Psalm 71:1-8, 17-24 “Rock
of Ages”
There’s a wonderful
children’s book we now have in our library
thanks to Paul and Beverly
Simpson called In God’s Name.
In this story, people can’t
decide God’s name.
It seems that everyone has a
different idea, depending on their point of view.
The sheep herder calls God
shepherd, the soldier called God peacemaker,
the sculptor called God my
rock, the children called God friend.
Finally, at the end of the book,
they realize that no matter how many names we give God, God is still one
God.
Although this is a children’s
story, it recognizes that we human beings
are always searching to know
and name God.
We see this throughout the scriptures, where there are many names for God.
Some of these are from the
Hebrew Bible - the OT.
There is El Shaddai - God Almighty.
Elohim - Strong Creator.
El Elyon
- the Most High.
But besides these formal
names for God,
there are many images for God
scattered throughout the Old and New Testaments.
Of course, God is described
as Father.
But God is also described as
a warrior, a peacemaker, a vineyard owner, a builder,
a king, a husband, a potter,
and a judge.
There are non-human images as
well - God is like an eagle, a lion, a bear,
a hen gathering her brood
under her wings. God is light, wind,
thunder, silence.
What the sheer number and
diversity of all these images tell us
is that there is no one image
of God found in the scriptures.
Still, even recognizing this,
we are going to focus on one image of God for today -
God as our Rock -- because
this images has something to teach us
about God’s faithfulness
throughout our lives.
Today’s scripture reading
comes from Psalm 71 -
a psalm that is worth reading
through in its entirety.
But the portions that we
heard in worship today remind us of God’s enduring presence from the very
moment of our births, until the final days of our lives.
When you hear this psalm,
there is a certain movement in it, a certain pattern.
First there is a petition or
prayer, followed by an expression of trust and praise.
The pattern repeats 3 times
in this psalm,
but it’s actually a typical
pattern for many psalms.
In today’s reading, we hear a
prayer, a petition in v. 1-4,
followed by the expression of
trust/praise in 5-8.
Then again, v. 18 is a
petition, followed by trust and praise in v. 19-24.
The message of the psalm is
clear:
from birth, till the end of
our lives, our help comes from God.
God is our rock, the firm foundation of our
lives.
I hope you’ve been hearing
this message throughout worship today -
in our call to worship led by
Tessa and Grace, which came from 1 Samuel, and
Psalm 95,
in the opening music, from
Psalm 18.
In fact, all of us were given
a stone, a rock at the beginning of worship,
as a concrete reminder of God
as our Rock, God’s strength in our lives, God’s recurring faithfulness.
God is our rock was a
recurring image for the Hebrews, occurring throughout the OT.
Even, so it seems that these
Hebrews, the chosen people, God’s favored ones,
had a tendency to forget this
idea. So do we.
We get ourselves in trouble,
and we don’t turn to God until we are in the deepest pit.
The idea that God is our
refuge, our strength, our rock, has to be repeated over and over.
Why are we such a forgetful
people of God?
If God is to be our helper,
we must learn to depend on God as our Rock.
And so the early Hebrews
recited and sang these psalms.
Psalms from their earliest
origins were used in public worship.
Most often they were probably
chanted, but there are indications that instruments, choirs, and dance also
accompanied the psalms. The early Christian church continued to use the psalms
as their prayer and hymn book.
If we read from Colossians 3,
the early Christians were instructed
to sing psalms, hymns, and
spiritual songs to God, with gratitude in their hearts.
All this served not only to
praise and glorify God,
but to teach, to build a
foundation of faith for the next generation.
The Hebrew people knew that
they needed to pass along their faith in this way -
maybe in ways that we don’t
always recognize.
In Deut. 6:4-9, there is a
passage of scripture I often use as a reminder of our obligation
to share the faith with our
youngest participants:
“Hear O Israel the Lord is
our God, the Lord alone. You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and
with all your might. Keep these words
that I am commanding you today in your heart.
Recite them to your children
and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie
down and when you rise. Bind them as a
sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,
and write them on the
doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
This mandate to pass along
our faith is as important today as it ever was.
We are to teach our children
about God, through worship,
through education, through
our works of service.
