A PRAYER FOR THE NEW YEAR
(Preached on Sunday, January 4, 2009)
In his days may righteousness flourish, and peace abound, till the moon be no more! -Psalm 72:7
I am a child of the 1950's. For most of my life, there has been a general belief in the society and culture around me that any problems which confronted us could be overcome by American know-how, ingenuity, and hard work. We lived in the age of science and technology and we could overcome our problems with these tools and life would get better day by day. We have witnessed dread diseases such as polio and small pox brought under control through vaccinations. Space travel has become almost commonplace, and the ability to communicate with anyone, anywhere in the world, almost instantaneously, expected.
Sure, there have been a few bumps along the way: the first and second oil embargos in the 1970's and the economic downturn after the first Gulf War in the 1990's, but prosperity was not just expected but assumed, thought inevitable, even. It was part of our national identity and our hope and expectation for the future.
But this past year our national identity and our hope for the future has greatly unraveled. The stock market suffered its greatest loss of value since 1931. House values have dropped dramatically. Unemployment claims are at their highest level in decades. Many people did not seem to feel much like celebrating Christmas this year. I noticed fewer homes with lights and decorations displayed this year, and many of those that did have already removed everything and packed Christmas away for another year.
What we have clearly seen this past year is that prosperity did not solve all of the ills of our society. Our Good Society has been disfigured, and some fear, dismantled, by human greed, by human arrogance, by a penchant for violence and for settling conflicts through armed conflict, and by the inability of leaders to make truly tough decisions and choices for the good of the nation as a whole, leading to huge federal debt and budget deficits.
Prosperity was supposed to spare us agonizing choices. It was our answer to almost any question. Prosperity would make us happier as well as richer. Liberated from material wants, we could find self-fulfillment. Domestic and international conflicts would diminish, because prosperity would eliminate the root cause of conflict: poverty and human want. We have learned this was an illusion of the greatest magnitude. Prosperity is an elusive target and even when it is fleetingly achieved, it does not heal all the wounds in the human soul. Material goods do not, ultimately, satisfy spiritual needs.
Even so, these dreams of prosperity are not wrong. They have just been out of focus. The reading from Psalm 72 is a prayer with prosperity for the king and the people at its heart. People have always longed for prosperity. The people of God have always understood that God=s desire for us is for peace and prosperity. But God=s dream is not for obscene prosperity for a few, but secure prosperity for all. Which means there is no real prosperity, no real peace, while anyone is suffering, while anyone is oppressed, while some have prosperity and others do not.
This is also the gospel hope of the Christmas season. The story of the Magi reminds us that God=s gift of love, hope, peace and prosperity is for all the people of the world. It is a gift which calls forth from us our very best. It is a gift which evokes our gifts in return. Because it is the gift which fills our prosperity, our world, our lives with meaning and purpose. In this tiny baby, born in humble circumstances, the wise men and women of the world find the fulfillment of their deepest longings. This is the one through whom the world begins to make sense. This is the one who can help us solve our problems, the social ills which plague us. Here is the one who can show us how to use our prosperity in fulfilling ways.
This baby, when he grew up, taught us that the way to meaningful life, to prosperous life, was life lived for the sake of and betterment of all people. That meant not focusing on your own prosperity to the detriment of anyone else, but focusing on others= prosperity for the sake of all. He taught us the way to achieve prosperity for all is by keeping our focus on God C following God=s ways of life: loving God and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. The way of love is the way to justice is the way to prosperity.
This is the focus of this prayer. This prayer for the king is asking God to gift the king with wise rule C with just rule. An older translation of the opening petition is AGive the king your justice, O God@ asking for God=s justice rather than the usual justice of the king. The hard truth of life is that kings, prime ministers, and presidents rarely choose God=s justice. They choose, instead, to seek the power and domination of Athis world.@ Many times they do it with the best intentions, believing that this world is a hard and difficult place that must be dominated to eke out justice. Indeed, President Jimmy Carter, after leaving office, was once heard to say that it was Aimpossible to be both Christian and president of the United States.@
In three weeks a new President will be sworn in. He is undertaking an enormously difficult job. Whatever our political loyalties and convictions, he is in need of our prayers. And this prayer in Psalm 72 is a most appropriate prayer for our new President in this New Year. A prayer that the Aking@, the leader of the land, will break with historical precedent and actually adopt God=s justice. That he, and the leaders of Congress, will commit the ultimate act of shock and awe and truly attend to the needs of the poor and the oppressed. That no more innocent blood will be spilled on foreign soil. That the riches gathered by immoral means will be spread out like a healing balm across the land. With this psalm we pray that God will deliver the poor and the broken from violence and poverty and bring true prosperity to our land for all people.
We have just come through the winter solstice once again C the shortest day of the year in northern climes. Already the days are growing longer, although no one but an astronomer with a stopwatch can yet detect the difference. Also this last week, as the old year ended and a new one began, the stock market appeared to rally C perhaps it, too, has bottomed out like the winter sun. There is a danger, of course, that when the economy recovers (as it surely will) and prosperity returns, we will try to claim the credit. When things go well, politicians pat themselves on the back. CEOs accept huge bonuses and pay packages. But when things go badly, it is always caused by circumstances beyond our control, by factors no one could have anticipated. So the automakers, the banks, the mortgage companies, go to the government with begging bowls in hand, hoping for bailouts. Strange C I didn=t notice them offering to share any unexpected profits with taxpayers.
Did you? They remind me of the Incas. In Machu Picchu, and several other ancient ruins in Peru, there are ritual stones in temple sites which archeologists believe were Ahitching posts@ for the sun. As the sun dropped lower and lower on the horizon in the winter season, the Incas feared it would disappear forever. They developed elaborate rituals by which they would ceremoniously tether the sun to one of these stones, thereby stopping the sun and causing it to begin rising higher on the horizon, bringing longer days back to their lives. They believed they could stop the sun and influence its path.
That is how we get into trouble C by believing that we are the masters or our own fate, the captains of our own souls, that the future is entirely up to us. But Jesus taught us, and the prayer of this psalm reminds us, that the future is God=s creation, God=s gift. God is doing something and this prayer psalm calls the king C the president to live into that new thing God is doing, to live into God=s healing justice. In these days, with the numbers of the jobless, poor, and homeless soaring, this is not a psalm to be prayed in silence. It is a prayer to be uttered in loud witness to God=s healing love and justice. Let it be our prayer for our new leaders in this new year.