June 7, 2020
Psalm 85
We Have Forgotten God
I’ve said many times how much I
enjoy preaching through the Gospel of Mark.
You can’t go wrong exploring the words and actions of Jesus. And I also know that I am most effective in
my preaching when I can systematically go through a biblical book, building truth
upon truth as we journey through a text.
But there are times when it is
necessary to step aside from the progression of a series and address what is
happening around us. Today is one of
those times.
Our whole nation was shocked,
grieved, and angered at the brutality of officer Derrick Chauvin as he literally
choked the life out of George Floyd while he pled for mercy. And all the while, three other officers just
stood around without saying anything while their colleague committed murder in front
of a crowd. Any moral person, regardless
of race or political persuasion, has been outraged. It was no surprise then, that many in the
black community and those who stand with them in their struggle took to the
streets to protest this heinous injustice.
And then it went south. The outrage over George Floyd’s murder that
we all shared was hijacked by violent riots in many cities across our
country. The outrageous behavior of a
rogue policeman was overshadowed by the outrageous behavior of criminals and
anarchists. George Floyd was no longer the only victim. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent business
owners have had their lives ruined by the indiscriminate violence of rioters
and looters. I have no doubt that a good deal of the
violence has been perpetrated by those who are intent on destroying our
culture. There is evidence to support
that. One of Galesburg’s own residents
was arrested for distributing bombs to rioters in Chicago. There are others, however, caught up in the explosion
of hatred and violence happening around them, who joined in the rioting out of
a lifetime of frustration over the injustice they’ve experienced. The struggles they’ve known don’t justify
their violent and immoral behavior, but perhaps it does help us to
understand.
All of this, of course, comes
against the backdrop of a pandemic and a population that has been quarantined in
their homes for over two months. Lying
even deeper at the root of our malaise is the deep partisan polarization that
divides us as a people. The truth is,
for some people, that divide morphs into hatred for our fellow citizens and
leaders of the opposing party. We’re in
a bad place. This is our moment. We can’t hide or sweep our sickness under the
rug. We own it.
In another era of deep polarization,
during the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln made this declaration
for a day of national fasting:
"May we
not justly fear that the awful calamity of Civil War, which now desolates the
land, may be but a punishment, inflicted on us, for our presumptuous sins, to
the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the
recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these
many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and
power, as no other nation has grown. But we have forgotten God."
National Fast Day Proclamation
March 1863
We have forgotten God. If it was true in 1863, it is certainly true
in America today. To forget God is a
fatal mistake for any people. Israel
knew that all too well.
Psalm 85 (NIV)
you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
You
forgave the iniquity of your people
and covered all their sins.
You
set aside all your wrath
and turned from your fierce anger.
and put away your displeasure toward us.
Will
you be angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger through all
generations?
Will
you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you?
Show
us your unfailing love, Lord,
and grant us your salvation.
he promises peace to his people, his
faithful servants—
but let them not turn to folly.
Surely
his salvation is near those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.
Love and faithfulness meet
together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from
the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what
is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness goes before him
and
prepares the way for his steps.
Unpacking the Psalm
We need to be clear: America is
not Israel. We are not the chosen
people. This psalm is specific to the history and circumstances of Israel, but
there are lessons to be learned and a spiritual posture to be adopted from this
psalm for us as American Christians. I’ll
spend a little bit of time unpacking it.
This is technically not a psalm
of lament. There is no complaint
expressed. But there is obviously a cry
for help. The psalm may have been
written during the 70-year Jewish exile, but it is also true that there were
many times beyond the exile when God’s blessing was removed from Israel and this psalm
would have their desire for the return of his favor.
The psalm begins with a
recitation of God’s history with his people.
You, Lord,
showed favor to your land;
you restored the fortunes of Jacob.
You forgave the
iniquity of your people
and covered all their sins.
You set aside
all your wrath
and turned from your fierce anger.
It seems that the biggest
problem God’s people have is our short memory.
As Lincoln said, “We have forgotten God.” God is good.
Always. God is merciful and forgives. He is always eager to restore his
relationship with us. We’re the problem,
not God. We forget. We need to remember.
In the next section of the psalm,
the cry for restoration is voiced:
Restore us
again, God our Savior,
and put away your displeasure toward us.
Will you be
angry with us forever?
Will you prolong your anger through all
generations?
Will you not
revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in you?
Show us your
unfailing love, Lord,
and grant us your salvation.
In our Scripture reading this
morning, the cry is similar, “Restore us, O God; make your face to shine upon
us, that we may be saved” (Psalm 80:3). That is the cry of a desperate people. Until
we recognize our own desperate situation, there really is no hope for us. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” I
wonder if we as a people have reached that place of desperation. Our problems lie much deeper than racism and
anarchy, as heinous as those issues are.
We as a people are completely lost and we don’t even know it. We still trust in our wealth, in a stock
market and an economy that is on thin ice.
