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Prayer is a pretty big deal. After all, at Commons we opened this year with prayer and we’re closing the year with prayer. From the Lord’s Prayer in the fall, to the Psalms prayer book in the summer, we’ve got instructions and illustrations to shape our prayerful souls in all seasons.
So what’s prayer to you? Is it the recitation of prayers you learned as a kid? Is prayer the words that spring up inside you like “thank you,” “help me,” and “I’m so sorry”? Maybe prayer is becoming less wordy and more connected to deep breaths, centred contemplation, and heart-soaring awe.
There are Christians in all kinds of traditions that pray the Psalms every day, morning and night. And sure, the prayerful poems are more familiar year after year, but they never stop speaking and shaping the human heart before God. Dive into the Psalms with us this summer and find yourself refreshed with honesty, lament, and praise.
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2:You so much for being here in the room with us today. The fact that you show up to church and on a long weekend, that you still believe that something really good can take place in this kind of gathering is, I believe, a profound act of hope and grace. My name is Bobby, and I serve the community as one of the pastors on the team here. Before we start, we know today is Calgary pride march, and we know a lot of people from our community are down enjoying the parade or we'll be going there. So we want to send our best wishes to all those marching, whether they march for themselves or friends or loved ones.
Speaker 2:We love you, and we hope that you feel supported across the city today. So how's your summer been? Tell me, do you like that question? How's your summer been? It's a question that you can't escape at this time of year.
Speaker 2:The evenings are cooler. The days are shorter. The mountains are even snowier. Fall is coming, basically here. So when you run into people you have not seen all summer and they ask you, how's your summer been?
Speaker 2:How does that question make you feel? I dread the question. I mean, maybe that's a little bit of an overstatement, but thanks to social media, I observe so many of you take faraway trips and climb big mountains and camp by fast flowing rivers, and I'm happy for you. I really am. But my summer has been much, much, much more low key.
Speaker 2:I've just been around. My summer feels pretty small. So it's important for me to not actually compare our summers, whether it's big or small adventures, huge family gardens, or just tiny pots of balcony herbs, that's me, or far away trips, or just getting a beer with a friend at a local brewery. Join me in gratitude for all of the shapes and the smells and the sizes of our summer, especially as we round this corner into fall. Our fall launch is just one week away.
Speaker 2:Mark your calendars, set notifications, all of that. September 8, Common celebrates five years and the start of our sixth year together. Can you believe it? Right? Wow.
Speaker 2:Yay. So today, we wrap up our summer psalm series, and we are hitting up to that's right, two psalms. We're heading for psalm ninety nine and one hundred. And the first is an enthronement psalm, and the second is a hymn of praise. And we're talking about tired old metaphors, the infinite divine, praise as play, and God of astonishment.
Speaker 2:And I'm calling this sermon, what to do when a metaphor doesn't work for you anymore. Before we dive in, please join me in prayer. Our loving God, as we consider the close of this season of the summer and prepare ourselves for the fall, we lean into your nearness. In summer and winter and spring and fall, all of creation speaks of your beauty and your mystery and your persistent patience. For those of us feeling anxious about this season, won't you meet us with a moment of peace?
Speaker 2:For those of us feeling the heaviness and the uncertainty of a season, God, won't you meet us with a marker of your kindness in any of the chaos we're living in right now? And for those of us feeling a great sense of longing or looking for some hope, I want you to connect with our yearning, we pray, with gratitude for simple things and for complicated things too. Amen. So a few weeks ago, I did have plans to be out of town for a class. But then some details for the class got a little screwy, so I decided to skip the class and just stick around Calgary instead.
Speaker 2:And what that means is that I wasn't expected or needed at the 7PM service here at our Kensington parish. So when my aunt texted me to see if I was in town and could in fact go and hear Jason Isbell at the Jack Singer, I jumped at it. Now I have a very special place in my heart for Jason Isbell, and a lot of that fondness has to do with just one metaphor. Sure. Sure.
