Tears in a Bottle
a sermon by wayne mclaughlin
Psalm 56
(This sermon was given the Sunday following the 9-11 attacks)
**********************************************
During the 1930s, at the depth of the Great Depression, a play called Green Pastures was setting a new record on Broadway. It ran through 1,653 consecutive performances until its leading actor, 70 year old Richard Berry Henderson, collapsed and died.
The play depicted God and the angel Gabriel in heaven, peering down at the earth. It was a delightful interpretation of God’s care and concern of a world in which God had allowed humans the freedom of choice, and of how God was despairing over the terrible consequences of the choices which humans continued to make.
In the play, God watches over the world and tries to prepare humanity to meet the demands of life. After Moses and the prophets, God sends Jesus Christ, who shares the suffering and the heartaches of God’s people. But it all seems for naught. Again and again Gabriel wants to blow his trumpet and bring an end to it all.
“Now Lawd, now can I blow the trumpet?,” he asks. And always God holds out in patience, knowing that something far better can come out of it. Poor Gabriel keeps getting more and more exasperated as he watches the chaos and confusion of the people on earth, and he finally yells out, “Everything nailed down is coming loose!”
That’s the way our nation felt last Tuesday when terrorist attacked the symbols of our power. How could this happen in America? It seems like “everything nailed down is coming loose.” That’s why we need to turn to God’s Word and listen to what God has to say.
************
I’ve chosen Psalm 56 this morning because I think God will speak to us through this portion of His Word. There are four things we need to hear from this Psalm of David.
ENEMIES
First, David has enemies.
Verse 1 - all day long foes oppress me.
Verse 2 - My enemies trample on me all day long.
Recently I did an experiment that helped me understand the Psalms better. I read five Psalms a day for thirty days; through the entire Book of Psalms in one month. And one of the things I couldn’t help but notice was how often David or the other authors of the Psalms talk about their enemies. Over and over again the author of the Psalms complains about the people who are “out to get him.” It almost sounds paranoid after a while. But we have to realize that in the Middle East then and now, it pays to be afraid.
Since last Tuesday we too have become more aware of our enemies. They are out to get us. This isn’t a war movie, this is real life.There are people out to get us. The Bible pulls no punches. It tells it like it is. There are enemies in the world. Always will be.
It’s nice to be idealistic and talk about non-violence and everyone getting along. But the Bible warns us not to have our head in the sand.The Biblical bird is the Dove, not the Ostrich. We are to be peacemakers. We are called to work for the reconciliation of the world.But we aren’t called to live with our head in the clouds.
We can be so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good.
While I was at Montreat for Interim Pastor Training, we worshipped together everyday. One morning we sung a hymn in our Presbyterian Hymnal that I haven’t sung very often. I note in my hymnal in my office that we sung it last January, I suppose at the ordination of elders. But I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the words, because when I sung them at Montreat, one line jumped out at me.
I’m speaking of hymn no. 522, “Lord, When I Came Into This Life.” Words written by Fred Kaan in 1976. Let’s look at verse three to get the context for verse four:
Verse 3 -- In all the tensions of my life, Between my faith and doubt, Let Your great Spirit give me hope, Sustain me, lead me out.
Verse 4 -- So, help me in my unbelief, And let my life be true: Feet firmly planted on the earth, My sights set high on You.
That last line is important for us today.
Feet firmly planted on the earth, My sights set high on You.
With our “feet firmly planted on the earth,” we know we must be realistic. Terrorists are not stopped by nice words about peace.They must be captured and imprisoned for life. Or they must be stamped out.
Having said that, let me also say that the way the United States relates to Islamic nations in terms of our rhetoric, our financial aid, our just dealings, our compassion--these factors are of continuing importance for our peace at home.
We do have enemies. We can’t stick our heads in the sand.
The Biblical bird is not the ostrich, it’s the Dove.
*******************
FEELINGS
The second thing Psalm 56 teaches us is that angry feelings are natural when being attacked.
Verse 7: So repay them for their crime; in wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
My feeling last Tuesday was one of anger. I can’t even tell you in church what I was thinking. Anger is an emotion that overlays another emotion, namely, Fear. When attacked, we are naturally afraid, which translates quickly into anger.
Anger can translate quickly into a desire for vengeance and retaliation.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructed those who are His followers to never take revenge; to never retaliate. Of course He wasn’t talking to governments; He was talking to individuals.
As Christians, we are commanded by our Lord to never retaliate or be vengeful toward another individual. But when it comes to whole nations and governments, that’s another animal altogether.
Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 12 gives us God’s Word about our relationships with other individuals. Paul says:
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.Live in harmony with one another... Do not repay anyone evil for evil...If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” [selected verses, NRSV]
That’s a clear teaching. Leave vengeance to God. Leave room for the wrath of God. Let God take care of those people.
There is justice in the world;
sometimes we see it take place;
sometimes it will wait until the final judgment
before God.
But God will take care of it. That’s not our job.
