Those Hills and That God

The Sunday Sermon:  September 5, 2021 – 15th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture:  Psalm 121


Those Hills and That God

Listen for the Word of God from Psalm 121.  Read Psalm 121 … The Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

“We lift our eyes to the hills …”  “Why?  What is ‘up’ there?”  I’m going to tell you what I’ve seen this week.  What I’ve discerned in the mountains around us.

Some commentators note that because of the context, a journey, the singer of this psalm could probably actually see Mount Zion in the distance, God’s holy mountain and the place of the temple.  And if this is the case, then “the hills” we hear about refer to a source of “help.”  The psalmist answers his question in the second part of verse one, with that hill. Mt. Zion, in view.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?”  The hills, themselves, specifically Mt. Zion in the distance, the home of God.

Those commentators, because of this understanding of the Psalm’s context, find comfort in the hills.  And I know that most, if not all of us, do as well.  Over and over, through many, many years, we too have heard the Psalm read this way, most often disregarding the punctuation that is even present in the King James translation:

I look to the hills from whence cometh my help.

We take no pause and ask no question.  But the hyphen and the question mark are there in all the most used translations.

You see, the psalm, set in the context of a pilgrimage, images pilgrims on their way to the sanctuary in Jerusalem.  They may be able to see Mt. Zion at this point in their journey, but In that case, God is there – in the sanctuary, in Jerusalem … not in the hills.  And if that is the case, then we must ask, “Why is this traveler lifting his eye to the hills?  What’s up there? What is in those hills?  

Pray with me … (Gracious God, as you have blessed the reading and hearing of your Word, so too bless the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts through its proclamation – you who are our rock and redeemer.  Amen.)

What is in those hills? 

Well, let’s consider that for anyone on a journey in ancient Palestine, “the hills” on any journey always contained some potential problems.  They could conceal a host of difficulties and dangers – steep drop-offs and falling rocks, paths for rushing waters and flash floods, wild animals, hiding bandits, and more.  Understanding these possibilities changes our reading entirely.  If the hills hold, not “God,” but potential peril, then the question the psalmist asks is not a rhetorical one, not one he already knows the answer to.  It is one of deep concern, this question of help and from whence it will come.

Hearing the second part of the first verse as a genuine question about needed help, and not an answer to a rhetorical question, is appropriate for absolutely any part of our own faith journey, including the Sunday before another “ministry year” begins.  Such a question puts us in direct touch with our own anxieties and our authentic neediness at this time of this year.  

We look to the hills … Will we be able to safely meet in the classrooms that are begin prepared for us?  Will we be able to have the fac-to-face conversations that we so desperately need to have in order to take the necessary steps forward in our changed world?  Will we make it to our destination?  Or will we slide off the path of loose dirt, be run down by a falling boulder, be beset by bandits?  What lies ahead for us?  

Good questions to ask.

If we can recognize what stands between us, or looms around us, and what we are being called to, if we recognize the hills that obscure our view, making passage to that place more difficult, holding potential threats, then our responses in the weeks ahead can be filled with a care for everyone, practices that make all feel as comfortable as possible, and a trust in that something that surrounds us, guides us, and when properly understood protects us from all that desires to diminish us and our time together.

Next week – let’s imagine it – we “leave once again for Jerusalem.”  It’s a bit overused, I know, but it’s still true and maybe helpful:  Our lives together in this place, with all those who came before us and all those who will come after, is a journey.  A journey that began on the day we arrived here at Pewee Valley Presbyterian (think of your own arrival – weeks ago, years ago, or decades ago).  God breathed you into the life of this faith community.  One day we will breathe our last here in this place, of course, because of our physical departure or earthly death, but in between those two breaths we continue on a journey that doesn’t end, but begins anew all the time.