Speaker 2:He is a great songwriter, and his music, I think, is pretty fabulous. But there's one song that rocked me. Kinda scared me a little bit, but also resonated. It's Isabel's song, 24 frames, where he sings this chorus. You thought God was an architect.
Speaker 2:Now you know. He's something like a pipe bomb ready to blow. And everything you built, that's all for show, goes up in flames in 24 frames. What now? God is a pipe bomb?
Speaker 2:I mean, what does that even mean? Well, some days I feel like I might know, and other days I have no idea. But every time I listen to the song, I think, wow, God is wild like that. Surprising, overwhelming, explosive. I'm down with the Americana sound of the song and the four four time signature and the harmonies that haunt, but it's the metaphor that my heart really needs.
Speaker 2:Today's psalm has a standout metaphor too. So let's take a look. The Lord reigns. Let the nations tremble. God sits enthroned between the cherubim.
Speaker 2:Let the earth shake. Great is the Lord in Zion. God is exalted over all the nations. Let them praise your great and awesome name. God is holy.
Speaker 2:The king is mighty. Psalm 99 comes from book four of five in the Psalm divisions. And what that means is that Psalm 99 is from the section of the songs collected to respond to the crisis of exile. Now remember, ancient Israel is often an underdog with heaps of leaders who fail them and the constant threat of being overpowered by bigger, more ruthless empire. So book four shifts the feeling of the psalter from despair and lament earlier in the book to hope and praise even though they're not out of trouble.
Speaker 2:Ancient Israel sings about Yahweh as the one who reigns, as the one who is king. Now, can I be honest with you? Like, really honest? I hate this metaphor of God as king. And I know, I know, that's severe, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I mean, these words are in the bible. So you might think, what are you even talking about, Bobby? But hear me out. The metaphor of God as a king so distant and earth shaking, so over us and so other is at this point in my life and for the last fifteen years or so, it's not for me. I'm not saying it's not for you.
Speaker 2:You might love it. In fact, we sing beautiful songs every week with these exact metaphors and images. So it might be the metaphor that really works for you. Naming God as king might give you a great deal of hope, and I am not trying to take that away from you. I'm really not.
Speaker 2:But let's at least see where this king metaphor comes from. First off, the language of Psalm 99 has traces of what the ancient world calls combat myth. And scholar Richard Clifford explains that the combat myth tells the story of a force that threatens the cosmic order of the universe. This force or a monster instills fear and and confusion in the assembly of the gods. And in turn, the assembly of the gods trust in just a young god to defeat the chaos monster.
Speaker 2:Instead, chaos monster is defeated. The young god is elevated and order is restored. That's your basic combat myth. Now in the hands of ancient Israel, we see traces of the combat myth in the Psalms, specifically here through enthronement. The particulars of the monster or the enemy, they are not named.
Speaker 2:And that's fine because the Psalms speak in general terms so that they can transcend a particular time and place. What's important to the people is that Yahweh reigns. Psalm 99 says God sits enthroned on the ark of the covenant between the cherubim. So with the appropriation of a myth, with the ancient symbols of this ark and the mythic creatures, the people reference God as their king. And whatever is against them, they trust that their God will take the throne and cosmic order will be restored.
Speaker 2:Now the interesting thing about the metaphor of king is that it's not everywhere in the bible. Jewish scholar, Nehum Sarna acknowledges that yes, the metaphor of God as king occurs many times in the Hebrew bible, but Sarna says there's no way to know from where we sit how early in Israel's history the projection of the human political institution onto God took place. What we do know is that this concept of the divine as king was prevalent in the ancient world long, long before Israel even showed up. And in grappling with the king metaphor, it's important to note that nowhere in the divine revelation at Sinai, meaning when the law was given to Moses, is there a king framework for seeing or sensing the divine. Furthermore, when you look through what Sarna says are the theophoric proper names in Israel's history, just meaning the names that bear the Hebrew term for king Melech within them, you find only three names in all the lists and the geologies.
