The Sunday Sermon: May 1, 2022 – 3rd Sunday of Easter
Scripture: Psalm 126
Joy In God’s Mercy
As we begin this morning, I want to draw your attention to your pew bible, which you may want to use later. Before that, though, please note that there are notecards placed in them this morning. Please take of those for yourself and get a pencil or pen ready for later. There are four in each pew, but plenty for all if you reach in front or behind you, as needed. Choir – pass those out. Do that as I introduce the sermon message this morning.
We have begun our exploration of another practice that is designed to help us follow Jesus more closely and discover God more profoundly at work in our lives. Our practice is “Joy!” Which better not be a new practice, but which is one we’re looking at more closely this Eastertide season. We proclaimed Resurrection! Once again this year. We asked and responded to what that can and must mean this year on Easter morning and now, we’re continuing to respond to our Easter question with “joy.” That’s one thing that resurrection can mean for us this year.
Joy is usually thought of as a feeling, which is a response to something we experience. We feel joy when we watch a beautiful sunrise, or hold a sweet baby, or laugh with a good friend. But joy is more than just a feeling. Scripture invites us to experience joy as more than just a feeling, more than a passive response to something, no matter how beautiful it may be or how happy it may make us. We are urged through scripture and in our lives as Christians, not just to “feel joy,” but to practice joy – to choose joy in our lives – so that we might be joy.
(I don’t know about you, but I’m detecting a pattern in the practices we’ve engaged since last October in our Follow Me curriculum. These practices that we’re exploring so that we might follow Jesus more closely – Welcome, Hope, Community, baptism, and now Joy – are not simply things we do or things we provide. They are things we are, or should be. We are welcome, hope, community, and joy. What might the world look be like if everyone considered such an identity?)
Andrew began the sermon messages on this practice of Joy last week. We are called to choose joy as our response to God’s whole creation – the beauty of the earth and the glory of the skies. We are not doing that when we, as we, choose to destroy that creation. Andrew couldn’t have clearer that as faithful stewards of creation we must care for, nurture, and sustain the Creation that gives us joy and that creates it.
In the weeks ahead we will discover more fully how we may share in others Joy and how we might practice Joy in all times. This morning, we seek to find joy and to choose it in and through God’s mercy.
Pray with me …
This has been one of those more difficult weeks for me as a sermon writer and this morning as a sermon deliverer. As I’ve read the material from our Follow Me curriculum, considered scripture passages, and read my commentaries, I couldn’t get away from the reality that “finding Joy in God’s mercy” meant that I, means that we, must figure out how our pain, suffering, and confusion can somehow “heal us.” It means considering, at least, that suffering is a good thing insofar as it leads to a renewed reliance on the mercy of a Love that surpasses our understanding.
Now, that’s easy enough when our suffering comes from our own actions or inactions. We can convince ourselves that we deserve our pain and so the mercy of God and others comes welcomed. But it’s a hard pill to swallow when our suffering, or our pain, or our confession come from what someone else has done – or comes through no human action at all, but through natural disasters and events.
God’s mercy in suffering that we didn’t create but are experiencing is a tough thing to get joyful about. And it’s a very problematic thing to ask others to be Joyful about – undeserved suffering. Thanks for the mercy, but … why the pain in the first place? So it’s been one of those more difficult weeks for me as your preacher and Pastor. I’m not sure what comes after this will satisfy you. But let’s see what the Spirit does.
Listen for the Word of God. Read Psalm 126. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
This psalm helped me and I’m going to try to explain how, though in my writing, reading and re-reading of my own words, I still find it all pretty “heady.” This psalm is a community’s prayer for help, a prayer for mercy. It is a “post-exilic” psalm, almost certainly. Meaning it was written after the return of the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem in 537 BC. And while the prophets insist that it was the Israelites fault that the Babylonians conquered Israel and exiled them in the sixth century, our 21st century theology takes a more “Joban” (think “book of Job”) approach in questioning that. Theologically speaking, is it Ukraine’s fault that Russia is crushing it? We have a different understanding of the motives behind geo-political strategies and tyrannical actions. So, perhaps the ancient Isrealites are not so sure why they’ve suffered the way they did. In any case, as the psalm opens, the community of the psalmist is looking back in memory to Gods’ deliverance of Zion and its joy on that occasion. But then, something changes.
