Psalm 1
Welcome to summer! This summer, worship is
going to be a little simpler, and the message will be on the theme “You are not
alone.” This theme came from the May issue of Gather magazine. The CLC women use this magazine for their monthly
Bible study and in May, the editors did something different from the usual
study. Ten different stories were shared by ten different women on ten
different themes—and there was so much goodness there that I thought we could
use one each week all summer. We’ll pair these reflections with the Psalms.
The Bible is made up of all kinds of
different writings—stories, letters, songs, prayers—and the book of Psalms is a
prayerbook of the Bible—poem prayers set to music that people have prayed for
thousands of years. Rolf Jacobson, who teaches and preaches psalms at Luther
Seminary, has said on numerous occasions that you don’t have to work to make a
psalm fit your life… just read them, until one resonates with you. So, it may
be that this summer, you’d like to explore the psalms more deeply at home as we
look at thirteen of them on our summer Sundays. If you need a Bible, there are
several out in our Little Library—take one. Take the psalms with you this
summer wherever you go.
Today, we start at the beginning with Psalm 1
and with this story—You are not alone… when you are at a crossroads.
The images in Psalm 1 are of two roads (or ways) and a tree.
The roads signal the directions you take in life -- and the roads are
characterized by who walks on each road and to whom each road belongs. Down one
road walk the wicked (those who do not depend on God), sinners (those who rebel
against God's will), and the scoffers (those who mock God). This road belongs
to those who walk it. This road leads nowhere. Those who take this road end up
being non-resilient -- they cannot take suffering. Down the other road walk the
righteous (those who depend on God). This other road belongs not to those who walk
it, but to God -- who watches over it.
The other picture in Psalm 1 is of a tree. Those who depend
on God (the righteous) are like a tree, whose roots are sunk deep into the
earth next to an irrigation stream. Because of this, the tree can flourish --
even when the going gets tough. Like this tree, which drinks deeply from
streams of water, the righteous drink daily from God's Word. They are
resilient, but God watches over the paths they walk.[1]
In the Gather
story of being at a crossroads, Anna Madsen told about the moment in her life
several months after the accident that killed her husband and gave her son a
traumatic brain injury. She was trying to do it all and it was too much. Then, a
Jewish colleague said to her that she couldn’t grade or write all those papers
or be as present for her children as she yearned to be. Most of all, she
couldn’t heal her son. “But, Anna, you can do what you can do.” She prays,
“Dear God, when the chaos and grief of life threaten to overcome us, help us to
find grace in our finitude, clarity about our capacities, strength for our
callings and gratitude for your mercy and love.”
When in your life have you faced crossroads
moments? When have you felt the weight of important decisions? When have you
noticed that whatever comes after this moment, life will be different?
Graduation A
first job Marriage Crossing a border Becoming a refugee
Divorce Welcoming
a child Moving to or away from home
Relinquishing a driver’s license Facing death… our lists could go on and
on…
Yesterday, on our first Second Saturday
event, a table of people from Christ gathered together with Alganesh Debru and
her sister’s family as they celebrated a high school graduation. They invited
us to their party in order to get this Second Saturday series of summer meals
started, where we’ll gather once a month to hear someone’s story, in order to
deepen relationships across differences. Alganesh told us about how when she
was 14 years old, she walked for a week, hiding, at night, from her homeland to
a refugee camp in Sudan. She lived there nine years until a Lutheran program
sponsored her and she has been connected here at Christ ever since. What an
incredible story of faith at a crossroads, what incredible resilience.
As we navigate crossroads times, like the
writer of Psalm 1, we suspect there are better, more healthy, life-giving
choices, and other choices that lead to pain and suffering… that seems to be
what the psalmist is praying about in Psalm 1… but if we are in a situation
where we have no sense of choice, if we are paralyzed at the crossroads, maybe
it’s freeing to know that whichever way we go… God is on that way. There is no
place and no direction where God is not present. Whatever we might be
suffering, God has not abandoned us.
Maybe you have faced a moment like Anna did—when
everything around you came crashing down, when you faced what seemed like an
impossible set of choices, when you faced a crossroads and wondered, “Which way
do we go?” And maybe you wondered if your roots were deep enough to weather the
storm…
That’s when it seems essential to know that
we don’t plant ourselves. God plants us. I read a sign this week that said,
“You are in the right place at the right time.”
Though you might feel like a small boat on a big wave… there is no place that
you can go where God is not with you.
And secondly, it is not our roots alone that
give us stability. God has planted us in this place where we can grow together
so that no one set of roots has to give all the support. Community is the place
where God cultivates intertwined, interwoven roots… and sustains us all from
the same life-giving stream.
Psalm 1 makes a promise: People who drink
deeply from the psalms will find a sustainable source of spiritual drink. A
source that sustains us on the road of life and a source that will never run
dry.[2]
So, instead of being filled with fear at the crossroads, we can be filled with
a sense of anticipation.
Jesus’
last words to followers were these… “I will be with you always…” We are not
alone, so we don’t need to fear the crossroads or worry about making the wrong
choice. Our fears don’t have to shake us, but like a tree planted by the water,
we can stand strong, rooted in the one who sends us confidently forward.
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