Welcome one and all! Happy labor Day Weekend….marking the end of the 40^th anniversary of “the summer of love”. Oh, well. I guess we’ll just have to go back to normal……….

REFLECTIONS – on “The Design” Psalm 19

One winter, I was out in my boat with my small group docked at Port Ludlow in late January. It was 28 degrees and crystal clear as the sun rose on Saturday morning with the boat moored facing north by northwest at the Olympic Mountains, which are a scant 20 miles away. I Looked out front window and was paralyzed by the sight of the low angle winter sun falling on the Olympics. They looked otherworldly ‘metallic’.  All I could do is stand there in stunned silence and whisper, “I believe.....praise God..” The essence of God’s style and character is scarcely veiled when we soak up God’s handiwork in the likes of Nature.

God’s power and unpredictability struck me this Tuesday afternoon as a flew home from Los Angeles next to a man from Dallas…and he asked me to show him sights out the West-facing window. We looked out at the mouth of the Columbia River … the second or third most treacherous, boat-eating spot on earth…and it was beautiful … totally irenic…And…I thought “God you are amazing … your glory and your power displayed so often in this one place…” And then, there was this thing inside me as my fellow traveler reveled in what he was seeing…and this part of me said, “GOD YOU HAVE  A DESIGN…AND I WANT TO BE PART OF IT…I WANT IN…!!”

So, today we are going to ponder THE DESIGN as we celebrate communion Sunday on this Labor Day weekend. The Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible -- they teach us how to pray. Today we look at a psalm that uses line after line of parallelism to direct our attention to the created order .... and teach us about the purpose of Creation….and about OUR ROLE AS CREATURES. The great English author, C. S. Lewis, said of the Psalm we are about to read, “I take this as the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world.”

Psalm 19:1-14

    The heavens declare the glory of God;

        the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 

    [2] Day after day they pour forth speech;

        night after night they display knowledge. 

    [3] There is no speech or language

        where their voice is not heard. 

    [4] Their voice goes out into all the earth,

        their words to the ends of the world.

    In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, 

        [5] which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,

        like a champion rejoicing to run his course. 

    [6] It rises at one end of the heavens

        and makes its circuit to the other;

        nothing is hidden from its heat.

    [7] The law of the LORD is perfect,

        reviving the soul.

    The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,

        making wise the simple. 

    [8] The precepts of the LORD are right,

        giving joy to the heart.

    The commands of the LORD are radiant,

        giving light to the eyes. 

    [9] The fear of the LORD is pure,

        enduring forever.

    The ordinances of the LORD are sure

        and altogether righteous. 

    [10] They are more precious than gold,

        than much pure gold;

    they are sweeter than honey,

        than honey from the comb. 

    [11] By them is your servant warned;

        in keeping them there is great reward.

    [12] Who can discern his errors?

        Forgive my hidden faults. 

    [13] Keep your servant also from willful sins;

        may they not rule over me.

    Then will I be blameless,

        innocent of great transgression.

    [14] May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

        be pleasing in your sight,

        O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

A few reflections on Psalm 19.

The Creation itself is a master piece of praise to God. In a sense, nature is our worship leader. John Calvin, is a great thinker who lived in the middle 1500’s and wrote theology from Geneva Switzerland, talks about nature this way...

“When a person, from beholding and contemplating the heavens, has been brought to acknowledge God, they will learn also to reflect upon and to admire God’s wisdom and power as displayed on the face of the earth, not only in general, but even in the minutest plant.”

Nature’s symmetry, its systems, its raw power and size draw our thoughts to higher powers. The awe that is inspired is not just pure aesthetics…but rather an invitation to affirm “THIS GRANDEUR AND POWER IS AT WORK IN ME”

Observing and experiencing nature brings us back to a spirituality centered in God’s creativity and care. Peter Himmelman, a songwriter who happens to be Bob Dylan’s son-in-law said,

“Your time on earth is limited.  You have a mission here.  so don’t go crazy with the day to day things.  And I DO go crazy with the day to day things!  I’m a nervous wreck, and I always forget that trees are made by God.”

Sometimes, we have to go look at a tree and be reminded of God’s creation of this world and you and me.  We need to look at a tree that grows one ring thicker per year and remind ourselves that we are like trees and that we grow little at a time no matter how frantic our vain pursuits may be.

We can see that Nature exudes spirituality.  Staring at a mountain or a tree for a while....looking a rocky harbor carved in the Canadian gulf by a glacier....all these things put you in touch with a higher power…NOT A GENERAL POWER…BUT A PERSONAL GOD. Throughout time, many groups of people have confused the created order with God.  Ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun-god Ra. b.  Notice this Psalm mentions the sun like an Egyptian or Mayan might have but then says that the sun points to the preciseness, the energy and the glory of the God who made the sun…and won’t let the sun be confused as God. There is a continuing trend of worshipping the earth under the assumption that this planet is actually a living and evolving being....that the earth itself is God. 

Called Gaia worship...it is a form of pantheism that views god and the creation as one.  Pan means “one or all” and “theism” means God.  So, pantheism is the belief that God is everything and everything is God. This is not the Christian view of God and Creation. This psalm would direct our prayers in awe of nature away from the planet itself and toward the Creator-God whose glory and goodness it both reveals and praises. The fact that God is separate from the creation is called “transcendence”.  It is important in our spirituality to realize that God, though presence with us and the creation, is separate. .  We are not a part of some cosmic consciousness. We are not part of a pantheistic system....where every atom in the created order is part of God.