Speaker 2:Just three. Melchiel, Abimelek, and Elimelek. This is a culture where names tell stories and they state values, and none of these names are original to Israel. They date back way before Israel and are therefore not particularly Israelite in their construction now. Stick with me here.
Speaker 2:It's important to notice this stuff, to dig it up, and to examine because God as king is not a given. In Sarnah's words, it's a sociopolitical institution firmly entrenched throughout the lands of the ancient Near East. So when in the eleventh century BCE, the Israelites suffered tremendous defeat at the hands of the Philistines, they borrow powerful words when they feel anything but powerful. When their families are hauled off to foreign places, when they themselves are far from home, when their leaders fail them, when the wealthy rig the system. The people look around at the world that they live in, and they say, we need a king.
Speaker 2:We need a king who will help us. I mean, how great are words? How great are words that we can borrow them and bend them and claim them as our own. The world, your world, changes all the time. It is not realistic to think that your words won't change too.
Speaker 2:They can, they will, they often need to. I recently read a list of metaphors for God in one of my many nerdy theology books, and I keep going back to this list. And I read it as a prayer, and I wonder what new metaphors I need for God right now. So I offer you the list to do the same. Do you need God as your liberator, comrade, creator, mother, friend, rock, father, thunder, lover, brother, teacher, sister, light, fire, defender, sustainer, nurturer, advocate.
Speaker 2:Do you need a God like that? Our language may be limited, and that is okay because God is infinite and perfectly willing to work with us just the way that we are. But before we throw the king baby out with the bathwater, let's examine the kind of king Israel actually longs for. The king is mighty. The king loves justice.
Speaker 2:You have established equity. In Jacob, you have done what is just and right. The description of the king Israel longs for is one who loves justice. The parallelism in verse four underscores justice with equity. Equity.
Speaker 2:This is an ethical word in Hebrew, Meshar, and it's tied up with the wisdom tradition, which is all about the art of living. And my dear friend Jody is one of the wisest and most equity seeking people that I know. And she says justice is all about shalom. And shalom arrives when nothing is missing and nothing is broken. So if a king for you is about justice, the care of the poor, the dignity of all people, the love of God for everyone, then go ahead and keep it.
Speaker 2:But we live in a world where presidents are liars and princes are tangled up with abusive financiers And corporations preference the shareholder wealth at the expense of those who simply need to earn a living wage. So yes, king metaphor for me is a little bit muddled. And my guess is it might be a bit muddled for you too. And if that's the case, we're in fabulous company. Political refugee, missionary to the poor, and theologian, Ada Maria Izzaz Diaz offers us an alternative to this language of king, which is all too often tied up with the oppressor rather than the liberator.
Speaker 2:She writes in a footnote of all places about the option to use the word kin, k I n. As in kin dom. As in you belong as kin in the family of God. And here's her footnote. Two reasons compel me not to use the usual word employed by English bibles, kingdom.
Speaker 2:First, it is obviously a sexist word that presumes that God is male. Zing. Second, the concept of kingdom in our world today is both hierarchical and elitist. The same reasons hold for not using rain. The word kingdom makes it clear that when the fullness of God becomes a day to day reality in the world at large, we will all be sisters and brothers kin to each other.
Speaker 2:Language matters. Words make worlds. So let's make sure that our language about God contributes to a more just world. And believe it or not, Psalm 99 features so much more than a sky king ruling over us. Sure.
Speaker 2:The metaphor reads as such, but there is collaboration in the heart of God. Verses six and seven. Moses and Aaron were among God's priests. Samuel was among those who called on God's name. They called on the Lord and God answered them.
Speaker 2:God spoke to them from the pillar of cloud. They kept God's statutes and the decrees God gave them. Now we don't have a lot of time to get into this, but some of you bible nerds here in the room will notice that Samuel did not hear God speak from a pillar of cloud. That business belongs to Moses and Aaron in Exodus. But of course, the scriptures aren't meant to be read literally.
