Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
I still receive email news from the Diocese of Maine. This prayer was part of a recent newsletter. It comes from St. Margaret’s parish in Belfast, Maine. It was written for the beginning of a vestry meeting. Apparently, their vestry meets on Sundays, because the prayer also refers to a recent celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
Holy Lord,
You gave us more snow last night, and we're not happy. We've had enough, more than enough, of boots and mittens and wooly scarves and hats and puffy coats that clog our lives. We're done already with shoveling pathways and scraping windshields and hauling wood, with slipping on ice and sliding off roads. We've shivered through 40 days and 40 nights - or more - and we're fed up. Tired. Grumbling. And you've given us snow. With the promise of more.
To be fair, you've also delivered an abundance of manna. Today's frigid blast came with a feast lovingly prepared in your name. As we were comforted and filled, you wept for the hungry child you saw crouching by a propane heater in her trailer home in Belfast. You wept for our brothers and sisters huddled without food in the rubble of Aleppo. In this winter of our discontent, we are blessed beyond measure. We thank you, gracious Lord God.
In the cold you've surrounded us with warmth, embraced us with family and friends. You've stretched out your hand in the kindness of strangers who join us along our way, and given us opportunities to stretch out our hands to others. Tonight you've gathered us in a cozy, peaceful place to share our concerns and ideas and plans. You've invited us into a moment of silence so we may listen, and hear your voice. Open our hearts to your vision for us, gracious Lord God. Nourish us with your love, and strengthen us with purpose and hope for the journey ahead. Amen.
It’s a fun prayer, and certainly speaks to the sort of winter we’ve had here in Chicago, too. But what I really want to emphasize is that this prayer includes both complaint and thanksgiving. Two very different and seemingly contradictory feelings towards God. But they are both there. At the same time. In the same prayer. Complaint and thanksgiving. And the Scriptures, particularly the Psalms, are full of similar prayers. With complaints considerably more dire than the annoyance of a long winter. But still complaint and thanksgiving in the same prayer. Complaint and thanksgiving.
Today’s psalm, Psalm 95 prompted this reflection. Particularly the presence of Psalm 95 during Lent. Psalm 95, at least the first part of it, is known as the Venite and is a part of Morning Prayer. It is joyous and celebratory. It is often described as an enthronement psalm, a song of exultant praise for God as king. It was probably used as a hymn of praise at worship on festival occasions.
It is the last few verses of Psalm 95 that lead to its inclusion in the lectionary today. In those verses, God harshly castigates the people for their doubt and lack of trust at Massah and Meribah… the story we heard in today’s Old Testament lesson.
Old Testament scholar Rolf Jacobson writes:
In ancient Israel, the festival worship included moments that were both celebratory or joyous and castigating or penitential….
We have separated that which is penitential and reproving from that which is joyful and celebratory. But in ancient Israel, these theological moves were united in the festival worship. This seems odd to us. Can you imagine Christmas Eve or Easter morning worship with a penitential, reproving sermon?Joyous and penitential. Very different, seemingly contradictory, moods expressed in the same psalm, in the same worship experience.
We do tend to separate joy or praise from penitence. We separate Easter from Lent. And, it’s probably fair to say, that most of us only do Lent under duress, because the church requires us to. And we feel like once we’ve endured Lent and “earned” Easter, thanks be to God we’re done with penitence.
I’ve often said that the seasons of the church year are cumulative, but we don’t experience them that way. We do, during Lent, talk about Sundays as little Easters. Maybe we should talk more about Fridays as little Lents throughout the year.
But that’s still separate. Friday and then Sunday. The message of the prayer from Maine and Psalm 95 is to bring together the complexity of our life and faith. To bring to God complaint and thanksgiving, praise and penitence. Arising in a single soul at the very same time.
I suppose we’d like things to be neat and tidy, either/or. But they’re not. Right in the midst of resurrection praise, we still need reproof and penitence. We can and do feel the very different feelings of thanksgiving and complaint at the same time.
Even belief and unbelief can go hand in hand.
There is a story in Mark’s Gospel (9:19-24) of a father with a son who has serious seizures. The father comes to Jesus and says, more or less, “I really don’t believe you can do anything, but if you can, can you help my son?” Jesus heals the boy and the father cries out, “I believe. Help my unbelief!”
The same person, the same soul, can experience belief and unbelief simultaneously. Belief and unbelief all mixed up together at the same time.
We might shy away from bringing the more “negative” of these conflicting feelings to God, thinking that God does not want to hear our complaints. Or that God will turn away from us in our struggles or doubts.
But ancient Israel had it right. Bring all of the complicated and conflicting pieces of our lives and our faith to God in worship. I’m not sure what this might mean for us as a parish in our Sunday corporate worship. But in our private prayers and in the living of our lives, it means to bring to God our complaints and our thanksgivings, our praise and our penitence, our belief and our doubt.
God has promised to be with us always. And that has been the experience of God’s people from the earliest days up to today. God is with us in the negative aspects of our lives as well as the positive. And the more of ourselves we bring to God, the more fully we will encounter and know God. Bringing all of the complexity and struggle to God will enrich and deepen our experience of God in our lives.
Complaint and thanksgiving. Praise and reproof. Belief and unbelief. God is with us.