Take a look at you pew bibles if you’d like (this is one of the too few Sundays when we all put our nose into our scripture!). Page 572 in the Old Testament part of your bible.. As you just heard, the verbs in verses one to three in our NRSV translation are all past tense. The verbs in verses four to six are in the future tense. Why? Other translations try to be consistent in with the verbs, putting them all in the future tense so the first three verses sound this way: When the Lord restores the fortunes of Zion, we will be like those who dream. Then our mouths will be filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it will be said among the nations … These translations do this so that they will match verses four through six. Take a look at those. Those three verses are translated in our NRSV as a prayer for help “to come,” for help in the future.
I read that even other translations change the verbs in verses four to six to the past tense to make them consistent with verses one to three: You restored our fortunes, O Lord … Those who sowed tears have reaped with tears of joy, and so on. Again, in an attempt to reconcile a disparity.
But the tension created by the past tense in the first three verses and the future tense in the last three is right where we need to be. We are between: “Thank you, God, for your mercy. We rejoice!” And “Have mercy on us, O God. And we will rejoice!” Our joy comes through God’s mercy and anticipates God’s mercy. It is a response to it and an expectation of it. No matter how many times we proclaim that God “has done great things for us,” we will find ourselves, again, in need of God’s help, and God’s deliverance, of God’s mercy. Our joy, then, is not just a result of what “has been,” but a faith statement of what “will be.” Rejoicing in God’s mercy does not have to mean that we suffer, or experience pain so that we may receive mercy. It can mean that in the midst of our suffering and pain – deserved and undeserved, God’s mercy – past and future is certain. That is why we rejoice in it. “Morning by morning new mercies we see.”
How has the Spirit done with me? Does any of this satisfy you?
We are called to rejoice in the mercy of God that we have experienced in the past, mercy from our own pain or suffering or that of others, and we are called to rejoice in the mercy of God that is our promise for whatever comes next. I told you this sermon was a bit “heady,” a lot of words. Let’s end this way … through our own memories of and hopes for the mercy of God.
Here’s what I would like every one of you to do this morning. Take an index card that has been placed in the pew pockets in front of you. I want you to write two things on it. (Does everyone have an index card? Good …) No one, including me, will see what you write:
- First thing: One time in your life where you experienced God’s mercy. There’s nothing easy about this one. Our memories of God’s Mercy come from difficult times in out lives. The causes of human pain are legion. Some are of our own making, some are part of the natural order. And still more are unnecessary pain brought on my others. Do your best to write a word, a phrase or a sentence about a time in your life when you experiences mercy.
- Second thing: Write down with one word, or a few, or sentence or two, a situation in your life where you are in need of God’s mercy – God’s compassion, forgiveness, or grace. There’s nothing easy about this one, either. It requires us to be vulnerable. To admit and acknowledge that have pain or worry. And then to ask for help, to ask for mercy. Take your time …
Now, when you’re done, I would like everyone who has been able to do this to place your card into this jar. We’re going to close this sermon in prayer with and for one another. Thanking God for the mercies we have received and the mercy we will receive.
Collect the cards. Place the Jar at the foot of the Communion Table. And pray:
God of mercy, we place before you know the concerns of our hearts and ask that, throughout the week ahead, you would reveal your light and mercy. Help us to receive your grace and your help with joy. Allow us to see where you are at work in the world even in the most difficult circumstances. We give thanks to you in Christ’s name. Amen.
God’s mercy – past, present, and future – restores us to the life intended for us. Streams of mercy never ceasing tunes our hearts to sing God’s grace.
Let’s sing together now and prepare ourselves to gather at the table of mercy.
Amen.
Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor
Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / May 1, 2022