Speaker 2:We read literarily. So these boys in the bible represent God's collaboration with priests and prophets and all kinds of peculiar people. Even the divine who in this psalm causes the earth to shake and who gathers worshipers at a footstool stoops down and is present in the human struggle. And here's what that actually looks like. Ada Maria Azazi Diaz tells a crowd at Harvard Divinity School that her mother used to tell her that she should not ask God to free her from the struggle.
Speaker 2:Instead, her mother said, you should be happy that you have something good and real to struggle against. Ask God to give you strength in the struggle. As long as God gives you energy for the struggle, her mother said, you will be alright. With God, good power is shared power. And in the language of the psalmist, a king chooses priests and prophets to live the divine life right here and right now.
Speaker 2:Moses, Aaron, Samuel, Ada Maria, Azazidias, and her mother, you and me, given strength for the struggle. The songs of praise in the Psalms are about seeing the world as God sees the world. It's in flux. It's full of seasons that move us from death to life and life to death. A world held by an infinite God, the energy behind all of our energy.
Speaker 2:Now here is the last thing that I wanna say about Psalm 99 before we turn the page to Psalm 100. Yahweh, the name for God appears seven times in this enthronement psalm. And God's description as holy appears three times. The psalm ends like this. Exalt the Lord our God and worship at God's holy mountain for the Lord our God is holy.
Speaker 2:Now the number seven in Jewish symbolism is special. Seven marks a sacred pattern of things. Seven days of creation. Seven symbols in Joseph's dreams. Seven chords on David's harp.
Speaker 2:And the number three represents completeness. We read three times that God is holy, holy, holy. So when you just trip over a metaphor that you don't like or you find yourself singing a song about God that kinda weirds you out. Or you wonder about a model for God that honestly seems downright abusive. You can move past those terms, those phrases, those models to something greater and you will not exhaust the divine.
Speaker 2:You don't have to abandon this beautiful ancient diverse tradition because there are interpretations within it that you just no longer trust. God is infinitely bigger than all of that, but also infinitely closer to holy, holy holy Yahweh times seven poetry and mystery and reversal. Oh, you think you want a king? Jesus says. If you call me king and you want to follow me, then know that you will have to die to live.
Speaker 2:Nothing escapes the great metaphor of resurrection. So pile up your rules and I'll radically include everyone you leave behind. And I know that sometimes you will want to leave yourself behind too because you will hurt so much. But trust me here, Jesus says, I will meet you in the storm. I will meet you in your heartbreak.
Speaker 2:I will meet you in your quiet desperation. I am a different kind of king. I am your kin. I am your heart's true key. Now, our second psalm, Psalm 100, is a hymn of praise.
Speaker 2:The ancient community sings a song as they go to the temple. The song is exuberant and joyful and it's bursting with life. So listen for how God is involved with the people and how they are involved with God. Listen for the verbs here. Shout for joy to the Lord of the earth.
Speaker 2:Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before God with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is God who made us and we are God's. We are God's people.
Speaker 2:The sheep of God's pasture. Enter God's gates with thanksgiving and God's courts with praise. Give thanks to God and praise God's name for the Lord is good and God's love endures forever. God's faithfulness continues through all generations. With seven imperatives, seven instructing verbs, the song invites the people to make a joyful noise, to worship, to come near, to know, to enter, to give thanks, to praise.
Speaker 2:All of this as they enter the temple of Yahweh. Now let's survey the context. In the Hebrew scriptures, God makes a dwelling place among the people in the tabernacle and then the temple. And in the New Testament, God is found in the person of Christ and then in the church, Christ's body. Eugene Peterson helps us understand what that means for us when he says Christ plays in 10,000 places.
