Praying in a Time of Brokenness
Psalm 130
St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
June 12, 2022
Yesterday thousands of people gathered in communities throughout our country to protest gun violence. Then as we turn on the television we learn of new incidents of gun violence in in Lower downtown Denver, Aurora, and other locations in our state and in various places around our country. In South Texas, communities continue to meet in houses of worship, gathering in more pain and more questions that we could possibly imagine. The families of those nineteen children that were killed, the families of those two teachers, the families that were wounded and are still in hospitals, the family of an 18-year-old boy who senselessly shot his grandmother and 21 others several days ago. The pain is so widespread. Wounds are still bleeding in Buffalo, New York, from the racially motivated shooting a few weeks ago. Ten black men and women in grocery store shot by an 18-year-old who drove 200 miles to express his anger and hatred.
There’s the war in Ukraine, halfway around the world and we here feel its impact and share its trauma. It seems like the flood of wrong and violence just keeps flowing and flowing and there is no escape.
The violence, the war, in our world. There is so much pain and fear in our world, it’s where we live, we have to come to terms with that.
It is the place we are called to live a life of prayer, offer our sacrifice. Out of the depths of pain. We don’t get to choose the place and time, it is from here that we are to pray, love, and follow and serve.
Our fear and anger can’t paralyze us. We are called to be salt and light. We have to find a way to engage this fearful world with the good news of Jesus Christ. One way is to with our life of prayer.
A life of prayer is a life permeates everything we are in our life with God. We don’t have a prayer life like we have a recreational life, a family life, a vocational life, but we have a life of prayer, what Richard Foster calls, “Our life with God.” Dallas Willard call this life of prayer, “A conversational relationship with God. We are called to a life of prayer.”
Prayer is always a language of response to God throughout our day, life, in all circumstances. One of the ways we learn the life of prayer is from the Psalms, the only book from Old Testament attached to the New Testament. It has always been the life of the church. Psalms teach us a life of prayer.
Psalms 120-134 psalms of ascent. All kinds of aspects of life. Even the journey to Jerusalem is a metaphor for life. Things to be grateful for, etc.
Help us understand prayer in such a time as ours. Out of the depths I pray to you.
Psalm 130 begins with “Out of the depths, O Lord, I cry to you.” That’s the prayer offer from someone who is in a place of deep darkness and despair. It is the prayer when you find yourself beneath the overwhelming waters of the accumulated circumstances of the troubles of this world.
Let’s read it together, Psalms 130:
Out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord!
2) Lord, hear my voice!
Let thy ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
3) If thou, O Lord, shouldst mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4) But there is forgiveness with thee,
that thou mayest be feared.
5) I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6) my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7) O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plenteous redemption.
8) And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
How do we live a life of prayer when fear presses us down?
Two tensions: 1) reality of human sin and brokenness and 2) the goodness of God
“Out of the depths…” dignifies to our suffering.
Henri J. Nouwen:
“Many people suffer because of the false supposition on which they have based their lives. That supposition is that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt. But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to our human condition.
Therefore, ministry is a very confronting service. It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberations starts.”
Pain and suffering are a part of the human condition. Consider these words from Psalm 69:
Save me, O God!
For the waters have come up to my neck.
2) I sink in deep mire,
where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters,
and the flood sweeps over me.
But as for me, my prayer is to thee, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of thy steadfast love answer me.
With thy faithful help 14 rescue me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.
15) Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the pit close its mouth over me.
When it hurts, you take it to God. God is not embarrassed; he invites us… to come to Him.
Psalm 139 reminds us: “Where can I go from your presence?”
Suffering is real and God is real.
In God we have forgiveness, love, great power to redeem (Psalm 130), God is personal, redeemer, hear our cry.
Eugene Peterson wrote in his book, The Long Obedience:
And this, of course, is why we are able to face, acknowledge, accept and live through suffering: we know that it can never be ultimate, it can never constitute the bottom line. God is at the foundation and God is at the boundaries.
God seeks the hurt, maimed, wandering, and lost. God woos the rebellious and confused. If God were different than he is, not one of us would have a leg to stand on. (v4) Because of the forgiveness we have a place to stand. We stand in confident awe before God, not in terrorized despair.
Those are the two realities of life, suffering and faith.
Our response: Wait on the Lord
Wait on the Lord. Endure the present in anticipation of the future.
Waiting is an active thing. He uses an illustration, “More than a watchman waiting for the dawn, my soul waits for you.” Waiting is wrapped in prayer.
Other response is that we live in hope, we learn this as we read the end of the Psalm.
Martin Luther said, It is a psalm of a state where hope despairs and yet despairs hope. Hope is not presumptuous, it is based on God’s steadfast love, not a fatalistic resignation, but that God will give meaning and conclusion to all of this, confidence in the future.
My friends, there will come a time when our prayers will not be from the depths of despair but from the heights of glory and blessing and praise.
Consider these encouraging words from Revelation 21:1-6
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; 3) and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,[a] and God himself will be with them;[b] 4) he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”
5) And he who sat upon the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6) And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the fountain of the water of life without payment.