OF WONDERS, WOES AND WORMS
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Texts: Psalm 22
Last week we considered how current practice in our faith tradition largely avoids what is dark and troubling in the Psalms. We noted that we usually turn to the most affirming and comforting of the collection or we sanitize a Psalm by reading only its affirming or comforting verses. If there is an obvious exception, it is Psalm 22 because of the role it plays in the Passion of the Christ. The gospel writers place the opening lines from this Psalm on the lips of Jesus hanging on the cross. Here in his very human agony, Jesus cries out, as did the Psalmist himself, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At least we are led to hear and consider these words on a Passion Sunday or a Good Friday and we are left to wonder how they come to be on the lips of God’s beloved Son.
Ironically, in this Lenten Season, the creators of the lectionary select this Psalm; then choose to focus only on the final triumphant verses, beginning with verse 22 and running to the end. As we reflect on the meaning of the Psalms, as we focus on the events in the life of Jesus that lead to Easter, as we take stock of our own spiritual journeys, how are we helped by avoiding the entire weight and power of this great Psalm of lament, of personal anguish and corporate praise?
As we considered in our Tuesday Bible study and as I suggested last Sunday, the Psalms offer a mixture of suffering and triumph, of despair and glory, of lament and praise, and often within the framework of the same Psalm. Psalm 22 is good example of this. In the end, it moves abruptly from suffering to triumph. Now this could be because we do not have access to the original poems, songs and chants, passed down orally for generations and then written on scrolls of parchment long since disintegrated, so later translators and editors have tried to reconstruct the Psalms as best they could. But then have they shaped the work to fit their own theological bias or the needs of their particular faith community? These unresolvable considerations aside, we are left with a body of work that our religious tradition sees as sacred. What are we to make of these hymns, poems and prayers with all their raw honesty and elegantly structured liturgical purpose interwoven? How does one connect Psalm 22, verses 1 through 11 with Psalm 22, verses 21 through 30?
First, and perhaps most importantly, it is clear that the Psalm begins and ends with God. “My God, My God…” “he [God] has done it.” The opening cry of abandonment and the closing affirmation of deliverance are focused on, directed toward, centered in God. In despair and in hope the Psalmist turns to God. This may seem like an odd pairing. It may give us cause to wonder, but isn’t that a most appropriate response? When dealing with God, God’s actions, God’s will, God’s relationship to creation, isn’t wonder the very attitude that’s needed? I think of the words of John Jacob Niles in a song we curiously have labeled a Christmas carol, “I wonder as I wander, out under the sky, how Jesus the savior did come for to die for poor on’ry people like you and like I; I wonder as I wander out under the sky.” What do we know of this God who flung the stars in place and created us from dust of the earth, who has given us the miracle of life, who has shaped us in his image and given us her likeness, who loves us and desires to be in communion with us?
Barbara Brown Taylor expresses the wonder of creation this way, “Anything is possible until God exhales, inspiring the void first with wind and then with the Word, which is both utterance and act, which makes something out of nothing by saying that is so…God says and there are bats, bluebirds, fireflies and luna moths. God says, and there are sea horses, manta rays, plankton and clams.” But she goes on to say, “…the most dangerous word God ever says is Adam [human.] All by itself it is no more than a pile of dust – nothing to be concerned about, really – but by following it with the words for image and dominion, God sifts divinity into that dust, endowing it with things that belong to God alone” (Barbara Brown Taylor, When God Is Silent, pp. 3-4.) Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles! Such grace, such power, such responsibility. What are we to do with it? How are we to handle it?
Sometimes we fulfill our potentiality, sometimes we rise to the occasion, sometimes we meet God’s expectation of us, sometimes our voices are lifted in praise and adoration. Other times we miss the mark badly, we hide in fear and shame at our knowledge and our nakedness, we do the very thing we had intended never to do – or, at least, never do again, we hang our heads in shame and our voices choke on our tears. “Woe is me!” says Isaiah, on entering the presence of God. “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips…” (Isaiah 6:5.) Woe - used to express grief, regret, or distress; woe - a condition of deep suffering from misfortune, affliction, or grief; ruinous trouble. So says the dictionary. “Woe,” says the Psalmist, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled; I can count all my bones” (Psalm 22:14-17.)
