The Discipline of Remembering
June 5, 2011 Psalm 77
Intro:
Remembering is an important spiritual discipline, with one very important caution.
31 years ago, a 9yr old boy sat on the left side of the tiny sanctuary, about two thirds of the way back, listening to a visiting choir from some long forgotten Bible school. It was Easter Sunday, the evening service (back in the day when we went to church both in the morning and in the evening). I don’t remember much about the music, but I do remember that after a while of singing one of the choir members began to speak, and he told a very simple story about a man named Jesus who had died and rose again. It was a familiar story, I’d heard it for the last 6yrs or so, since my earliest memories, but that Sunday evening there was something different – behind and underneath the words was the Voice of God, and it spoke those words past my mind and into my heart, The Spirit breathed those words on my spirit, and I heard the invitation not just through the mouth of the guy from the choir but from the very mouth of God. The Voice said, essentially, would you like to Believe?
I did. I did very much, actually, so I prayed the prayer quietly, repeating after the choir guy, though I was too shy to raise my hand as requested. But maybe he knew, because after the prayer he said, maybe someone here just finished praying that prayer but didn’t raise their hand, and that is ok – just make sure you tell someone else before you go to sleep tonight. So that night, when my mom came in and sat on the edge of my bed to say goodnight, I told her that I had prayed that prayer to make Jesus my Lord and Saviour.
Even as I write that story again, something important happens to me. I re-connect, I re-live, I re-member the voice of God, the warmth and welcome, the acceptance and forgiveness, the smile of joy on my mom’s face reflecting (I’m sure) the smile of joy on God the Father’s face, and I’m reminded of the words of Jesus in Luke 15:7, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!
It was not the last time:
That day marked a beginning, and like you I have many other stories about when God spoke. I shared one about a month ago, which I think is going to end up in our Canadian Baptist Ministries Magazine, Mosaic, sometime in the near future, so I want to share that one with you also.
It begins in this front pew, about 5 years ago. The current season of ministry was by far the toughest. I’d hung in for a long time, but this particular Sunday morning I was really struggling. I didn’t want to continue, I felt like I just wanted to walk away and go do something else with my life. Surely God could use me in a different career, certainly I could be more effective for building His Kingdom somewhere else…
I sat in my pew through our time of worship, my head down in prayer, seeking God, asking if He wanted to release me from my call to ministry or even to this place of ministry. In my time of worship and seeking, I imagined myself at the foot of the cross, on my knees, head bowed, feeling empty and drained and like I couldn’t go on (and really not sure I wanted to).
Then, in a moment of what I believe to be sanctified imagination, I saw a hand reach down towards me, and I took it in mine, and it pulled me to my feet, and I looked into the face of a Bolivian man. He smiled and held me on my feet, and I felt a bit of hope and a bit of strength return. It seemed to me some kind of promise, though it didn’t make a lot of sense at the moment, and it certainly didn’t change anything. I wiped my eyes, and got up to preach
About 6 months later me and a team of 5 other church leaders went to Bolivia to begin our relationship with our partner. Nothing much had changed in my church, and the experience I had had that Sunday morning was mostly a distant memory. Our last day in Bolivia we were invited for lunch in the home of Senor and Senora Guiterrez, parents of our host Ivan. Two amazing weeks were coming to a close, and after lunch we all sat together in the living room, out came a guitar and charango, and we just casually began to sing together. At first just fun – Ivan’s re-write of La Bamba to ba da ba da Chochabamba, among others, and then a time of worship.
Again I closed my eyes. I started to think about returning home, and all the same problems and struggles awaiting me, and again I started to wonder if I should continue. Again I asked God if He was releasing me, and if He had a reassignment for me.
And then the vision returned, and God spoke. He told me that He would lift me up, and He would use my new friends and partners in Bolivia to do so. He spoke words of encouragement which were made real by the love in the Guiterrez home, He spoke words of affirmation through Ivan and his mom and dad, He spoke words of community and mutuality through our shared singing and praying together, He spoke words of hope and newness through a spontaneous gift of a charango given by Ivan’s dad to us, a practice instrument he had purchased from a small boy some 30 years ago and then used to teach his children to play. Above all, God spoke words of His Kingdom coming all over the world, in Edmonton at our church and in Bolivia at the Casa de la Amistad. Together.
The season at home actually got more difficult, but my heart was changed. My call was affirmed. My feet were re-planted. My hand was now joined with the hand of a partner, also seeking first the Kingdom of God, in another place and culture, but the same Kingdom and the same Lord.
The Discipline of Remembering:
Remembering is an important spiritual discipline, with one very important caution, and it is one modeled and commanded of us throughout Scripture. I’ve chosen one example for us to consider together this morning, Psalm 77. It is a Psalm of Remembrance, with a very distinct rhythm. It begins in despair. Perhaps a feeling you recognize, either from your present situation or from some past season of your life. The author is desperate, crying out, sleepless, overwhelmed, longing for God to come and rescue. It hits a climax with six pointed, brutally honest questions. Hear verses 1-9:
Psalm 77:1-9
For Jeduthun, the choir director: A psalm of Asaph.
1 I cry out to God; yes, I shout.
Oh, that God would listen to me!
2 When I was in deep trouble,
I searched for the Lord.