But when you turn to the next chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans (chapter 13), you see a clear teaching about the role of government.
Here’s what Paul says about the role of government:
For it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for [the government] does not bear the sword in vain. It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. [v. 4, NRSV]
The government is God’s instrument for justice. Protecting people from attack is part of the government’s ordained role.
In verse 4 (ch. 13), where it says, “For it [the government] is God’s servant,” the word for “servant” is diakonos, which is the same word for “deacon.” Paul is saying that the government is ordained to be God’s Deacon to carry out certain functions. Sometimes God’s wrath is executed through a properly ordained government.
Individuals are not authorized to carry out vengeance. But governments are authorized to carry out justice and self-defense.
David, in Psalm 56, has feelings of vengeance. That’s a natural feeling. But notice that he places the responsibility for vengeance in God’s hands, not in his own. We can learn from that.
*****************
TEARS
The third thing we can learn from Psalm 56 comes in verse eight:
You have kept count of my tossing; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record? [NRSV]
It may sound like a strange thing, keeping tears in a bottle. But in the Middle East there is a custom of mourners catching their tears in a little bottle, a symbol of their sorrow. They sometimes place the bottle in a tomb or casket. Perhaps that was a custom in David’s day, though instead of a bottle it would be a leather bag.
There have been a lot of tears shed this past week in our country.Thousands and thousands of people have been personally affected by the death of a spouse, a parent, a child, a sibling, a relative, a friend, a co-worker, an acquaintance, a fellow church member, and by fellow Americans.
I found myself crying on Tuesday. I felt attacked as an American. I felt the sorrow of those family members wondering if their loved one had escaped, or knowing that they had not.
It seems such a waste...
a waste of life,
a waste of tears.
But not so.
Psalm 56 tells us that God does not forget. In fact, God catches every tear and (as if were) puts it in a bottle. And that becomes part of the record of that person’s life. Nothing is wasted with God. God never forgets what we’ve been through.
This past week God has filled tons and tons of gallon bottles with the tears of the grieving and the angry. Those tears will not be lost.
You know the shortest verse in the Bible, in John 11...
“Jesus wept.”
God knows about tears. Because He has come among us as a human being in the life and death of Jesus, God knows what it’s like to cry.
Our God is no distant, uncaring God. Our God is as close as our breath, and has walked in our shoes.
Our tears are not wasted. Don’t you love that great Resurrection Chapter in the Bible: 1 Corinthians 15?
I love how it ends...
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Or as the New Century Version puts it,
...because you know that your work in the Lord is never wasted.
God’s filling up those bottles. I don’t know what He’s going to do with them. Maybe He’s going to plant something new, and water it with those tears.
Maybe in the New Heaven and the New Earth God will use the stored up tears to water the Tree of Life which has healing in its leaves.
****************
FAITH
The fourth thing we learn from Psalm 56 is about faith.
Verse 11 -- “In God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?”
In God I trust.
Do we trust God?
Can God be trusted?
There will be those, of course, who will respond to a tragedy like these terrorist attacks, not with faith, but with skepticism. They will say, “Where is your God now?” They will see this atrocious action of innocent people killed as a sign that there is no God.
It all comes down to this: Do we trust God? Can God be trusted?
There’s that verse from James Russell Lowell that Martin Luther King liked to quote a lot:
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
keeping watch above his own.
[from The Present Crisis]
Listen, God’s Word assures us that somehow, mysteriously, all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. [Rom. 8.29, KJV]
Jesus said to His disciples, In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. [Jn. 16.33, NKJV]
The rock bottom assurance that we stand on is the Cross and the Resurrection. In His death on the cross, Jesus sucked the power out of evil and death. The powers of evil and death now have only short-term effects. The long-term effects have been conquered by the Cross.
And in His resurrection, Jesus showed us the mighty arm of God and the victory of God over sin, evil, the devil and death. Christ’s resurrection gave us a glimpse of what is to come.
We have seen the future, and it belongs to God.
There is no other basis for hope. But praise be to God, who has given us the assurance of salvation and deliverance through the life, death and resurrection of His Son, our Lord, Jesus the Christ.
*****************
Which brings me back to where I began...
It seems like everything nailed down is coming loose. But the only thing nailed down that is loose in the world is Jesus the Lord of all. They nailed Him down. And they thought, “That is that.” But you can’t nail down love.
You can’t nail down the eternal power of God.
You can’t nail down Resurrection Life.
You can’t nail down the Holy Spirit.
Make no mistake about it,
there’s something been let loose in the world
that is more powerful than all terrorists on the planet.
In the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth, God has done something that can never be undone. It doesn’t matter how clever evil people are; it doesn’t matter how much money terrorists have; it doesn’t matter how much hate is directed toward innocent people by the powers of the devil...
there’s SomeBody that was nailed down
and has got loose!
Death has been swallowed up in victory!
Where, O Death, is your victory?
Where, O Death, is your sting?
Thanks be to god,
who has given us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immoveable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.
And nothing is wasted!
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!
