Psalms: Satisfied

Rev. Dr. Seth Thomas

St James Presbyterian Church

Psalms • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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Psalm 86:1–10 NRSV

1 Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; 3 be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all day long. 4 Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. 5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you. 6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my cry of supplication. 7 In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me. 8 There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. 9 All the nations you have made shall come and bow down before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. 10 For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.

Psalm 86:16–17 NRSV

16 Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your serving girl. 17 Show 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.

This Summer, we’re spending some time looking at the Psalms of the church lectionary cycle, Psalms that punctuate the readings from our Gospels and speak to the emotions behind all that we do as we go through life in the world. The Psalms are the emotional center of the Scriptures, rich with joy and deep with lament. If we look at the Scriptures as merely stories or miraculous deeds, but overlook the heartfelt cries of the Psalms, we overlook an entrance into our own selves and the understanding we seek of others.

Before I dive into this Psalm a bit, I want to remind us: the Psalms are meant to be prayed and sung. These are poems, songs, prayers that speak of the heart of the writer and speak to our own situations.

Many of you know I just finished three years of intense study and writing in pursuit of a doctorate of ministry. I love to read and I love to fill my head with philosophies and concepts that will help me lead and grow as a person. Books that stimulate my imagination. By the end of it, though, I was burned out, so full of ideas that I could barely pick up a book for a while.

In these last couple of months, though, I’ve found solace and respite in turning to a different form of literature — poetry. Poetry is by no means as linear or focused as much of the readings I’ve been doing, but I am so grateful for it as a different mode of exploring the self.

Some of my favorite poets include Christian Wiman, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, and Maya Angelou. These writers speak to the beauty of life and how Spirit intersects with some of the most mundane ways we encounter the world. Poetry with soul, I like to think of it.

We need to hear these words, the words of the heart, because they help us approach our understanding of the world from fresh perspectives, new angles.

Recently, I’ve come across a new poet that I’m taken with, by the name of Malcolm Guite. I mentioned him at the beginning of Lent and read a selection of his.

Today, I want to reread our Psalm and then read his exposition on the text from his collection of poetry called “David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms.” The poems weave new language into the Psalms, giving us a fresh hearing on what may sometimes be rote or tired words.

Here our Psalm again:

Psalm 86:1–10 NRSV

Psalm 86:16–17 NRSV

And now, hear Malcolm Guite’s restated exploration of it:

Psalm 86: Inclina, Domine

That we may flourish in your tenderness Bow down and hear the whispers of our fear Our restless misery, our emptiness

Without you, Christ come close to me and hear! Come close and comfort me in troubled times, I need your mercy now for I despair

Of any other help. The telling chimes Of every passing bell might be my own. Lift up my soul, and breathe through my poor rhymes

That I might lay these lines before your throne A frail corona wreathed of fading flowers To set against the gold of David’s crown,

Wrought in the pattern of my passing hours. O you, who raised me from the depths of hell, Kindle these lines with all your quickening powers.

Poetry can open our hearts up to a new hearing of an old idea. It can awaken us to see something from a new light.

And so it is with the Psalms, in their own right. Surely, these texts are offerings by the original author as their heartfelt cries to God for circumstances that we have very little understanding or context of. We know pieces of David’s story, but can’t say we fully understand his humanity or motivations. But the Psalms can give us a deeper glimpse into feeling and emotions that he and others carried with them and they now offer us a view point into our own humanity and struggles, if we allow them to. If we allow them to read us, to expose in us the places that we are longing for God to turn to us, be gracious to us. Show us favor and comfort us.

Have you felt this way before, longing for God to turn to you and satisfy your needs? Have you felt like God is far off, hard to reach, maybe ignoring you when the struggles of life rise up around you?

Have you spoken these things to God, in prayer or in song? Have you spoken of your needs?

I’ve titled this emotional Psalm sermon “satisfied” because as I read these words, I hear such longing from David to have God see his needs and meet them.

And I’ve wondered, what would it really be like to be satisfied? To have my needs heard and met? For God to actually turn an ear and listen to me, to us.

What would it even look like to be satisfied?

We live in a culture that pushes us to achieve and always seek more, more, more. Satisfaction and success come from the accumulation of possessions and wealth and status, right?

I was thinking a bit this week about times I’ve been satisfied or times I’ve tried to be, but could never reach it.

