Walking in the Presence of the Lord

Grace Episcopal Church, September 12, 2021

If you accept, as I do, that preaching is a form of teaching, and if you are not only a preacher but a teacher, as I am, today’s lessons give plenty of reason to run for whatever kind of cover can be found.

 

Isaiah presents “the tongue of the teacher” as a gift from God, and so it is. And on our better days, we manage to use it to sustain the weary with a word. And I’m going to try to do that later in this sermon.

 

But Isaiah also makes clear two additional and often hard to manage things about teaching. One of those is that your speaking will not always be appreciated. Speaking truth to power is never an easy thing. Speaking truth folks really don’t want to hear—whether they are powerful are not—is equally hard—even though it might be truth they really need to hear.

 

 

The other point Isaiah makes is that listening to those who are taught is critical. It took me as a teacher quite some time to learn to resist filling the air with words, and to allow silence to linger long enough for words other than my own to come forth. Those being taught are so accustomed to not being listened to, that even when invited to speak, the words often come hesitantly, warily.

 

Indeed, I think Isaiah’s point has a broad application, much broader than “official” teachers. Being a good listener does not necessarily come easily to any of us who have words, opinions, often clearly and strongly held points of view. From conversations at the water fountain at work to posting on social media, we are quite willing to fill whatever space is available to us with our words. 

 

 

So I, myself, have not only struggled to learn to sometimes just shut my mouth, bridle my tongue, but also I have been silenced by others—who have announced their own truth in such a way as to define my truth as unacceptable, stupid, crazy, unchristian, before I even open my mouth.

 

James, in particular, lays it out in plain terms: The human tongue has never been fully tamed by an imperfect human. We humans have tamed every other species. But we cannot tame our own tongues. We silence others with our vehemently voiced opinions, we sow wildfires with our gossip, we spread mistrust and cynicism by repeating rumors, half-truths, misinformation. Of late, we have learned just how deadly misinformation can be.

 

But James acknowledges that the tongue is also used to praise God. And, as Isaiah says, to sustain the weary with a word. Ultimately, the tongue is a mixed bag, at best, for, as James states, With it we bless the Lord…, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.

 

Early on I promised to try for a word to sustain the weary, and for that I turn to the Psalm appointed for today. It is often the case when I am at a loss for words, praying a Psalm helps, and that’s true whether my loss for words is due to great heartache or to great joy. The Psalms help us express the full range of human emotions.

 

 

 cThe first 8 verses of Psalm 116 came to my attention in a special way back in the year 2000. It was a time of great personal loss: a few weeks after my husband had died. It was a time of questioning: Why am I still here? What sort of arbitrary God snuffs out one life and not another?

 

This Psalm does not exactly answer that question, but it offers us something way more important. And so, I’m going to read it to you again, now.

 

I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication,
because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.

The cords of death entangled me; the grip of the grave took hold of me;
I came to grief and sorrow.

Then I called upon the Name of the Lord: "O Lord, I pray you, save my life."

Gracious is the Lord and righteous; our God is full of compassion.

The Lord watches over the innocent; I was brought very low, and he helped me.

Turn again to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has treated you well.

For you have rescued my life from death,
my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.

I will walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living.

 

Here’s what this Psalm has come to mean to me. God does not promise to save our lives by intervening in the messiness of the world. Indeed, the Psalm acknowledges, we WILL come to grief and sorrow.

But when we are brought low, God hears our cry and is with us and is saving our life—perhaps with so simple a thing as rest. That one line has been a balm to me many times, perhaps because I am one of those people who fills my life with too many things.

Turn to your rest, O my soul, for the God of the universe is with you, the God of the universe loves you—whether you get all that stuff done or not!

God saves my life with other things as well. I have a folder on my computer titled “What’s saving my life right now.” And in that folder are photographs, mostly photographs of beautiful skies: brilliant sunrises, thunder clouds forming, the sun’s rays steaming through an opening in the clouds, gorgeous sunsets.

Beautiful skies have saved my life many times. It might be something entirely different for you: faces of your loved ones, blooming flowers, waves rolling into a beach. Whatever. I strongly recommend that everyone start a collection that shows how God saves your life over and over again.

But it’s the last line of this Psalm that is the clincher for me:

I will walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living.

Back in 2016, a man walked into the Pulse nightclub in Florida and opened fire, slaughtering 49 people and wounding 53 more. One of the young men in my campus ministry group organized a time of prayer and grieving and remembrance at a bar in downtown Monroe. He asked me to come and speak.

I read Psalm 116:1-8 to the gathered crowd. And then I said words to this effect: Bad things happen. Horrific, inexplicably horrific crimes against humanity are committed by other humans. We are left to wonder. Where was God in that? Why those people and not me?

I cannot answer those questions. All I can say is that we, the living, must carry on. Our time, for whatever reason, has not yet come. And that means we have an obligation. We must go on, we must walk in the presence of the Lord, in the land of the living.

Today, we are surrounded by remembrances of the inexplicably horrific crimes against humanity that happened September 11, 2001. And we are caught in a seemingly endless pandemic that has caused much grief and sorrow. Our political life is ugly, divisive. It feels a lot like being in the grip of the grave.

 

And so I conclude again with my final words to the crowd gathered after the Pulse shooting: To walk in the presence of the Lord means, we refuse to hate. We refuse to be divided by race, ethnicity, class and politics. We forgive instead of seek revenge. We are kind in the face of unkindness.

And most important of all, we spread love, God’s love, because God’s love is the only answer. In the words of Mother Teresa, Yesterday is gone, Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.