ON NESTS AND NESTING
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Text: Psalm 84
In October of 2001, about a month after the horrific destruction of the World Trade Center, the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus sang the German Requiem of Johannes Brahms as a part of its regular concert series. It was a powerfully moving experience given the tenor of the times with all the talk of terrorism. Brahms’s masterful creation uses texts from the German Luther Bible both to mourn the transience and to affirm the richness of life. He begins with the text “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. They that go forth and weep, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them.” And he ends with the text, “Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord, from henceforth…” In between he sets such texts as “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falleth away” and “Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee.”
However, at the very center of the work is a setting of words from today’s text, “How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will always be praising thee.” Deservedly, this movement has become a well-beloved anthem of the church; it is the music we are most likely to associate with this ancient text. Both the remembrance of and the longing to be at home in God become the crux of Brahms’s vision of comfort and hope. Singing this work at an unsettled time, one filled with fear and many unanswered questions, was an act of healing and those performances were particularly heartfelt and deeply spiritual. Towering temples of commerce may topple, crash and burn, but our hope is that God’s dwelling place is eternally peaceful and secure, rich and wonderful.
Scholars debate whether this psalm is a pilgrim song or the longing of one far removed from the courts of God, singing out of sacred memory and a deep desire to be at home in God once again. How one comes down in this debate determines the language one uses to translate the psalm. For me, I can hear the celebration of the temple festival, but I can also hear the longing to be in the loving presence of God and to dwell there eternally. The psalm begins with an ecstatic outburst – “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!” One could argue persuasively that the reference is to Solomon’s magnificent temple, but as the psalm develops it is clear that even that world wonder is less than actually being at home in God. God cannot be contained in structures made of stone by human hands. The temple maybe be a definite destination, a special place of worship and celebration, a sanctuary that draws one closer to the holy, but God is also found with her people on the journey and God’s protection extends to the ends of the earth.
God may be found dwelling in the temple, but God may also be found in the straw nest of a sparrow or the mud hut of a swallow. Wikipedia tells us that “A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's eggs and/or provide a place to live or raise offspring.” It says that nests “are usually made of some organic material such as twigs, grass, and leaves; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building. Human-made materials, such as string, plastic, cloth, hair or paper, may be used.” These hardly sound like appropriate dwellings for God’s people, let alone the Sovereign of the Universe, the Lord of Hosts. Still the psalmist affirms that in God “the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young.”
Across the front of the garage at my mother’s home in Boise, my brother has strung lights, some of them dangling from the eaves and others in small, ornate plastic lanterns. As I was closing the garage door, I looked up and saw what looked like birds’ nests inside the lanterns. Sure enough, my mother confirmed that little house wrens had taken shelter in the warmly welcoming lanterns my brother had hung for cheer and decoration. I like to think that in some way those tiny birds realized that they were indeed welcomed and protected in a home my mother and brother were quite willing to share with them. I know that the Lewis residence on Kenneth Drive has room for mourning doves and hummingbirds are well fed there (as are dinner guests!) I’m sure others of you have welcomed birds and squirrels and other critters into your space. For a while I even shared the parsonage with a skunk, including its unique fragrance, and with the darn squirrels that eat all the apricots!
In the end, we are all in need of nests and nesting. We need to know that there are places in which we may feel safe, nurtured, fed, cared for, loved. The psalmist sings to God, “Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise.” This may be a reference to priests who did indeed live in the temple when they were on duty, but it might also speak to us. There is this age-old promise of happiness, of blessings for those give their lives over to God’s presence, God’s work , God’s way, whose lives are wrapped up in singing God’s praises. The psalmist continues, “Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” That is, the way to God runs right through the hearts of those who will make room, will do the excavation, lay the foundation and pave the surface. Even when one walks through the valley of weeping, those tears will turn to springs of joy and early rains that provide pools of refreshment. The faithful, righteous ones will “go from strength to strength.”
As I worked on this sermon it crossed my mind that maybe I should have saved it for Homecoming Sunday, for surely it is a wonderful celebration of coming home or at least of the anticipation of homecoming. Maybe it’s because we focused on the Prodigal Son the last three weeks that I sense a variation on that gospel story in this psalm, but when the psalmist says “My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God,” there is a longing there for something lost yet remembered vividly and longed for passionately. In other translations of this verse, the psalmist says “my heart and my soul cry out for the living God.” Remember how the Prodigal comes to his senses and cries out, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father…” “My soul longs, indeed it faints for my father’s house.”
And the welcome is swift and sure, “…this child of mine was dead and is alive again; was lost and is found!” This is the good news – the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest, the wanderer finds a welcome, the doorkeeper finds a sun and a shield, the Prodigal finds the open arms of a waiting father. “No good thing does God withhold from those who walk uprightly…happy is everyone who trusts in God.” At least this is the promise of what it will be like when we find ourselves at home in God.
But you and I know we’re not there yet. We know there is still longing in this world, that many are lost and lonely, cold and hungry, tattered and homeless. Some are homesick; some are sick of waiting and wandering and wondering; some are just plain sick. Some of us may fit these categories at different times. As God’s people, brother and sisters in Christ, what can we do to help one another and those beyond our little circle feel at home in God? Well, some of us spent part of a Saturday literally working on house for Habitat for Humanity and our special offering this month goes to support Habitat’s good work. May be we can squeeze out a few more dollars to help Habitat. Dona has reminded us that the Downtown Food Pantry needs items for their shelves. Maybe we can add extra soup, instant oatmeal and travel soap to our grocery list this week. There are people living in this country without adequate health care. Maybe we could call or write our representatives, urging them to stop their petty wrangling and do the right thing for all our citizens. There are people in Iraq and Afghanistan bombed out of their homes, there are overflowing refugees camps throughout the world, there is a threat of nuclear annihilation, there are children who are sick, abandoned, abused, dying daily. Maybe…
I don’t know. It all seems overwhelming at times, so much need, so little response. What can one person do? What can one congregation do? No wonder the cry of longing goes up to be at home in God. It is a cry of the heart, yes, but it also a cry of the body. Not only are souls longing and fainting, bodies are, too. The need for nests and nesting is here and it is now. We can’t blithely sing “This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.” So, we gird ourselves to do what we can.
The psalmist assures us that there is a home in God and it is available to all who seek it and embrace it. Sometimes we are seekers, sometimes we feel the embrace sufficiently to proclaim the good news, sometimes we roll up our sleeves and get busy doing what we can to feed the hungry, care for the sick, look out for the lost, play a tune for someone who is dying, lobby a legislator or a legislature, provide homes for the homeless, make peace. If we trust that the highway to Zion, the road to righteousness, the way to God runs right through our hearts, we will be all that we can be and do all that we can to still the longing in this world and help ourselves and others get on home. Isaac Watts, in his beautiful paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm, says it so eloquently, as a word to my own heavy heart, to our wandering and wondering souls, to a world in need –
“The sure provisions of my God
attend me all my days;
O may thy house be my abode,
and all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
while others go and come;
no more a stranger, nor a guest,
but like a child at home.”
How lovely is your dwelling place, dear God, as is our dwelling in you! Good news indeed.