The God Who Answers

June 22, 2014

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

¹Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me,

for I am poor and needy.

²Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you;

save your servant who trusts in you.

You are my God;³be gracious to me, O Lord,

for to you do I cry all day long.

⁴Gladden the soul of your servant,

for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

⁵For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,

abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.

⁶Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;

listen to my cry of supplication.

⁷In the day of my trouble I call on you,

for you will answer me.

⁸There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,

nor are there any works like yours.

⁹All the nations you have made shall come

and bow down before you, O Lord,

and shall glorify your name.

¹⁰For you are great and do wondrous things;

you alone are God.

¹⁶Turn to me and be gracious to me;

give your strength to your servant;

save the child of your serving girl.

¹⁷Show me a sign of your favor,

so that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame,

because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

Sermon: “The God Who Answers”

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

God never gives you more than you can handle.

If God brings you "to" it, God will bring you "through" it.

You’re being tested.

God needed another angel.

Everything happens for a reason.

When things aren’t going very well in life, we love clichés like these.  We want to be comforting, present, say something to make it – whether “it” be the loss of a job, pet, parent or friend – better.  But there’s another saying we should remember:

“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

You see, these sort of statements have the best of intentions, and the worst of implications.  They intend love and concern and care.  But they imply that God sends hardship upon us in a strength-testing game of chess with our souls.  They imply that God’s character is self-serving, taking those we love to satisfy God’s own needs.  They imply that life is nothing but a golf course set out before us (that’s for you US Open fans), with one hole following the next, and no freedom on our part to deviate from that course God’s made for our life, even if we feel that we’re stuck in the sand.

No, as nice as they’d like to be, these sort of clichés aren’t really what’s helpful in a time of loss and uncertainty.

Honestly, y’all, I’m in that sort of time today.  My sweet little old dog Hayden had to be put down last week.  Enough of you are pet people to know how that affects a person.  I’m a bit down, a bit tired, and in need of reassurance.

And I’ll not find it in “everything happening for a reason.”  I’ll not find it in God giving me as much as I can handle.  I’ll not find it in the sort of strength this week is supposed to instill in me. 

As people of faith, I find, you find, we find, our reassurance in one place above any other: scripture.  And today, our Psalm reading isn’t saying everything happens for a reason.  It isn’t saying God gives us as much as we can handle or that being tested is part of growing our faith.  What Psalm 86 has to say is this:

God is God (we are not).

God is the One we lift our soul to.

God is good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on God.

We can call to God in times of trouble and God will answer us.

God is great and does wondrous things and, again, only God is God.

God is our help and our comfort.

I need to hear and remember these truths today.  Maybe you do too.

Maybe you’re struggling with loss in some form.  Maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed with life’s busyness or lack of it.  Maybe you’re trying to be there for someone who is hurting and don’t know what to say.  Maybe you’re hurting yourself and trying to pray to God and don’t know what to say.

Let’s forget those empty clichés. But let’s never forget the steadfast love of our God.  For in that steadfast love, we find what we need to sustain us, not just on the joyful days but, more importantly, on the not-so-joyful ones.

It’s not fancy, or complicated, or cliché, this steadfast love of God.  It is simply exactly what we need it to be, and exactly what a hurting and divided world needs it to be.

So my sermon for you today is, perhaps selfishly, really a sermon for me in the midst of a difficult week.  It’s me reminding myself to cling to this steadfast love of God, to the promises of God in scripture, and to the ways children of God have shown that love to me in this time. 

But it’s also me reminding you to do the same: cling to that steadfast love, and extend it to others.

I don’t have a funny story today.  I don’t have clever words or an intellectual theological lesson. 

I simply share the words of Psalm 86, in hope that you and me both will cling to their truth. 

You are my God; ³be gracious to me, O Lord,

for to you do I cry all day long.

⁴Gladden the soul of your servant,

for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

⁵For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,

abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.

⁶Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer;

listen to my cry of supplication.

⁷In the day of my trouble I call on you,

for you will answer me.

For in the end, nothing else matters, does it?  Not the clichés, not the well-crafted words, not the heady theology or deep understanding.  It’s incredibly simple, really (though the church has always tried to complicate it): God’s steadfast love, a love we know most fully in Jesus Christ, is for each of us, and we ought never to forget it. 

Thanks be to the God who hears our cry, to the Son who raises us to new life with him again and again and to the Spirit who is our Comforter and Hope this day, and all the days to come, amen.