We think our government and our democratic political process will save
us. If we can only get the bad people out
and the people that we like in office, our country will turn around, we think. Since the year 2000, we’ve had eight years of
a conservative Republican administration, eight years of a progressive
Democratic administration, and lately three-and-a-half years of a Republican
administration in the White House. And
our country is continuing to circle the drain of civic undoing. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House
or controls the Legislature. We’re lost
if we have forgotten God. God is hardly
in our national conversation. He has been
muzzled. He is not allowed. We don’t know how desperate we are as a
nation. Until we do, there is little
hope for us.
But there is hope when we invite
God back into our national life. The psalm
continues with an important statement of intention:
I will listen to what God the Lord says;
he promises peace to his people, his
faithful servants—
but let them not turn to folly.
Surely his
salvation is near those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.
But will we listen? Preach this sermon to most people in America
today and they will laugh and scoff. God
promises peace if we listen to him. But
we want peace through our own means. And
our own means will always turn to selfish foolishness. That is what we are seeing played out before
our very eyes today. The psalm gives
this promise: “Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that his
glory may dwell in our land.” But what
of a people who don’t fear God? The
implication is being played out on our streets, through news and entertainment
companies, and it floods the internet through social media.
If we would only remember,
return, and listen to the God who is sovereign over all the nations. It is there where we would find what we are
all yearning for:
Love and
faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness
springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will
indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness
goes before him
and
prepares the way for his steps.
A Call to Prayer
I’m old enough to remember
1968. I was only in Junior High at the
time, but for a young person, I was very aware of current events and the
political environment of the day. 2020
seems an awful lot like 1968. There was
a pandemic called the Hong Kong Flu. And
though we weren’t quarantined, it impacted many people. Thankfully, we haven’t had assassinations,
but 1968 saw the killing of two significant national leaders, Martin Luther
King and Robert Kennedy. King’s assassination
was the spark that lit the explosion of violence and riots that spread across
our nation in city after city, much like today.
Completing the comparison, 1968 was also an election year, just like
this year. All political historians
agree that 1968 was a watershed year for our country. All the social pressures that lie underneath
our national life erupted in cultural upheaval that year. This year seems the same.
But I have hope. Because, you see, the upheaval of 1968 let to
a massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit in what was called the Jesus People Movement. Young people were deeply disillusioned with
what they had experienced in American life.
Many of the young men were shipped off to Vietnam only to lose their
life or their soul in an unwinnable war.
They were the first generation to participate in the sexual revolution
only to find that is was empty and dehumanizing in the end. So they turned to drugs and eastern religion in
order to find the peace they so desperately yearned for. That, too, was a dead end and only deepened
their disillusionment. They were
desperate.
And then, they found Jesus. There wasn’t a special program of evangelism that
sparked their turn to God. It just
happened. It was an outpouring of the
Spirit that convinced those who had ears to hear that their life was empty and
true life and peace was only to be found in Jesus. It was a movement that changed the trajectory
of our national life.
If God could do that then, he
could again, in 2020. As his people, we
need to
Remember
Recognize
our desperation
Repent
and listen
Receive
his blessing by faith
Prayer
O Holy Father, we come “with our
tail between our legs.” We remember your
goodness and your unfailing kindness towards us and all of your people. We sing with firm determination, “Great is
your faithfulness” and “Never once have you left us on our own.” We remember and recognize the great privilege
that you have given us to live in this great land. And we remember your sovereign power in
preserving us through the very difficult days of our founding, the Civil War
and two World Wars. Sovereign Lord, it is your
hand of grace that has been upon us though have not deserved your mercy and
blessing.
But we come to you in desperate
straits this morning. Our sins are
many. We’ve been confronted once again
with our dehumanizing racism that stains our national soul. It is a stain that we have not been able to
wash away, even with the cataclysm of our Civil War. We recognize our sin. Lord, help us to repent. To see your image in everyone, regardless of
skin color, political affiliation, or economic status. Lord, we’ve sinned against each other. Come and heal our sickness and bring us
together in righteousness and peace.
But our sin goes much deeper
than our disregard and hatred for other people.
We have forgotten you, merciful Father.
As a nation, we have disregarded you.
We have hated you. Help us to see
our foolishness for what it is and to recognize the awful harvest that we are
reaping because of our rebellion against you.
Forgive us as your church for being
apathetic. We have not prayed as we
should. We have counted you only as a
relationship of convenience, pushing you to the margins of our life. Forgive us, Lord. Have mercy.
And pour out your Spirit upon us as you have so many times before. You did it in ’68. Do it again, Lord, or we will surely
perish.
Speak, Lord, in your power and
holiness and we will listen. We know that
it is in your presence only that we will find peace. Like the Apostle Peter, we acknowledge that
you alone have the words of life. Open
our ears and stop our feet from rushing into foolishness. We see the choice before us and we choose to listen
and follow you.
Lord, there are so many agendas
competing for our attention in this broken world. We look to you and to you alone. We eagerly wait for the day when you will
fulfill this Scripture in America:
Love and
faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness
springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will
indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Righteousness
goes before him
and
prepares the way for his steps.
Come and hear our prayer, O
Lord, as we humbly come to you:
Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world...
mercifully...
grant us your peace!
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