Psalm 121
“For Keeps”
July 19, 2020
The struggle has never been more real. We love the fact that on any given day we can step outside and not have to go very far to look up and see a hill or a mountain. They are so much a part of the scenery that we might, on some of our more preoccupied days, take peaks with names like Equinox, Grass, Lye Brook, West or Red, for granted.
Having spent one very flat year in Bowling Green, Ohio where literally the only hill in the whole city was on the man-made golf course and you only had to go to the 6th floor of a building, above all the trees, and you could clearly see the city of Toledo 23 miles away, I try really hard to look up with gladness every chance I get.
This mountainous beauty is a huge draw for our city and suburb dwelling siblings from more crowded parts of the Northeast who want to lift up their eyes to our hills and mountains. Mostly we appreciate all they do to bolster our economy which allows us to continue to have the quality of life here that we treasure.
However, over these past 4 months with the Coronavirus weighing heavy on our minds and especially this past week when the risk feels too close for comfort, there have been a lot of us who are having second thoughts about all those mountain-yearning people who could be carrying the virus with them in their travels to the Vermont we get to call home.
It is possible that this 121st Psalm was used as a liturgy for travelers. Some think the first 2 verses would have been recited by the ones who were going to be on the road while the remaining six verses would have been words of blessing spoken by the ones they were leaving, the ones staying behind, as a form of encouragement and strength for those making the journey. These travelers may well have been heading to Jerusalem and the temple, on a pilgrimage. Would it help to think of guests in our area as on a pilgrimage of sorts?
Whether the hills or mountains were a help or a hindrance as the first two verses end in a question, the answer to that question is all about the one that does the keeping, guarding, preserving, watching over – depending on which translation you’re reading. The answer to the question of where help is coming from couldn’t be clearer. It is the ever-present God and that keeping is portable. God is on the move with us, traveling with us wherever we go – never letting us out of sight. God is overhead and underfoot, journeying through the good times and the struggles and even facing off with evil on our behalf.
This God, our God, is majestic and all-encompassing in spite of so many times that we pigeonhole God and create God in the image that suits us. What image of God, big or small, are you holding close to your heart and taking with you as you journey through these hard days of distance and isolation and upheaval throughout the world?
Father Greg Boyle, in his book Tattoos on the Heart in which he shares the work and wonder of his decades directing Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles to change the path of gang members, confronts the concern that sometimes our image of God can get very small if we let it. He describes how his friend and fellow priest Bill helped give him an image of God that has become his own touchstone. What happened was that several years ago, Bill took time off from his ministry to take care of his dying father and Greg Boyle described the experience this way:
Bill’s “father had become a frail man, dependent on Bill to do everything for him. Though he was physically not what he had been, and the disease was wasting him away, his mind remained alert and lively.
In the role reversal common to adult children who care for their dying parents, Bill would put his father to bed and then read him to sleep, exactly as his father had done for him in childhood. Bill would read from some novel, and his father would lie there, staring at his son, smiling.
Bill was exhausted from the day’s care and work and would plead with his dad, “Look, here’s the idea. I read to you. You fall asleep.”
Bill’s father would impishly apologize and dutifully close his eyes. But this wouldn’t last long. Soon enough, Bill’s father would pop one eye open and smile at his son. Bill would catch him and whine, “Now, come on.” The father would, again, oblige, until he couldn’t anymore, and the other eye would open to catch a glimpse of his son.
This went on and on, and after his father’s death, Bill said that this evening ritual was really a story of a father who just couldn’t take his eyes off his kid.”
This is the God that the Psalmist here is describing – the one that so loves us that God can’t keep from watching us, even through the hardest of times. We are being kept by God this very moment and every other moment from here to eternity. Let us now lift up this beloved Psalm as a prayer from Nan Merrill:
My heart’s eyes behold your
Divine Glory!
From whence does my help come?
My help comes from You,
who created heaven and earth.
You strengthen and uphold me,
You, who are ever by my side.
Behold! You who watch over the
nations
will see all hearts Awaken
to the Light.
For You are the Great Counselor;
You dwell within all hearts,
that we might respond to the
Universal Heart –
Like the sun, that nourishes us by day,
like the stars that guide the
wayfarer at night.
In You we shall not be afraid of
the darkness, for
You are the Light of our life.
May You keep us in our going out
and our coming in
From this time forth and
forevermore.
(Nan C. Merrill, Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness)
Amen.