It is Lent. It is the time here in church that we mark the journey of Jesus to the Holy City of Jerusalem, the epicenter of Judaism in the ancient world, the place where all the events of Holy Week occur – from the palm parade to the turning of the tables in the temple to the last supper to the betrayal, the trial, and the crucifixion. Jesus is on an epic journey. The rabbi is on the move.
It is Lent. It is the time here in church when we – you and I who call ourselves his modern day disciples - mirror the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem with our own journeys. We too are on the move, attempting as best as we can to follow in his footsteps, but all the while also trying to make sense of the craziness of our world, struggling to untangle why we continue to do the things we do – inflicting hurt and ignoring the pain it causes, venturing to figure out why the Gospel message seems so far away and so much more like a dream than a reality.
It is Lent. It is a time of passions and feelings. And so it is appropriate to begin the season with a psalm, one of those Biblical vessels overflowing with all that lies deepest in our human hearts and souls. The psalms express our most profound – and often most troubling – emotions like no other writing in the entire Bible.
We will not begin Lent with just any psalm, of course, and definitely not with an old favorite like the joyous and celebratory 100th – “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before God’s presence with singing. “ No – we will not begin Lent with that kind of psalm because Lent is not a particularly joyous and celebratory season.
Instead, we begin this rather somber season of introspection, these weeks of journeying inside ourselves, with a psalm that is less widely read and so quite a bit less popular. It is at first an individual lament (and who likes lamenting), and then it is an acknowledgement of all the failures that have, over all the years from our very youth, darkened our lives (and who likes reliving those most embarrassing and most forgettable moments). And finally it is a plea (and who like to go a’beggin”). This psalm is an entreaty for guidance to the God who is always to be trusted. It is an appeal for a set of sacred instructions.
From the very deepest part of her being, the psalm singer asks God not to put her to shame, not to let her enemies gloat over her broken and regrettable life. She makes a heartfelt request to this faithful God of hers to teach her and all who wait upon the Lord the true ways, the ways of the Holy One.
The Psalms are a good companion to take with us on a Lenten journey – if for no other reason that surely Jesus carried the psalms with him on his climactic journey to Jerusalem. The psalms, you see, were the songs of the ancient Jewish people, his people. Jesus would have used the psalms when he and his followers worshipped together in the evening or as he did his own daily private devotions.
I like to think that the Psalms had an enormous and deeply profound meaning for Jesus because these wonderful poetic chants and ditties and laments poured forth the same thoughts and emotions that surely he carried with him on his journey – and that we too schlepp along with us. Joy to be sure and great high hope and holy praise, but also anger, loneliness, weariness, and even abject despair. Brian Erickson notes that the Psalms "read more like monologues than conversations, exercises in spiritual eavesdropping."
This particular psalm that we are reflecting on this morning is actually one of nine acrostic psalms, meaning that each line begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The point of an acrostic psalm is simple. It is meant to cover a particular subject in its entirety, from “A to Z” so to speak.
The purpose of Psalm 25 then is to re-orient us, to set us off once and for all in the right direction – which, when you think about it, is the point of Lent as well. The function of Psalm 25 is to pass on to us some important sacred instructions.
It is Lent, and so we journey with Jesus, as Lutheran pastor, Sara Olson-Smith writes, “honest about our own failings and struggles, our souls lifted up to God, for only God can give us forgiveness and power to change. (We journey), truthful about our despair and grief and weariness, our souls lifted up to God, for only God can bring our life out of death, dancing from our mourning.” We journey, searching, always searching.
But what do we journey toward? What ought we to be searching for? Do you think Jesus ever asked those questions too as he made his way to Jerusalem? Might he ever have whispered the psalmist’s words too: “Make me know your ways, O God”? I do not know about Jesus, but I do know that if Lent is to have any meaning whatsoever for us this year, then those questions must be our questions.
What is the true pathway that we are supposed to seek? God, which way do you want us to go? What is your Torah (which is the Hebrew word for instructions)? O God, teach me to live according to your truth….please.
