"Undaunted By December"
Living in the wilderness and returning home: our mortality and God's immortality
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, December 30, 2001
Text: Psalm 90
At this time of the year, or particularly after January 1st, I have a conundrum: I never quite know what to say to people. Now, I know you might think it's hard for me to be short on words at any time, but I really am.
When I've gone to the coffee shop for the past month I've been able to thank the clerk who's been serving me for the past month by saying Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas. Or, when I've seen the parking lot attendant, I wished him a Happy New Year. When I've gone into a store and someone served me I was able to say, "I hope that you've enjoyed the gifts that you have," or something to that effect.
But once January 1st is over it seems we're in a barren stage in the world. It's hardly appropriate to go up to a parking lot attendant and wish him a Happy Valentine's Day, is it? Although I suppose he might appreciate someone giving him some love and attention. But you never know quite what to say. There's no word that is seasonal that flows out between the end of the New Year period and the coming of Valentine's Day, or of Easter.
It is a funny period in the life of the world. It seems that everything is a little dormant. Nothing is moving with quite the same speed, grace or clarity. I think many of us, if we're really honest, even feel that emotionally. After the high of the season of Advent and of Christmas we're now moving into a period of dormancy.
There is a wonderful poem by John Neihardt where he talks about this. It is entitled, "Undaunted By December," and there is a wonderful line in it where he says:
Undaunted by Decembers,
The sap is faithful yet.
The giving Earth remembers,
And only men forget.
And what do we forget? We forget that in both good times and in bad, in times of ecstasy when our voices are elevated in praise, as they are during the season of carols and of Advent; in times where there seems to be no real celebration, no real reason for joy; we forget, even in the midst of that, that it is God who goes with us; and it is God who provides for us; and it is God who is our solace. For indeed, the good earth remembers, but only human beings forget.
So you might be saying, well, this all sounds very gloomy at a dark time of the year. Why on earth, then, have you gone and chosen Psalm 90 to lighten us up? Appearances would suggest that Psalm 90 is a rather depressing and banal type of Psalm. With everything about us being like grass withering and dying and God's anger against us, you say, "Well you're really not helping the situation, Andrew; you're only exacerbating it."
Well, I think an initial reading of the Psalm might suggest that, but a deeper reading will reveal something much more profound. In this passage there are words of encouragement for people who go through good times and bad, for those who need to be reassured that God is still sovereign and grace is still manifested in our lives.
Psalm 90 is considered to be one of the greatest pieces of poetry in the whole of the Book of Psalms. So great is it, in fact, that the people of Israel ascribed it to Moses, but there is nothing in here to suggest that Moses was the author and it was probably written much later than his time. Nevertheless, the greatest accolade that you could give a Psalm was to say that Moses wrote it.
It is a Psalm that was written at a time when Israel was wondering what the future held in store for it. Most scholars seemed to agree that it was written in two parts. The first part is verses 1-12, and the second verse 13 to the end. Whoever put it together or whoever made it a whole, we don't know, but the fact of the matter is that it fits as a whole; so much so, that you really can't understand and appreciate the first part without the second.
What strikes me about this Psalm is that it gives a picture of the history of Israel in a poetic and existential form. It starts with Israel being in the wilderness and ends with Israel returning home. This sense of living in wilderness and returning home is a trajectory that goes all the way through the Old and the New Testaments. It is a sense of the people being called and not knowing where they are or where they're to go, but being called home in order that they might find their place, their meaning, their purpose.
The first part, then, is the wilderness. And the wilderness seems to contrast something right away; it contrasts the immortality of God with the mortality of human beings: God is the one who lasts forever, while we are the ones who do not.
I was reading the Toronto Star on Saturday and to my great amazement it listed many of the famous people who have died over the past year and will not be joining us in the new. Many people feel that personally when they have lost a loved one. But I think we often feel it in a cumulative manner. I couldn't help but think when I looked at some of the faces, that these were people who had a profound impact on my life.
There was Mordecai Richler, who gave me a sense of passion for Canadian literature. I'll never forget reading the passage that he wrote in the New Yorker a few years ago, when Canada was on the very edge of survival because of the potential separation of Quebec. It was Mordecai Richler, who in his own unique and inimitable style, was able to capture who and what we really are and why it is important that we exist as a nation.
I think of when I first came to Canada in the 70s, I must admit that I thought all Torontonians looked like Al Waxman. He was the King of Kensington, was he not? I was astonished when I arrived and found out that they were considerably slimmer. But Al Waxman was an image in my mind, as a newcomer to Canada, of what a Canadian was.