All night long I prayed, with hands lifted toward heaven,
but my soul was not comforted.
3 I think of God, and I moan,
overwhelmed with longing for his help. (Interlude)
4 You don’t let me sleep.
I am too distressed even to pray!
5 I think of the good old days,
long since ended,
6 when my nights were filled with joyful songs.
I search my soul and ponder the difference now.
7 Has the Lord rejected me forever?
Will he never again be kind to me?
8 Is his unfailing love gone forever?
Have his promises permanently failed?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he slammed the door on his compassion? (Interlude)
When reading the Psalms, it is important to remember that we are reading the lyrics of a song, and sometimes there are brief notes, such as what our translation puts there with the note interlude. Simply put, the music would have continued there for a bit, creating space for the worshipers to reflect and meditate, to really drink in and experience and identify with the words they have just sung. And in this case, having just sung those 6 brutally honest questions, that interlude space is one full of emotion, struggle, wrestling, honesty, grief, anger, resentment, and with longing and still some bit of hope.
What is it that brings the change? What reverses this slide into despair? Let us read on (though you can probably guess):
Psalm 77:10-20
10 And I said, This is my fate;
the Most High has turned his hand against me.
11 But then I recall all you have done, O Lord;
I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.
12 They are constantly in my thoughts.
I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works.
13 O God, your ways are holy.
Is there any god as mighty as you?
14 You are the God of great wonders!
You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.
15 By your strong arm, you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
Interlude
16 When the Red Sea saw you, O God,
its waters looked and trembled!
The sea quaked to its very depths.
17 The clouds poured down rain;
the thunder rumbled in the sky.
Your arrows of lightning flashed.
18 Your thunder roared from the whirlwind;
the lightning lit up the world!
The earth trembled and shook.
19 Your road led through the sea,
your pathway through the mighty waters—
a pathway no one knew was there!
20 You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep,
with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.
The Turning Point
The despair of the first half of the Psalm turns at verse 11, with a conscious choice: But then I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago.
There is a discipline here – even in the moments of feeling deep desperation, the discipline is to remember, to recall all that you have done, O Lord. The Psalm continues and lists some of those, and this act of remembering is transformational. It changes our focus, from the huge magnitude of our problems to the even bigger magnitude of our God, and the despair starts to lift a little. It changes our feeling of hopelessness to one of renewed hope, it reminds us of how God has come, has spoken, has worked in power, has proved Himself faithful to us over and over and over again.
And so, we come to know again, God will do it again.
In moments of desperation, we doubt that.
In times of trouble, we cry out for God, but sometimes the answer doesn’t come right away.
In seasons of pain, we wonder where our help will come from.
And sometimes, even, as it was for this Psalmist, we wonder
7 Has the Lord rejected me forever?
Will he never again be kind to me?
8 Is his unfailing love gone forever?
Have his promises permanently failed?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he slammed the door on his compassion?
The discipline of remembering answers those questions, powerfully and definitively. Because the God who has accepted us, been kind, revealed His unfailing love, kept His promises, been gracious, and thrown open the door of His compassion will do so again. And this is where the one caution comes in: the discipline of remembering is not about living in the past. It is not about only believing that God has acted and has spoken previously. It can turn into that, and then we are back to those questions of desperation in vss. 7-9, where essentially we are saying that God did it before but is not or can not do it again. The point of the discipline of remembering is so that we will know, we will believe, we will trust, we will hope, we will expect that God can and will do it again. He will get us through. He will be faithful. He will, once again, flood us with love and forgiveness and power and hope. And we will see His Kingdom come. Do you believe that? Really, deeply, truly? God can, and will, do it again.
The Exodus and the Cross:
When we read the Psalms, the most frequent event remembered is the Exodus, when God through Moses led His people out of Egypt, and it is here in Psalm 77 (see vs. 16ff). This was some 1000 years prior to the time of David, when many of the Psalms were written – that is a long time! It might seem strange that a 1000 year-old event would be the one that brings hope and transformation. But it shouldn’t. See, for us today it is a 2000 year-old event that does exactly the same thing: the cross and the empty tomb. The Psalmist returns to the Red Sea, when Moses led God’s people out of slavery to Egypt; we return to Golgotha and the Garden Tomb, where Jesus leads us out of slavery to sin and death. And then, no matter what we are facing, we remember.
13 O God, your ways are holy.
Is there any god as mighty as you?
14 You are the God of great wonders!
You demonstrate your awesome power among the nations.
15 By your strong arm, you redeemed your people,
Conclusion:
In just a moment we are going to remember, relive, and reconnect with what God has done for us at the cross and the empty tomb through our celebration of the Lord’s table, communion. But first I want to give you an encouragement in the way of an assignment. I’ve told you two of my stories – stories that impact me, encourage me, sustain me, remind me of who my God is and what He has done for me, and in that is the promise and hope that God will do it again; and I trust they have been an encouragement to you. Now it is your turn. Would you, today or tomorrow, share one of your stories with someone else? Remember, tell the story, be encouraged, and be an encouragement to someone else – maybe someone God has been bringing to mind recently, maybe someone who doesn’t have the same hope you do in Jesus, maybe someone to whom you are wanting to grow closer, or with whom you desire to build a deeper friendship. Remember, tell the story, and be encouraged.