Sacred instructions: That is what the psalmist seeks. But what are those instructions? As Presbyterian pastor Alan Brehm notes in his blog, “Most of us have labored under the mistaken notion that the Torah was the law, something from which we have been set free by Jesus. But nothing could be further from the truth. The torah is not a set of rules that are intended to bind us or to be codified into a set of laws. The torah is God’s instruction (and this is important: The Torah is God’s instruction for how to live) in light of the reality that God is working in this world to make all things new.”
“Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” How am I to live? What is the path I am to seek? Give me somedirection here, God.
And you know what? In the end, the Psalmist answers her own question – and the answer is important, so take note! “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness.”
It is pretty simple, when you come right down to it. When all is said and done, there is really only one instruction: Steadfast love and faithfulness, like God’s covenant faithfulness to the Hebrew people and, through Jesus, like God’s covenant love for us.
And if you are not sure exactly sure what covenant faithfulness is or covenant love involves, then this is important too: No matter what the Hebrew people did or how disobedient they were, God still loved them. Likewise, no matter what we do or how many times we turn away, God still faithfully walks beside us, ready to lead us home.
That is steadfast love and faithfulness – at its simplest and yet most profound and beautiful. And that is the challenge that God lays before us, we who are here because somewhere along the way we made a commitment to live as Jesus lived.
God’s instruction is to emulate God’s character—being faithful in relationships, loving in a way that never quits, working to set all things right in the world. (Alan Brehm blog) Alan Brehm writes, “One of the fundamental lessons of Lent is that we are called to live the life of the kingdom of God. But another one of the fundamental lessons of Lent is that we cannot live the life of the kingdom on our own.
The only way we can possibly achieve any success is if God “teaches” us. Being humble enough to seek God’s instruction is a matter of trust—of entrusting ourselves to God’s goodness and steadfast love and faithfulness, and being willing to take the risk of following God’s ways.”
And Jesus, of course, is our role model. Jesus emulates the character of God fully. Jesus embodies God and the way God wants us to live. And that is what this Lenten journey is all about. That is what following in the footsteps of Jesus these 40 days (not counting Sundays) until Easter means.
Lent is our opportunity in a very intentional way through prayer and study and hands on giving and mission to learn the ways of Jesus, to try our hand at following God’s instructions, to let go of old grudges and resentments, to see what our lives and our world might be like if the balance of power that we have put in place was shifted to the one that God would have us put in place.
When Lent is over, will we have all the answers? Probably not. When Lent is all over, will the world be a different place? Highly unlikely. What then is the point of first seeking and then following God’s sacred instructions.
One day a pilgrim began a long journey in search of peace, joy, and love. The pilgrim's journey passed through landscapes that were not always happy ones —through war, sickness, quarrels, rejections, and separations. The pilgrim also passed through lands where the more people possessed, the more warlike they became; the more they had to defend, the more they needed to attack each other. Longing for peace, they prepared for war. Longing for love, they surrounded themselves with walls of distrust and barriers of fear.
One morning, however, the pilgrim came to a lone little cottage beside the road, a hut that seemed to beckon him inside. Full of curiosity, he pilgrim entered. Inside the cottage was a little shop, and behind the counter stood a shopkeeper.
“What would you like?” asked the shopkeeper.
“What do you stock here?” asked the pilgrim.
“Oh, we have all the things here that I’m sure you most long for”' replied the shopkeeper. “Just tell me what you desire.”
“Well, I want peace in my own family, in my native land, and in the whole world. I want those who are sick to be healed and whole once more and those who are lonely to have friends.
I want those who are hungry to have enough to eat.”
There was a pause, while the pilgrim reviewed this shopping list. Gently, the shopkeeper broke in. “I'm sorry. I should have explained. We don't supply the fruits here. We only supply the seeds.”
And so it is with God’s sacred instructions, with the ministry of Jesus, with the Gospel message that he leaves with us. We have the directions, but the finished product is up to us.
May your Lenten journey truly take you in the footsteps of Jesus. May God’s ways be made known to you in a more compelling manner than they ever have before. May the sacred instructions become much clearer, and, like the pilgrim looking for his heat’s desire, may you become motivated enough to pick up lots of seeds along the way.
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