I looked at the top left-hand corner and I saw Rachel Gurney, with whom I was enthralled as a young boy, and who was so elegant in Upstairs Downstairs. Now, she no longer exists.
Then (of course, you all know I play the guitar), who could not mourn the loss of George Harrison, who brought a simple sound, a simple strum and a few good chords together, and made wonderful music?
I realized that these people are gone. I'm entering a new year and icons of the past no longer exist. People who, in my mind, I thought would live forever. So the writer of the Psalms is not being morbid. The writer of the Psalms is not filled with some sort of negative, existential angst. He's stating a reality. The reality is that God is eternal while we are not.
But then there is a word of hope. So we go on. So God is eternal and we are not. Nevertheless, "God is our dwelling place," he says. "God is our home." Wherever Israel would go, there was one thing that they could be assured of, and that was that the Lord their God would go with them.
This was the very promise at the beginning when Abraham left Ur. It was there when Moses crossed the sea and reached the Promised Land. It was a message that when Israel was destitute, divided and conquered by the Babylonians, that God would still be their dwelling place and the temple would always be with them.
For the earliest Christians, even when Jesus, in our text from Matthew, is driven out of his homeland and forced into Egypt, again the image of the exile and the return, of the wilderness and the coming home, is there. Throughout the whole of the Bible there is this theme that God is always the dwelling place for the people of Israel. And whether they were able to put their tent pegs into the ground and build their tabernacles, whether they were able to erect their temples, whether they were able to ascribe and aspire to be the monarch, didn't matter. The fact of the matter is that God is the dwelling place for the people of Israel.
That is why the Psalmist goes on to say that God is everlasting. You see, the dwelling place, the security of Israel, is not found in just owning a land, it is found in the very presence of the covenant of God.
For those who are looking for feminine ideas or images of God, one of the most beautiful is here in this Psalm, where the psalmist writes: "From everlasting to everlasting thou art God - before the mountains were ever created or the world was born, before you even gave birth to the world." There's the image: God existed - from everlasting to everlasting.
Then he goes back again, and says, "God is everlasting. God gives birth to the world. God creates ex nihilo (out of nothing), but we are still transitory. We are like grass." This is an image that was picked up by the great prophet Isaiah, it was picked up by Peter in his first letter, when he talked about us being like grass that is blown around, that we do not live forever.
I think one of the most amazing things, ethically, about the last year is the beginning of the discussion of cloning. I've often wondered what the great impulse is for cloning. I must confess I have great reservations and worries about it. It seems something that is going to be more open to abuse than any good that it can do, but I might be proven wrong.
One of the things within us is an impulse to be immortal. There is an impulse to recreate ourselves. An impulse to last longer in order that we can perhaps, give birth to something that can give us, to use a mechanical term, "spare parts" to keep us running. So this impulse for cloning is an impulse to deny the fact that we are grass. To try to recreate ourselves to keep ourselves going. To find immortality.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear. The immortality that we are given, the immortality and the grace that we have are a gift. We are like grass; it is God who is everlasting. The home that we have is the home that God gives us on this earth. And it is God alone who both makes us and can save us. That is the message of the scriptures.
There is a wonderful point at the end of the first stanza, where the lesson comes in: that we are to count our days, or to number our days. We are given, according to the scriptures, 70 or 80 years if we are lucky but the fact of the matter is, our days are numbered. Why do we need to count our days?
We need to count our days precisely because we must understand what really matters. We must not be so absorbed with ourselves, so wrapped up within our own existence that we forget to live the life that God has given us. To give of ourselves to others as God has given to us. To lay down our lives (to use the words of the Bible) for the sake of others.
There is a delightful story told of a young man in Paris who went to visit one of the leading Parisian doctors. When he got there he said: "Doctor, I am depressed, and I am miserable. What should I do?"
The doctor said: "Actually, there is a young man here in the city who is living the most exciting life. He is cutting a swath through society. In the cafés people listen to what he has to say. He brings people in and gives them a party. I suggest that you look up this man called Grimaldi and when you have found him, I can assure you that you will know how to live a happy life."
The young man, a sardonic look on his face, said: "Doctor, I am Grimaldi."
You see, my friends, if we try to think that somehow, just by virtue of our own activity, our own passions, we are going to be able to live a life that is full and complete, the psalmist is reminding us, "No, no, no! It is from everlasting to everlasting is God." God is our dwelling place, and we are like grass. Our days are numbered and we need to take stock of that in order that we might know what is really important.