Today we are celebrating our
children’s participation in the life of our church.
When we do this, we are
recognizing in some way that it’s important for our children to be here,
learning about God in a way
that will build a foundation for their lives.
This can’t be just the
church’s job. The ancient Hebrews knew
this.
One of the most effective
ways of teaching children about God is when the church and home partner
together.
Today some of you were part
of a special workshop for parents and children.
In that workshop we learned
about research that indicates that there are some simple things parents can do
at home to strengthen their children’s faith.
There are just four of them, and one of the things
we did today was make a
toolbox with reminders of these four tools in the box.
They are caring conversations. Family prayer time. Family service time. And Family traditions.
At the same time, being part
of a church, a community that worships God every week, forms children in
powerful ways. That is one of the
reasons we have taken time today to celebrate our children in the life of our
church. We want to encourage them.
Children witness their parents and other caring adults pray and sing,
learn and worship.
We are being watched - by our
children. In the life of the church,
faith is caught more than taught.
In fact participation in the
life of a church - from worship, to study, and prayer, and service -
teaches all of us about our
faithful God, God who is our rock, holding us up, sometimes when we can barely
stand. We learn that God is able even
if we are not.
One of the things I’ve noticed in life is that
sometimes
we have to sink in the deepest pits before we’re ready
to let God be our rock.
Certainly the psalms teach us
this. The lives of biblical people like Job and Paul, the woman
at the well,
teach us some of the same
lessons. Some of the most famous modern
people of faith have written of finding God when they’ve sunk to their lowest.
In a book called “The Strength to Love,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
tells a story of his own
experience of God during a time of deep despair.
It occurred in the early
years of his work, some time after the
One night, after falling in
bed exhausted, just about the time he was dozing off,
the phone rang. An angry voice threatened him, and Dr. King
writes that he had finally reached the saturation point. That point where he hit rock bottom.
In his book, he writes: “I got out of bed and began to walk the
floor.
Finally, I went to the
kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up.
I tried to think of a way to
move out of the picture without appearing to be a coward.
In this state of exhaustion,
when my courage had almost gone,
I determined to take my
problem to God.
My head in my hands, I bowed
over the kitchen table and prayed aloud.
The words I spoke to God that
‘I am here taking a stand for
what I believe is right.
But now I am afraid. . . I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left.
I’ve come to the point where
I can’t face it alone.’”
And then he wrote, “At that
moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never before
experienced him. It seemed as though I
could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying, ‘Stand up for righteousness,
stand up for truth. God will be at your
side forever.’”
He writes that he felt an
inner calm and peace, a sense that he could face anything.
And then he continued his
story. “Three nights later, our home was bombed.
Strangely enough, I accepted
the word of the bomb calmly.
My experience with God had
given me a new strength and trust.
I knew now that God is able
to give us the interior resources to face the storms and problems of life.”[1]
There is something compelling
about stories like this because these stories sound like our stories.
Those who have faced the
deepest suffering often have developed the greatest faith.
These interior resources -
this ability to depend on the strong rock of God - gives us a strength we can
never have on our own. Isn’t that why we want our children to have a faith
foundation?
Certainly, we don’t want our
children to suffer, but when they do-- and they will in this life -- we want
them to have that strong foundation of faith.
We want them to know that God is with them. God is our rock.
Each of you has been given a
rock today, as part of our worship together.
Take a look at that
rock. Hold it in your hand.
There is something about a
rock that is solid, and real, it’s something to hold on to.
God knows who we are as human
beings.
God knows we humans needed
something real, something solid,
something in the flesh to
understand who God is.
He knows we needed the
incarnation - Jesus Christ - Emmanuel -
which means God with us -
to reveal who God is.
I invite you to keep this
rock, in your pocket, in your purse,
as a reminder of God with us,
as a reminder that if even when you can’t, God can.
We will suffer adversity, we
will struggle with challenges,
we will face difficulties in
this life. So will our children.
But through it all, God is
our Rock.
The promise is Emmanuel, God
with us.
God is with us always, our
refuge, our strength, our strong fortress.
That is a rock we can stand on.
[1] James M.
Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin
Luther King, Jr. (HarperSanFrancisco, 1986), p.
508-509