REMEMBER, GOD IS WITH US

(Preached on Sunday, October 30, 2005)

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress;...                                                      -Psalm 107:6

 

This Psalm we just read together celebrates the steadfast love of God.

It tells the story of four groups of people: desert wanderers (the section we read); those who sit in darkness and gloom (which we didn’t read but to which we all can relate after this past week); those who became sick because of unhealthy practices and behaviors; and those who “go down to the sea in ships” and nearly lose their lives in storms.

The psalm is written from the viewpoint of the “rock bottom” places, where the psalmist experienced no hope of survival, except for the grace and presence of God.

 

“Rock bottom” is a place well-known to those in the twelve step movement, where there’s “nowhere to go but up.”

It is also a place well known to us.

The rock-bottom place is the coronary care unit, where a young, up-and-coming professional lies, hooked up to the monitors.  The view from that hospital bed is different from anyplace else; from that vantage point, it’s easy to see that Stephen Covey is right, when he remarks that no one, but no one, on their death bed, wishes they had spent more time at the office.

The rock-bottom place is bereavement: when a life-partner is suddenly gone, and nothing seems to be as it was.  Life suddenly, has become a fearful place.  New skills must be learned.  Lonely nights must be endured.

The rock-bottom place is imprisonment, of one sort or another.  Maybe not literally time in jail, but a time when life is put “on hold,” nonetheless.  Maybe a parent or spouse has become an invalid, and we are called upon to be the primary caregiver.  Or corporate downsizing has blocked career advancement.  Or mental illness has intruded where we never imagined it would.  Or a storm has played havoc with life-plans, re-arranging schedules, draining savings accounts, putting dreams and plans on hold.

 

Psalm 107 is a thanksgiving psalm, though.  From those rock-bottom places, the psalmist always returns to the refrain “they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”  It was probably used in special rituals to celebrate the repeated experience of being saved from life-threatening danger.  The psalm calls on those who have experienced this salvation to offer their thankful testimony before the gathered congregation.

By doing that we are reminded that God is always with us.

The rock-bottom testimony we read from the Psalm recalls the travels of the Hebrew people in the wilderness after they escaped from Egypt.

We all know the story of the Exodus, the Plagues on Egypt, the crossing of the Reed Sea, the wandering in the desert.

But there is an interesting story from that tradition that is very pertinent to this psalm and our situation today.

It is the story from Joshua 3.  Israel has been encamped in the territory of Moab on the Eastern side of the Jordan river opposite Jericho.  Moses has recently died and they spent a period of time in camp to mourn the passing of this great leader.  Now it is time to prepare to cross the river and enter into the promised land.

 

But there is an important question.  Is God still with the people?  God was clearly with them as long as Moses was their leader.  But now Moses is dead.  Joshua has assumed the mantle of leadership and the question is whether God is with Joshua in the same way.

So God provides a sign.

God tells Joshua to choose a leader from each tribe.

These leaders are to carry the Ark of the Covenant, the place of meeting between God and the people, into the waters of the Jordan river.  As they do so, the water is held back to the north so that it stops flowing and the people are then able to cross the river on dry ground.

Of course, this recalls for them the experience of their parents and grandparents in crossing the Sea out of Egypt when God, through Moses, saved them from slavery.  But it also is a clear sign to them that God is still among them and is going with them into this new land.

Whether this is an historical account or a metaphorical witness, either way it is a testimony to the fact that as the people entered this new phase of their history, they remembered and they knew that God was with them.  And they preserved these stories to remind themselves over and over again of how God had been with them in the past, so that they could better see and remember God’s presence with them in the here and now.

 

That is why we remember the stories of the Bible, the stories of faith and of the presence of God with the people.  So that when we encounter those rock-bottom times, we will remember, God is with us.  I trust that is part of the strength on which you drew this past week as together we came perilously close to one of those rock-bottom times.

For some of us perhaps, it was such a time.  I heard from many of the residents of East Ridge Retirement Village, who were without power until Friday, that in many ways this experience was worse than Hurricane Andrew and was clearly a rock-bottom time.

 

Part of what we can do is begin to gather our testimonies of God’s presence with us in this storm, the way we saw that God was still with us and that God’s strength brought us safely through.  Perhaps it is too early for those stories to surface, but perhaps by hearing some other testimonies related to other storms we can begin to identify some of our own testimonies.

One such testimony comes from a pastor at First Baptist Church in Gulfport, Mississippi.  He shares: “Our church is completely destroyed, but we’re having a great opportunity to minister.  Since September 1 we’ve been fielding teams that are coming in to clean up.  Probably 60 percent or more of our church family have some type of severe damage to their homes.  We’re doing our best to meet their needs.  We are trying to be strategic in sending teams to the neighborhood of a church member, where they can also help out others in the neighborhood as a way to share the love of Christ.  We’re starting to see a better picture of the New Testament church emerge.  Our people are having to get back to the concept that the church is the people of God, not the facility.  For worship, we will gather at a high school auditorium, and we’ll be there as long as they let us stay.  We’re focused on meeting immediate needs.  We are just beginning to think about the future, planning for a ministry base without a facility.  A new building is two to three years away.”

 

Perhaps one of our testimonies will be the story of how 17 people from Christ Church pulled together and stayed the course to put on a Halloween party for the 50+ children living at the Homeless Assistance Center in Homestead.  People who overcame loss of electricity and personal discomfort to find ways to bake cupcakes, or searched to find cupcakes and cookies and candy at depleted grocery stores, along with novelty items and small toys in the face of stores that were slow to reopen, so that children and parents who were already in rock-bottom places might know that there were people in the world who cared about them and wanted to help them know joy.

 

Another testimony from the Bishop of the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church.  She writes: “We have churches serving thousands of people out of fellowship halls without electricity or running water.  We’re just using what we have to feed people.  I’m amazed at the level of creativity.... I’ve not heard anyone ask, ‘Where was God?’  I’ve heard many say, ‘God was with us.’  Many will and have asked that, of course.  We have all levels of sadness but also a tremendous sense of God’s presence.”