Which brings us to the return and the good news. There is a wonderful line where the psalmist says, "O, satisfy us, O God, satisfy us that our hearts may be pleased with you, that we may know you, that we may love you all our days." I think that in this day and age, men and women are genuinely seeking satisfaction. They're trying to find it in so many different ways and often they are virtues but frequently they are vices. Sometimes, even by denouncing vices, which we do very well in the church, I think, we sometimes have the opposite effect on society.
This reminds me of a preacher who decided that he wanted to preach on the evils of drinking and of whiskey. And so he got up one Sunday and started to rant and rave and warn the congregation of all the evils that were lying before them. He said: "Do you realize that the owner of the bar in this city drives the best car? Do you realize that the owner of the bar has the biggest house in the community? Do you realize that the owner of the bar wears the finest attire that you can ever imagine? And it's all because of you. You are the ones who are paying for it by continually going to the bar."
The minister sat down, thinking he had preached a very prophetic sermon. The next week he ran into a man from his congregation who had been a very heavy drinker and he said, "George, how nice to see you."
And George said: "I've got to tell you, Reverend, that was the most meaningful sermon I have ever heard in my life. Thank you so much."
And the minister said: "You are very welcome indeed. I am pleased that it was of some help. And, did it stop you drinking?"
George said: "No, Reverend, but I decided to buy the bar."
For people who are searching for something, we can give them entirely the wrong message. The right message, in my opinion, is the message of grace that has within it the word of judgement, not the other way around. And the message of grace that we find within Psalm 90 is that people will be satisfied. People will find life. People will find grace and the work of their hands (to use the term of the Psalm) will be beautiful when we find favour with our God.
This is a message that I believe our world is crying out to hear. As we stand on the eve of a new year, there are countless people in this city who are genuinely seeking a life that is meaningful, a life that has purpose, a life that has beauty, in which they have found favour. Then when they have found it, the work of their hands becomes beautiful.
450 or more years ago, in a small town outside of Nuremberg in Germany, there was a family that had 18 children. The 18 children lived in the greatest poverty. No matter how hard the father worked (even 18 hours a day, seven days a week) Mr. Dürer was unable to give the children everything that they needed. He would say to them, "I'm sorry, you can't have this, you can't have that, you can't have the other."
Two of the sons, however, decided that they weren't going to live like that. Both discovered that they had a great penchant for art and a great ability to craft things. So one night, the two young men went into their room and devised a plan. The only way that either of them could go to the academy to study art was if one of them went to work in a mine for four years to pay for the other to be able to study. Once he had finished his studies, he would come home to work in the mine in order that the other could study. They flipped a coin, on a Sunday night after church, and Albrecht won.
Albrecht went out to the academy in Nuremberg and Albert went to work in the mines. For four years Albrecht was one of the most astounding students of the academy, so much so that he became wealthy selling his paintings, etchings and sculptures. He became so famous that his teachers recognized that he had a greater ability than even they had. They would show his art to demonstrate what their classes could produce.
At the end of four years, Albrecht Dürer came home. A big party was held in the garden of the house. The parents, though not having much money, decided that their son had risen so far above the quagmire of his life that they wanted to recognize him. Albrecht got up and gave a speech thanking his brother Albert. Then he said, "Now, I want all of you to know that it is now Albert's turn. I am going to work in the mine and Albert is going to the academy."
Albert began to weep. He cried, "No, no, no I can't go. I can't go." And he ran out.
His brother Albrecht ran after him. When he caught up with him he said, "Why won't you do this? You have been so kind to me."
He said, "Look at my hands. Every single finger has been broken at least twice while mining. Arthritis has set into my thumbs and I can't even hold the glass to celebrate your successes. How will I ever be able to paint?"
And so, Albert Dürer did not go to school, but Albrecht's work is in many of the great galleries throughout Europe.
There is probably only one piece, however, that Albrecht Dürer produced that you and I might know of. It is a painting of two hands belonging to his brother. Many of us know it as the Praying Hands. I have a copy in my office.
Whenever we think that we are self-sufficient, that we are self-made and that our existence is the only existence that matters, those Praying Hands remind us that we never do it alone, any more than we live alone. For indeed, where God dwells there is our home, and when we succeed there is God's hand, and when we give, there is God's spirit. That is why Psalm 90 reminds us that we must not be daunted by December, but recognize the presence of the everlasting. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.