Will we embrace the struggle of faith and those times when it feels like the pain will not end?
Psalm: Psalm 30
For Sunday, July 4, 2010: Year C - Ordinary 14
At the risk of my children making me add more money to the family “cuss cup” - 10¢ per offence - every time I read Psalm 30:5 I want to translate it as “Don’t worry, you may feel like crap right now, but it won’t last forever.” Now before the Hebrew-translating police come to haul me away, rest assured I do realize this would be more of an interpretation than a translation, but you get what I mean.
Life Just Sucks
In a culture too often driven by superficial relationships, no one ever wants to admit that he/she is anything other than “fine”. As much as we may always want to put on a happy face, not drag people down with our particular complaints, and avoid seeming like a whiner, all of us have those times when life just sucks. Whether we are going through the pain of an ended relationship, grieving the death of a loved one, or are just overwhelmed with the chaotic nature of everyday life, sometimes - despite our best of intentions to feel otherwise - our spirit feels less than joyful.
So we then get this Psalm, David’s way to thank God near the completion of the awesome journey that God had asked him to undertake; a Psalm written for the dedication of the Temple, the visible witness to God’s presence in Jerusalem. While some would like to think that David is still the perfect “Sunday School” image of some armored warrior who could do no wrong or feel no pain, the beauty of David, as we read more into his life, is that he was human. He did stupid stuff, did wonderful things and yes, at times surely felt like crap. In this case, we are let in on what seems like a pretty bad time, poetic in nature perhaps, but terrible enough to feel like death. We all know that that feels like, times so bad you feel like some part of you has simply died.
A Psalm for Stumblers
It is in such times that Psalm 30 insists on being heard. When I read this it is not to guarantee that once I blink my eyes in the morning or if I follow some prescribed set of steps that all will be good, no, this Psalm is meant to be read as a poetic retelling of one person’s total experience of God. David was called by God to the undertaking that was greater than his own humanity, but yet he stumbled along staying as true to his God as he could be and, in the end, realized that it’s all about not being silent.
This Psalm gives us permission to acknowledge and embrace the reality that we as human beings cannot live separate from God in our lives. If we take seriously a calling from God, to build as David did, we will face times when the limits of our humanity will be reached. We will realize that we are not God. That’s when we can begin to “tell” of God’s faithfulness.
The Hardest Question
For me, the “building” that we are called to in our time is the realization of a life that gives God’s presence a meaningful outward expression. The temple we build is that of a reality of love, justice, compassion, peace, etc.; all manifestations of something greater than our individuality. In the midst of this journey we too are stumbling along, grappling with a wider sense of humanity, slogging through the deadly times of our lives and in those brief moments experience both the pain and the promise of joy that many have experienced before.
The hardest question here is one we would rather not ask, but that David dares to in Psalm 30: Will we embrace the struggle of faith and those times when it feels like the pain will not end? Or will we forget that these are the very places, the temples even, where we begin to see other possibilities for the future; when we are open to the mysterious prodding of the Spirit of God; where we can truly be transformed each and every time the Psalm says to us, “Don’t worry, you may feel like crap right now, but it won’t last forever”?
Bruce Reyes-Chow is the founding pastor of Mission Bay Community Church, a young, urban and quirky Church located in the Excelsior District of San Francisco. A Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, MBCC is made up of mostly 20 and 30 somethings and is one of the highest reviewed religious organizations on Yelp.com. In June 2008 Bruce was elected to service as Moderator of the 2.3 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination. This is the highest elected office in the denomination and he will serve until July 2010’s PCUSA General Assembly in Minneapolis, MN.
