Psalmody at a time of lockdown ..............

 

I find that increasingly as this Covid pandemic continues and now forces us into another national lockdown with Churches open only for private prayer that the psalms have become a particular part of our worship that has spoken eloquently to our situation.

I am aware that both Alec and I have both focussed our thoughts and sermon notes on the psalm for the day which we continue to be able to say together both in Church and on Whypay.

The psalms can be separated into five types. Psalms of praise. Psalms of wisdom. Psalms of Kingship (Royal Psalms), Psalms of thanksgiving and Psalms of lament.

I rather feel that as we journey through this unprecedented and strange time of half shadow and fear it is the psalms of lament that speak to out emotional needs.

Today's psalm. Psalm 70, is such a psalm of lament and it provides us with a voice to express our grief and anger as we express the deep hope that divine help will be forthcoming.

As we read the Psalm we are asking that God will 'make haste to help' us.

On this Remembrance Sunday it is perhaps not inappropriate to remember a pastor who lost his life on the 9th April 1945 in a German Prison by hanging, with piano wire.

His most well know book is 'The Costs of Discipleship' and there is no doubt that he paid a high price for his faithfulness to God.

I audited a course called the Costs of Discipleship during my fellowship at The Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge and one of the set texts came from the book.

'Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him'.

The pastor was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was a Lutheran Pastor, a theologian who fought against Nazism. He was part of the resistance to Hitler and the Nazi dictatorship and he voiced opposition to to Hitler's euthanasia programme and his acts of genocide toward the Jewish people.

Bonhoeffer returned to Germany from America, from safety to risk.

He was accused of being a part of the 20th July plot to assassinate Hitler and was arrested in April 1943 and held in the Flossenburg concentration camp until his execution.

In a letter written in May 1945 to his parents, Bonhoeffer wrote:

'I read the psalms every day, as I have done for years: I know them and love them more than any other book'.

In the letter he added a PS to the effect that someone who had occupied the same cell as him had scribbled on the wall above the cell door 'In 100 years it will all be over.

Bonhoeffer's comment was to say that the Bible's answer is; 'My time is in your hands'.

Yet in the psalms there is also a question which we perhaps in a different way and for different reasons may be asking, are asking, because it is a question that I have been asked and have felt deep within myself,  from Psalm 13  'How long , O Lord?

For Bonhoeffer Psalm 70 allowed the question How long? to be asked as he struggled with the conflict between practical necessities, ink and stain remover, and the emotional impact of his imprisonment and fear of death, troubled, homesick, ill like a bird in cage'.

As we have shared Psalm 70 we may have expressed our own grief and anger at this new lock down, at being kept at home, at not seeing our children and grandchildren, and emotionally and urgently asked 'How long, O lord, or prayed urgently, make haste to help us.

But Psalm 70 also asks us to be aware of others in our communities and congregations we need to stop and listen, especially at this challenging time.

There are around us as neighbours and friends, people living in a Psalm 70 when the psalm is their own as a result of personal anxiety and the turmoil of life. 

How might we help and deliver to those so urgently crying out?

I have always used a simple acronym for prayer: ACTS!

It is the other sometimes hidden agenda of the Psalms. It is the promise and the persuasion of the Psalms that prayer is made of the four elements:

Adoration, as we praise God for his blessings. Confession as we acknowledge our falling short. Thanksgiving for the gift of the Gospel. Supplication as we ask for that which we need.

 



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