It is not clear whether the Psalmist is in a pit of his own digging or if he is decrying a situation in which he is an innocent victim, set upon by enemies. Whatever has befallen him, he is lower than low. In the anguish of this moment, he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.” Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever been so far down you could no longer imagine up? Have you ever felt like a motherless child or a prodigal son, a long way from home? Maybe you put yourself in that position; maybe you were the victim of circumstances. Either way, the pain was real, the terror palpable, the day was shrouded in deep shadows and life was bleak. Maybe you’ve never felt like that, but some of us have sung this song – in the middle of a sleepless night, at the end of a long relationship, in the deep distress of significant loss, in the face of death. Like it or not, it was a song that had to be sung, for there was no other way through. If there is no way to voice woe, to lament, to cry out, then there is no pathway to healing. Psychologists and theologians alike have written of the living death of those who become lost in their woes, caught up in the numbness of trauma that precedes the expression of grief, unable to utter the cries of the heart so essential to finding a way out.
And what of worms? “…I am a worm,” the Psalmist claims, “and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads…!” This is language that we do not like very much. There is such an undermining of self-esteem here and we have spent small fortunes on therapy to set this right. We can’t use such language in our contemporary cultural setting. Oh, we love to sing “Amazing Grace,” but, really, isn’t it much better if to change that word “wretch” to something more palatable, like “soul”?
Of course, there is a point to be made here. If we are made in the image and likeness of God, then it is not right to devalue ourselves. Much ill has been done by and to those treated as less than fully human, by themselves or others. Think of slavery, of the abuse of women and children, of self abuse and mutilation, of current practices in human trafficking, of arguments in favor of torture or the acceptable risks of collateral damage to civilians in a war zone. How many of God’s wondrous gifts have been trampled on and destroyed by one’s self or others, who came to believe that they were truly “worms” and not children of God?
There is a distinction, not easily or cheaply made, between the reality of worminess and abandonment and the felt experience of it. Maybe the Psalmist is resorting to hyperbole. Maybe, like him, we have overstated the case, but in the moment of my crying out, it feels like I have indeed sunk down so far not even God can find me, it feels like I am buried in the ground like a worm, it feels like God has given up on me. I feel so lost and alone and helpless that there is nothing I can do but cry out. Learning the language of lament is a spiritual discipline not at all inappropriate to this Lenten Season or any season in our lives when we face suffering, pain and death. To know and to exercise the cry of the heart is redemptive. It is an essential step on the way to healing pain, to affirming life, to finding our home in the loving arms of God.
Many singers of songs have known this truth and have sung of wonders, woes and worms. We don’t embrace a lot of those old hymns and songs anymore; they don’t fit very well with our contemporary theology. As a child, one of my favorites was “At the Cross”. Who knows what, if any damage was done to my developing psyche by singing, with gusto, “Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?” These days we’re not comfortable singing about the blood of the lamb and the sacrifice of Jesus. There is good reason to let go of much of that old theology and many of those old songs for the ways in which they glorify bloodshed, suffering, pain and death. The glorification and celebration of these things is not central to Christ’s saving work or God’s enduring love. Still, we know that when Charlotte Elliott, in her infirmity, penned “Just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot” or John Newton, repenting of his career as captain of a slave ship, wrote “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!” or Horatio Spafford, after losing his wife and children at sea, thought “When peace, like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whate’er be my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well with my soul” or when George Matheson, in his blindness sang “O love that wilt not let me go; I rest my weary soul in thee;” these, like Psalm 22, were genuine cries of the heart, based on the tragic circumstances, the woes, of their own lives. It is difficult to hear or sing these songs without being drawn in by the language of their lament and of their hope and faith.
I’ve been down and out. I’ve wondered as I’ve wandered why God would come to save an on’ry, wretched, worm like me. I’ve felt like a motherless child and a prodigal son. I’ve walked the lonesome valley by myself, but, by the grace of God, these are not the places I dwell. I will sing with the Psalmist, “From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.” Amen.