Never did I ever

Scripture   Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21  NRSV

8 The Lord is gracious and merciful,

    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9 The Lord is good to all,

    and his compassion is over all that he has made.

14 The Lord upholds all who are falling,
    and raises up all who are bowed down.

15 The eyes of all look to you,
    and you give them their food in due season.

16 You open your hand,
    satisfying the desire of every living thing.

17 The Lord is just in all his ways,
    and kind in all his doings.

18 The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth.

19 He fulfills the desire of all who fear him;
    he also hears their cry, and saves them.

20 The Lord watches over all who love him,
    but all the wicked he will destroy.

21 My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,
    and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever.

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Message   Never did I ever

Good morning on this 9th Sunday after Pentecost.  It is only 3 months till Advent!  That might seem like a long time, but for people planning worship it’s like next week.  In the Before Times the Spiritual Growth Team would soon be meeting to talk about themes and decorations. Right now, however, it’s hard to plan for anything that far ahead.  Our current pandemic situation makes the concept of living one day at a time almost necessary.  That can be a really uncomfortable way to live, or a really liberating way to live.  Kind of depends on, I dunno, personality type?  

I’m a little obsessive, (see, this is when I miss having humans in front of me. I’m pretty sure some of you would be snickering about now.)  Anyhow, because I’m a bit obsessive, when I first learned about living just for today I kind of took it to extremes.  As in, I would buy just enough groceries for today.  I chose not to plan ahead for anything. Except maybe showing up for work every day.  It took a while but eventually I learned it was ok to shop for a week or more at a time.  It was ok to prepare a hurricane box with everything I needed to sit out a hurricane for like a week without power.  It was ok to plan ahead for necessary trips, and so on.  The thing that was not ok was to count on any of those things happening exactly the way I planned.   You know what they say.  I make plans, God laughs.  Lots of plans do come together, but probably just as many don’t.  

Planning is good.  Being willing to adapt those plans at any given moment is also good.  That’s where we are right now.  We are kind of in the “never did I ever” zone.  I haven’t heard anyone say, “But we’ve never done that before,” in months!  Because just about every week we do something we have never done before.   Never did I ever think we would be doing worship entirely online. I mean, sometimes I daydreamed about what it would be like to have church without a building, but never in my wildest daydreams did I consider online worship. I’m not a fan of televangelists . . .  and now I am one - sort of.   

 Never did I ever hear a description of a loving and merciful God - until I was 38!   I had heard all my life about the punishing part - “All the wicked he will destroy”  But not any of the loving and kind parts.  My extreme dislike of poetry for much of my life meant that I didn’t read the Psalms until I took Freshman English in my mid 40s.  So I never saw these songs that celebrated God’s mercy and compassion.  Mind you,  the Psalms are not the only place in Scripture or in other literature for that matter, where God’s love is celebrated.  

I read many books over the years where the author claimed God was loving, but lots of those were novels.  I mean, I had a hard time believing that the fictional Father Blackie in Andrew Greeley’s mysteries was a fair representative of the Church.  Even when I read biographies of saints like Therese of Avila and devout people like the boxer Rocky Graziano, I did not understand how they could love God so passionately, if they had been taught to understood God the way I did.  I did not understand why so many people were willing martyrs for their faith, for the God of their understanding.  They really seemed to believe in God’s goodness and love and mercy  . . . 

Now I have to wonder, how did I miss that?  Did I just misunderstand my teachers?  Or were they teaching from the premise that people are more likely to behave due to fear of punishment than as a response to love?  Looking back, I think that might be it.   They thought that “be good or you will burn in hell forever” was more persuasive than “If you truly love God you will be good, because it makes God sad when you do wrong.”   When I truly love anyone I do not want to make them sad. On the other hand, threats tend to make me rebellious.  I imagine I am not alone in that. 

Sadly, way too many teach an image of God that is judgmental and quick to anger, more likely to see deliberate wickedness than missteps … and then take on those attributes for themselves in their treatment of any who are different, who stand outside of their particular theological understanding, or who simply disagree with their worldview.  Or they claim to love the sinner but hate the sin, then identify the person with the sin and hate both.  That often results in the person hating themselves . . .  (That quote is not Biblical, by the way.  It comes a writing by St. Augustin in the year 424.  The actual quote is “With love for mankind and hatred of sins.”)  

The Psalmist gives us a different view of God than that - pretty much the opposite view.  Rather than quick to anger and punish, slow to anger and abounding in love.  Compassion for everyone - everyone.  Good to everyone.  Listens to our cries.   Holds up all who fall, raises up those who are bowed down.  Loving - compassionate - merciful - just - kind - always near when we call out.  Fulfills our desires, our needs.   All we have to do is ask. 

I am not saying that God will not punish the wicked - we have evidence in God’s treatment of Sodom and Gomorrah that the unrepentant will be punished.   We also have Nineveh as evidence of God’s mercy extended to the truly repentant.   We know that God forgave Israel over and over again for wandering away, and came to their rescue when they cried out for help.   Jesus told his disciples they must forgive not just once or twice, but as many as 70 times 70 times.  The psalmist tells us that God extends mercy to all who truly love him but punishes the wicked. The wicked, by definition therefore, are those who do not truly love God, who reject God as their Lord, and neither fear punishment nor want to please the One who loves them.   

We, Christians, are supposed to love one another, to take Christ as our model in our behavior and our attitudes toward others.  And we typically speak of Jesus as Lord.  So what if, in order to understand what we are supposed to model, we replace “Lord” with “Christian” and said, 

the Christian is gracious and merciful,

    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

The Christian is good to all,

    and their compassion is for all.

The Christian upholds all who are falling, 

and raises up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to the Christian,
    who gives them food in due season.

The Christian is just in all their ways,
    and kind in all their doings.

Imagine if Christians, all Christians, held ourselves to this standard.  If we lived according to these attributes.  We wouldn’t have to wonder how to love one another because here is the very definition of Christian love.  If all Christians held ourselves to this standard, the world would certainly become the beloved community.   We would see God’s will being done on earth all the time, by multitudes of people.  We could see an end to Hunger.  We could see an end to Racism.  We could see an end to Homophobia and Transphobia.  There would be no more Slavery.  Victims of all kinds would be cared for.  Wars could come to an end.  Even poverty could be a thing of the past.  

Given that we are human, and prone to error, I don’t imagine we will all adopt these Godly attributes any time soon, although it is a lovely dream.  

What we can do, though, is teach that this Psalmist’s view of God is accurate.  It is who God is.  What we can do is reach out to assure all people that God loves them, forgives the repentant, hears the cries of the needy, provides for our needs.  

What we can do is praise the Lord constantly, at every time and every where, 

so that all the world learns of God’s greatness, steadfast love, kindness, justice, compassion, and mercy.   

And all flesh will bless God’s holy name, forever and ever.  Amen.