“Hope for the Hopeless”

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

O God: The Psalms— Lament

August 13, 2023

Psalm 77 (Matthew 14:22-33)

from the series, “The Chosen”

Children’s Message:

Do you know what this is? It’s a life jacket. And what does a life jacket do? It keeps you afloat in the water. Can you think of other things that keep you afloat in the water? (floaties, life preserver, inner tubes, boats, etc.) Some of them use air, some of them use foam or wood something else that floats. But they all have the same purpose—to keep your head above water.

We heard a story today about the disciples in a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee when a big storm comes up. And they’re scared. They get even more scared when they see Jesus coming to them, by foot, across the water. He was just walking right on top of it! Without inflatable sandals.

Peter wants proof that it’s Jesus, so he says that if Jesus commands it, Peter will step out of the boat and walk on water. Have you ever tried that? Me neither. But Jesus commanded Peter, and Peter got out and started walking. And things were going pretty well…until he got scared and started worrying about the wind and waves. And he sank.

Do you know what happened? Jesus reached down and saved him from drowning. When I was little, I got into the pool when my mom wasn’t looking and sank right down to the bottom. A lady nearby was my Jesus—she reached down and pulled me up. She saved me from drowning.

Sometimes, we don’t always have a floaty nearby. In our lives, there may be times when we are scared or sad or even angry because things are happening, and we don’t know how to fix it. God has sent us life-savers—people who reach down and help us. Can you think of some of those people in your life? (mom, dad, teachers, grandparents). After we pray, I’m going to give you some life-saver candies. Make sure you share some with the people who help you.

Let’s pray. Dear God, you help us when we are scared. Give us courage to help others, too. Amen.

Message:

There are 42 psalms of individual lament and 16 psalms of community lament in the book of 150 psalms. That is more than 1/3 dedicated to the process of crying out to God in pain, despair, and anger. However, lament is not just a complaint to God about life circumstances. Even in anger, lament is essentially praise.

Complaint—as the Hebrews did during their long journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land—is an accusation against God. They accused God of bringing them out of Egypt only to die of thirst and hunger. They maligned God’s character by claiming that God was not a God of love, after all.

Instead, lament is an appeal to God BECAUSE one has confidence in God’s character. It’s a prayer. Like a child who cries because they are confident that their caregiver will hear them. I remember a story about someone who went to an orphanage in Russia, and it was eerily silent. The children didn’t cry or fuss. It wasn’t because they were well-tended or had no needs. It was because they had learned very quickly that no one would come when they cried. No one would help. Their cries would go unnoticed, so they didn’t bother.

To cry out in lament is to trust that God hears and will respond. Psalm 77 begins, “I will cry aloud to God, and God will hear me.” It is hope that, though a resolution may not happen immediately, it will happen. Though it may not look or sound the way we want, God’s response will still come. It may feel like we’ve been abandoned, but God has never left us.

And so the psalmist cries out to God and lays out exactly how they feel. “It feels, God, like you’ve left me. I reached out into the night with my hand, but nothing.” Have you ever felt like that in the midst of deep angst? I can only imagine what Maui’s residents must feel as they mourn their dead and look upon a fire-ravaged landscape that was once homes and business—the very heart of their economy of tourism. Hopeless and abandoned.

Child soldiers taken from their families in the dead of night, shot up with drugs, and taught to fight and kill. At the age of 7 or 8. Hopeless and abandoned. Women enduring complicated pregnancies with no alternative but to suffer or even die because they cannot access necessary healthcare. Hopeless and abandoned. Trans kids denied medication that would help them feel whole. Hopeless and abandoned. People with drug addictions lingering in jail without access to recovery resources. Hopeless and abandoned. People at the border escaping war at home and denied access to safety anywhere else. Hopeless and abandoned.

The psalmist says, “When I think of God, I cannot find peace. When I ponder hope, my spirit fails me. You don’t let me sleep, and I’m so fraught with fear that I am speechless. I remember when times were better, and I wonder if God will leave me in this desert forever. Does God not love me anymore? It feels like the God I used to trust has changed.”

The psalmist is writing during a time just after the Babylonian Exile. The Temple had been defiled; most of the population was either killed or taken back to Babylon. The psalmist was forced to look upon the bodies of friends, perhaps family, as they lay in the streets. Homes destroyed. Whole communities emptied. Life as God’s Chosen People in the Promised Land seemed to have come to a decisive end…again. All because the people continued to defy God and race after greed, pride, and control. Always the same story: people wanting to be God because they don’t trust God to do the job.

But if God is God, then God does NOT forget God’s promises. Faith is not faith if we only have it when things are going well. It is a false faith that tells us that we believe in God all while maintaining strict control over our lives and achieving all that we strive for. The challenge of faith is to look to God when it all falls apart. When our plans go sideways. When life delivers a blow from which we can’t recover on our own. When those around us choose to distance themselves with ‘thoughts and prayers’ so that they don’t have to sink into the mud and muck of our pain and risk their own abandonment.

But that’s not really the whole story, is it? God has not abandoned us. And there are people who are reaching into the muck and working to create a way out. The psalmist says, “I refuse to be comforted.” They don’t say, “I refuse to be helped.” The psalmist, like Job, refuses to be satisfied with platitudes that maintain a safe distance from the pain. And, like Job, they turn to God for an answer.

And then the psalmist calls to mind God’s mighty hand—when God led the people out of Egypt; when God established a path through the waters of the sea; when God led the Israelites over dry land even though God’s own footsteps were not visible. Like the wind, God’s presence is not proven through fingerprints and hair samples, as if you could take it to a lab and say, “Here it is!” God’s presence is known and felt through the actions of others, like Moses and Aaron, who were the vessels for God’s mighty deeds in Egypt.

And so the psalmist finds hope in remembering that God makes a way most prominently when all hope is lost. When we would otherwise drown, God’s hand reaches into the darkness—often by way of others around us—to begin the long pull back above the waves.

Sometimes we’re the ones drowning. We don’t get through life without those experiences. And they can be devastating. But sometimes we get to be the lifeguards, watching for potential hazards, recognizing those in peril, and jumping into it all as ambassadors of God. Because, as followers of Christ, we’ve seen the power of being present. We’ve watched what happens when Jesus steps into our midst.

The waves calm, the wind ceases, the blind are given sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the world changes. Systems can change. People can change. Lives can change. And we can begin to see God’s intended world, even if it is just in glimpses. And there we find hope.

Pastor Tobi White

Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church

Lincoln, NE