Claus Westermann, one of my favorite theologians, has this to say about the value of a Psalm, like Psalm 19 in helping us understand the true nature of our universe.

In our time the creation psalms again receive important significance, because in the light of science and its results, as well as in our present stance toward nature, the deification of nature has no future....there remain only two alternatives:  Materialism or faith in the Creator.  Either the stars, the atoms, and the earth are only matter -- then we human beings must be understood as coming from matter and consisting of matter -- or else the stars, sun and earth are related to God just as we are; they are creatures.  In that case the ultimate meaning of their existence is the same as that of humans:  existing to the praise and glory of God.

And………..let me build on Westermann for a moment here – and also move us forward in this Psalm. This Psalm moves from nature generally declaring the glory of God in a way that is beautiful to God’s REVEALED WORD IN SCRIPTURE THAT IS SUPERIOR TO NATURE>>>>IT IS PERFECT…

    [7] The law of the LORD is perfect,

        reviving the soul.

   The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,

        making wise the simple. 

    [8] The precepts of the LORD are right,

       giving joy to the heart.

    The commands of the LORD are radiant,

        giving light to the eyes. 

    [9] The fear of the LORD is pure,

        enduring forever.

   The ordinances of the LORD are sure

        and altogether righteous. 

    [10] They are more precious than gold,

        than much pure gold;

    they are sweeter than honey,

        than honey from the comb. 

The PERFECTION OF THE WORD calls us to PERFECT ADHERENCE AND CONFORMITY TO THE WORD…

    [11] By them is your servant warned;

        in keeping them there is great reward.

   [12] Who can discern his errors?

        Forgive my hidden faults. 

    [13] Keep your servant also from willful sins;

        may they not rule over me.

    Then will I be blameless,

       innocent of great transgression.

The heavens and the earth are ordered and set by God and they are sustained by GOD … and SO ARE THE LIVES OF THOSE WHO APPLY THE WORD TO THE ENTIRETY OF THEIR PERSON AND THEIR LIVES.

Psalm 19 moves us to a specific response.

Our heart’s desire and prayer becomes a plea to be like the Creation...to be harmonious with God’s plan and design. But this very prayer of wanting to be harmonious with Creation in being a praise to god is a reminder that we are not perfect. So the psalmist helps us to pray for God’s forgiveness and redirection of our lives so that we might offer God perfect praise with our very existence....verse 12...

        Forgive my hidden faults. 

    [13] Keep your servant also from willful sins;

        may they not rule over me.

    Then will I be blameless,

        innocent of great transgression.

    [14] May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

        be pleasing in your sight,

        O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

That’s how Psalm 19 works. ... it leads us into intimacy with God. That’s how you can start out by staring at Mount Rainier on a Sunny morning....your heart full of troubles and fears....then wind up consumed in praise of God.  We go outside for a breath of fresh air and some peace of mind.  We wind up contemplating the wave pattern on Puget Sound from the heights of Sunset Hill park ... and instead of just peace of mind...we wind up making  peace with God.

AND HERE’S THE KICKER…

WE STARTED OUT BEHOLDING SOMETHING IN NATURE AND IT CAUSED US TO CONTEMPLATE THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE PERFECTION AND AUTHORITY OF GOD’S WORD IN OUR LIVES.

THEN…WE APPLY THAT WORD … TO OUR STRENGTHS … TO OUR HIDDEN FLAWS AND OUR FLAGRANT WANDERINGS…WE APPLY THAT PERFECT WORD PERFECTLY TO ALL OF WHO WE ARE …

AND OUR PRAYER BECOMES VERSE 14 OF TODAY’S PSALM…

‘MAY THE WORS OF MY MOUTH AND THE MEDITATIONS OF MY HEART BE ACCEPTABLE IN YOUR SIGHT, OH GOD.’

THIS PSALM GOES FULL CIRCLE…FROM PRAISING GOD FOR CREATION AND THE GLORY IT EXTENDS TO GOD…TO SAYING

‘GOD, I AM LIVING AND APPLYING YOUR WORD…I AM TINY. I AM TEMPORARY IN THIS WORLD, ESPECIALLY COMPARED TO A MOUNTAIN OR THE COLUMBIA RIVER…BUT I AM LIVING INTO YOUR WORD…AND I HOPE WE YOU SEE IN ME DECLARES THE GLORY OF GOD TO YOU AND THIS WORLD JUST LIKE YOUR CREATION DOES.”

NEWS FROM SANCTUARY –

9/2 – Attendance: 90  Offering: $4,586  Kids: 5

 Looking to find a small group? Contact Mark Mohrlang … mark.mohrlang@gmail.com

PRAYERS –

Lord, we pray for safety at the restaurant/karaoke bar in Greenwood where many persons have been harmed in assaults. We especially ask for healing for the man that was beaten nearly to death on Saturday night.

Jesus, be with those who are embarking on significant travel, particularly Hayden Smith as she heads to South Africa this week.

Christ, have mercy on us all as we seek you power and purity in our lives.

Holy Spirit, comfort Kerri and others who have suffered the loss of family members in recent weeks.

Now…do go out and make it a great first week of Fall.

Much Love,

Dr. Randy L. Rowland

2854 NW 59th Street

Seattle, WA  98107

USA

206.953.0909

www.sanctuarycrc.org