I remember the first time I discovered I could eat a lot…like…a lot of pizza. It was my friend Danny’s birthday and he had a few friends over to spend the night. His parents purchased ample pizza and sodas for our unruly group of elementary school boys. And, in the abundance of pizza, I kept eating. I remember eating almost a whole Little Caesars pepperoni pizza that night. I’m not sure where my little 8 or 9 year old body put all of that food, but I did it.

But I also remember thinking: I’m not really full. I mean I could keep going. I was not satisfied. And I’ve had this happen a number of times since…thankfully I’ve started to realize this isn’t the healthiest choice.

Before you write me off as a glutton or feel shame in yourself for all the times you’ve done something similar, let’s think about this: what are we seeking when we push the limits seeking satisfaction and satiation?

I often wonder if there will be a point of arrival, where all the doing, all the ingesting, all the seeking, all the achieving will finally line up to make me happy or fulfilled. Satisfied.

Sadly, I have not found that sweet spot, that moment when it lines up and, through all the striving, it is achieved.

Not that I haven’t kept trying to pursue it.

Here, we find that David teaches us something invaluable: Our satisfaction, our healing, our hope — it does not arrive from something we do for or in ourselves. We will keep seeking wholeness, keep eating another slice, keep trying to find the words that say it just right, keep reconfiguring our lives in hopes that this time, it will work.

But are we satisfied? Have you been satisfied this way?

If you have, bless you. But for me, I’ve found that it just doesn’t work. When I’m in trouble, like David, or when I’m down and need support and a bit of propping up, it doesn’t come from just inside me or through seeking out the pleasures that the world promises will help.

And so we break down. We struggle. We turn in on ourselves and turn against others. Because we’re seeking satisfaction where it cannot be found.

Bummer, right?

Is this what we are left with? This existential realization that it’s all meaningless and can never fulfill our desires?

Sadly, that is where many of us find ourselves and what the wisdom of our age seems to say: it’s never gonna be enough. So either keep striving or just get used to dissatisfaction.

Thankfully, though, that’s not what we believe and that’s not the story of the Good News of God.

I return to Malcom Guite’s poetry, as it offers a taste of the goodness of God which actually does satisfy:

Christ come close to me and hear! Come close and comfort me in troubled times, I need your mercy now for I despair of any other help.

When help from external sources, striving and success seeking, fails. When our enemies turn against us, when the systems of the world let us down or actively seek to destroy us. When we realize we are our own worst enemies, when we seek healing but only find harm. This is when we realize: our help comes from the Lord, Christ alone.

The Good News for us this morning is that we have a God who we can turn to in these times and find true satisfaction. We have a comforter, an advocate, a friend in Christ Jesus.

Maybe we don’t believe this. Or maybe we don’t think we have the right words to say that will allow us to really truly invite Jesus into this part of ourselves.

This is where the Psalms are such a healing tool, a poetic salve, songs of restoration. We can turn to these Psalms and pray through them and find that they are speaking the language of our emotions and the longings of our souls.

I’ll close with some really practical teaching:

First, there are 150 Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. We’re about to come up on a new month, July. If you read 5 Psalms a day each day of July, you would be able to read through the whole Psalter. Or if you started in July, reading one Psalm every day, you could read through all the Psalms by the beginning of Advent this year. Maybe this is an opportunity, a time to turn to these texts and find that they might actually speak to some of the things you have not been able to speak of in your life and faith up to now.

Second, I want to make a note about language and the Scriptures. The many Bible translations out in the world are generally really helpful. But some are more cumbersome and less approachable than others. If reading and praying the Psalms feels awkward, maybe it’s time to find a new telling of it. Maybe you want to pick up a copy of Eugene Peterson’s “The Message” which retells the whole Scripture in modern language. Maybe you want to go back to the King James Version, not for it’s translation accuracy, but for the flourishing, old language that might strike you anew. Or maybe there’s some other translation that would be helpful. If you want to get advice on a text to pick up and start re-reading these Psalms, let me know. Actually, we have a number of biblical scholars and folks in this congregation who are deeply familiar with the translations of scripture and I’m sure would love to help. Ask a friend — what Bible do you read. I prefer the New Revised Standard Version (which you find in your pews) and something called the New Living Translation, which offers a little more “modern” reading. Grab a Bible and explore these texts!

Ok. That’s all for now. Are you satisfied? May we all pray these word in our hearts together: “Show 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.”

Psalms: Satisfied

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