Speaker 2:It means that the temple, that the church, they're, well, they're everywhere. Put poetically by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush of fire with God. So praise is play. It's getting your hands dirty and your feet kinda sore. It's being fully alive in your body and in the world where everything, everything is sacred, common shrubs, places God can be found.
Speaker 2:So take a tip from the psalmist and this hymn of praise. Choose seven imperatives and lean into them. Go, think, thank, ask, move, swim, bow. Actions or spiritual play, and play shapes our imagination for God. Now, let's go back to our question.
Speaker 2:What do you do when a metaphor for God doesn't work for you anymore? And I'm going to answer that question with a story and a poem. Last spring, I was wandering around Downtown Victoria on a Bateman family vacation. I married into a family that takes big trips together for big celebrations like fortieth birthdays and fiftieth wedding anniversary. So thankfully, I'm pretty into it.
Speaker 2:And one day, I wandered over to Monroe's Bookstore, a real gem of Canadian independent bookstores. Now this may sound a little bit strange, but I believe in book magic. This is when books kind of call to me from the shelf like, Bobby, Bobby, you want to read me? Does this happen to you? Hey, it does happen to some of you.
Speaker 2:You get me. So I was perusing the bookshelf, and I ended up in the poetry section and was soon holding this book in my hands, Lorna Crozier's God of Shadows. And I flipped to the table of contents and I found poem titles like this. God of Arithmetic, God of Dogs, God of Goodbye, God of Last Resort, God of Next to Nothing, God of astonishment. Now remember, so much of the scriptures are written as God's word to us, but the Psalms are an attempt to find our words for God.
Speaker 2:The Psalms are poetry. So here, listen to what that sounds like in the vernacular of our day. Listen for the change in metaphors for God. Some of you, if you trust me, may even wanna close your eyes. So this poem or what I'm calling a modern psalm is called God of Astonishment by Lorna Crozier.
Speaker 2:When Yahweh reveals himself to man, bushes burn, the mountains tremble, and the wings of his six winged angels batter the air with thunder. The god of astonishment goes for a subtler theophany. The quiver of the rare bat that shows itself in daylight dipping into the pond and then perching upright on the rafters of the tea house spreading its wings too dry. The multitude of spider crabs that scatter in low tide going sideways as sore afraid as you to face what's ahead and what's behind. The common cockroach that if decapitated remains alive, its head still thinking.
Speaker 2:The jackrabbit jump of a woman's heart when she hears her husband of thirty years pull into the driveway in his red truck. It's windows down, an old song on the radio, and then his words as the screen door slams, I'm home. God speaks to us like that in clear tones and not in riddles, yet sometimes we walk right through her on our way. When we do that, when we miss her brightness in the morning of the Quonset roofs, in the yellow head of certain blackbirds, she's tempted to startle us in our tracks, to place her fiery mouth upon our mouths and fill our lungs with marigolds and bees. I mean, come on.
Speaker 2:How stunning is that? Lorna Crozier calls God the one who astonishes. Jason Isbell sings, You thought God was an architect? God is something like a pipe bomb ready to blow. And I've been thinking about God not as a king, but as a key.
Speaker 2:As the one who unlocks every door to myself and to my experience in the world and woah, you look at that, is the one standing behind all locked doors ready and willing to be near to me and do everything that I care about. What is it for you? Who is God for you? If what the apostle Paul says is true, that God is over all, through all, and in all, then there is no shortage of metaphors for how you can speak about God. So please go ahead, search them out, and when you find them, speak up.
Speaker 2:We need to hear about this God who astonishes you too. Please join me in prayer. Our God of astonishment, of big summer adventures and little summer happenings, we thank you for your mystery and your love and your stunning creation. Oh, God, help us to care for it. Jesus, you are our friend, our comrade, our key.
Speaker 2:You are about the work of our healing. You are near to the ways that we suffer, and you say I am with you through it all. So spirit of the living God, present with us now. Enter the places of our longing and our language and our woundedness and heal us of all that harms us. Amen.