: that with God. Verse 2 began “Therefore”. When you see such a word, it’s important to look at what precedes it. Let’s read verse 1 together: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” The only antidote to our natural fear is hope in God. The extent to which we put our trust in other things, is the extent to which we will be afraid. The things that a scientist might value, that which we see, and touch and measure, will pass away. Verse 6, “[God] lifts his voice, the earth melts.” The only time that God speaks directly in the psalm is verse 10: “Be still, and know that I am God.” We tend to think of this as an ‘ahh’ moment. You may know the chorus that starts with these words. It’s got a peaceful, soothing melody to it. But I don’t think that’s the nature of God’s intervention. It’s more as if he proclaims, ‘That’s enough! Now know that I am God! Desist.’ Look at what precedes it, verse 9: “He makes the wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire.” Only God can bring the peace we seek and his intervention is a call for us to cease our striving and surrender to him. It’s his call for us to stop pretending we are unshakable and to admit that we are weak. For us to turn away from the things we might put our trust in and to put our trust in him. And we do so knowing that he is other and as such the only thing we can rely on and depend on, the only thing that ultimately is unshakable. Twice, verses 7 and 11, the psalmist says, “the God of Jacob is our refuge”. Why the God of Jacob? Was it because Jacob was a paragon of virtue? Far from it. If you know Jacob’s story you’ll know that Jacob was not a nice piece of work. He was deceitful, he was a schemer, a liar, a fraudster. But God wrestles with him and is able to transform him. As a sign of the work he’s done in his life he gives him a new name, Israel. And from such a nasty piece of work, Jacob, God brings a new man. A patriarch. That’s why the psalmist refers to the God of Jacob. If God can do that for Jacob, he can do it for you and me. That God is Jacob’s fortress means there’s no reason why he can’t be ours as well. In verse 3, the psalmist referred to the waters of the sea ‘roaring and foaming’. To understand this imagery fully, we need to know of the biblical association between the sea and evil. That’s why in his vision of the future in Revelation chapter 21 John writes, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” Why no sea? Because of its association with evil that was to be done away with. By contrast, instead of sea there’s, Revelation 22, “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.” The psalmist writes, verse 4, “there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at the break of day.” Instead of a threatening, roaring sea, there’s to be a river of life, flowing from God – the same river that God made in the Garden of Eden. That’s what we have to look forward to. A river of life flowing with living water; an unfailing supply for all our needs. But it’s not just a distant hope. It’s also a present reality. The river of life flows now through God’s world. It contains the truth of God and the love of God. And that’s why it has the power to make glad the City of God. We look forward to being part of the City of God. But that is also what we are now as God’s people. The City of God exists now everywhere the church meets as a congregation of God’s people who delight in him. Continuing to found our lives on that which is unshakable. Amen.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 03:40:23 +0000
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