Our journey together is made up of an untold number of smaller journeys, each of them contributing to our wholeness.  For most of this last year and half we’ve journeyed together – apart, separated because of the COVID virus and our deep concern for one another’s well-being.  It’s been hard.  It was full of fantastic, wonderful, beautiful new ways of worshipping, studying, “fellowshipping”, and caring for one another, but it’s been hard.  The hills all around us have been, and are, fraught with “dangers, toils, and snares.”  Truthfully, we don’t honesty know the toll it’s taken on us.  We’re on this journey again and next week, we are planning to arrive, prepared to begin another ministry year, hoping against hope that it can be together in the classrooms and the Gathering Room, and this sacred space.  The weeks past and the week ahead, however … those hills still surround us.  Our own lethargy and laziness, our uncertainty about others and how they are being responsible for us, a loss of deep community that will require some extra effort, and our continual fear.  Those hills … we are looking to them.  From where will our help come?

Finally … verse two.  “Our help comes from the Lord,” from that God.

Our God, the one whose “tiny box” we tore open just last week … Not a god that we sit around waiting for; not a god that is expressed only as a who, personal as our God is; not a “super being” external to life.  But a God in which we “live and move and have our being”. Acts 17:28 A God who is also, and maybe even more, recognizable for us as, a “what,” a “when,” a “where,” and a “how.”  A God within – the world, our community, ourselves acting through them, through us, intricately attached to all of creation, including … those hills.  It is that God that offers “our help,” every moment of every day, every day of every week, every week of every year for all our life long.

Our challenge, the spiritual challenge of our lives, lies in discovering God within and among those hills – all the activities and commitments and relationships we have with others and with the realities of the world around us.  That God is in those hills.  Whenever we lift our eyes to those hills, it is to that God that we turn for help, our God that is already at work calling us to join in all that offers life.

It has been suggested that the first verse of each of the couplets in our psalm this morning was not originally a declaration, but a question, to which the second verse was the answer.  We still have that in verses one and two, but if the other verses originally followed that pattern, then we have a powerful promise from our God, over and over again in this reading:

            I lift my eyes to the hills – from whence will my help come?

                        Your help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

Will God not let my foot be moved or slumber while protecting me?

                        God, who keeps you will neither slumber nor sleep.

            Will the Lord really be my keeper and the shade at my right hand?

                        The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night.

            Will the Lord keep me from all evil and will God keep my life?

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forward and forevermore.

That is the divine promise, over and over and over again.  The hills hold nothing for us to fear, if we but trust in God to guide us.  Our danger is ourselves, and our difficulties are the excuses we come up with, every year, to give less and offer less of ourselves because we are tired, bored, or afraid.  This year we have more reason to be cautious and careful, to “look to the hills” and pay attention.  But (as we hoped for earlier) maybe, just maybe, we have recognized what stands between us and what God is calling us to.  Perhaps we have identified our hills and their hazards – the Delta variant of the COVID virus; our own lack of energy and commitment; our desire to “stay at rest”.  And with a better understanding of what we are afraid of, our responses may come less from our laziness or fear, and more from our trust and faith in that which promises to “keep our whole life.”

Somewhere along the line, an editor named Psalm 121 “A Song of Ascents,” probably because it was a song sung by pilgrims on their journey to the sanctuary in Jerusalem.   And the thing that turns any journey into a journey of “ascent” is that an individual or a church perceives that to embark upon it is to respond to the God who calls us to leave one place for another.  When we let, not those hills, but our God – that God – decide our future then we are truly on the right path.

We are preparing for another arrival.  And with the aid of passages like Psalm 121 we remember the stories of faith from our scripture, the testimonies of all those who have travelled before us in this place and who travel with us in our church today, and we remember our own experiences here – in the valley, Pewee Valley, between the hills of our lives with That God as our keeper.  How can we not respond to all that has been done and all that can be done through this community?

The hills should no longer hold us captive.  We have seen what they contain and we have chosen to journey through them, with God so that we may arrive at our destination:  Communion with one another through the sharing of lives, the expanding of minds, and the deepening of community.  Let us prepare to gather around our table to remember that the Lord, indeed, keeps our going out and our coming in from this time on and forevermore.

Amen.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / September 5, 2021