University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

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For University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill

June 7, 2009

Psalm 29  (NRSV)

 ¹ Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

 ² Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name; worship the LORD in holy splendor.

³ The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over mighty waters.

 ⁴ The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

 ⁵ The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

 ⁶ He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.

 ⁷ The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.

 ⁸ The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

 ⁹ The voice of the LORD causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare; and in his temple all say, "Glory!"

 ¹⁰ The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.

 ¹¹ May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!

When I hear this Psalm, there is a song that comes to my mind, one I taught at Camp Calvin[2], where I worked for two summers while I was in college:

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, There's nothing my God cannot do.

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, There's nothing my God cannot do.

The mountains are God’s, The valleys are God’s, The stars are God’s handiwork too.

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, There's nothing my God cannot do.

This song was not unique to Camp Calvin, of course, I’ve heard the kids in Sunday School here singing it, too.  Do you know it?

 In any case, the main theme of this song, “My God is So Big,” is the same idea we find in Psalm 29:  God is Mighty, and God is Wonderful.

It’s a theological concept that has been around since the beginning of faith itself, and is one of the first things we teach children.  One of the first planks in the foundation of faith.  God is bigger and mightier than anything we can imagine.

Accordingly[3], scholars believe that Psalm 29 is one of the first Psalms ever written.  In fact, they also believe that Psalm 29 didn’t start out its life as a Psalm at all, but was adapted from a hymn written to the God Baal.

It is a Psalm of praise, its message taught through repetition.  God is God, and God is good.

In these 11 verses, the personal word for God, Yahweh, appears 19 times.  Only Yahweh is God.

The”Voice of the Lord” phrase is repeated seven times, a number indicated completeness.

And humans, appropriately and symbolically, are not at the center.  They, we, are included only at the end.  “May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!  “

God is God, and God is good.    God is more powerful than the strongest storm.  God is strong enough to break the cedars of Lebanon, the strongest wood known at the time.

God is God of the storms.  God of power.  There is  Nothing that God cannot do.

Amen.

Only.  Only when you take these words off of the page and think about what they really mean, the Amen doesn’t come so easily.  What does it really mean to worship a God whose voice thunders, who whirls the winds and breaks the trees?

I grew up on the coast of South Carolina, in Charleston.  We lived right on the water, a wonderful place to watch storms.   You could see them coming, and going, and it was a part of the standard curriculum to learn to study the clouds and responsibly assess whether you needed to run for cover or could just stay where you were and  watch it rain down thunder on places within your sight but beyond your reach.

One summer, I was about 7, we were at the pool when one of these storms started to gather.  You could see it coming, and so we packed up and headed for home, arriving at the same time as the storm.  My mother was, I suspect, getting my baby brother out of the car and trying to shuttle all of our gear indoors.  I suspect.  What I remember is that, for a few minutes, I was unsupervised.  I went to the back sliding glass door to watch.     I stood there, still in my swimsuit, and watched the storm.

The sky was dark, and the winds were blowing.  The rain hadn’t yet arrived.  And as I watched, all of a sudden I saw a tree lift up.  Not a shrub.  Not a sapling.  But a tree.  Easily ten times as tall as me.   Up.  It hadn’t been blown over, it had been lifted up, roots and all, and then dropped to the ground.   Then a large pine tree, knocked out of its place, fell over, and played dominoes with another pine tree, falling onto, into the corner of our house.

And then the rains came.

It couldn’t have taken more than a moment.  My mom didn’t see it, wouldn’t have had time to jerk me away from the glass that was no doubt a terrible place for me to be standing.

My brain didn’t know how to process what had happened.  It was surreal.  Strange.   I remember that it was terrifying.  And paralyzing. 

I’ll tell you what I was not thinking. I was NOT thinking about the wonder and glory of God.

What if you are IN the storm?  Then that image of God being in charge, sending the wind and the destruction, it isn’t so comforting, is it?

• When the specialist is called in during your routine Dr.’s visit.
• Your spouse has packed their bags, literally or emotionally.
• Your boss has asked to sit down with you--  with the HR rep at his side.
• You live in a war zone, not of your making, that you cannot control.

And then the words that conclude this Psalm, “May the LORD bless his people with peace” don’t make sense at all.  How is the storm, peace?

What does it mean to worship a God who has that much power?

Why should we love that God?

Why should we trust that God?

What God is that?

Christian Doctrine tells us that God being this powerful is a good thing.

 A God so powerful can snatch victory from defeat.

A God so powerful can prevail with strength even in the midst of weakness.

A God so powerful works through insignificant people and through a dismissed man on a cross.

But I find that, in the storm, that’s not what is being asked.

We just want to know why.

• Why did the plane disappear?
• Why is the child sick?
• Why are some denied basic rights?
• Why is the heart broken?

Those are the questions we to which we want the answers. 

To which we want that Mighty God, Our Mighty God, to respond.

And if God is the God of the storm and the wind, can’t God choose NOT to send the storm and the wind?

All too often even the experts come back with the answer, “We just don’t know.”

And so the question soon becomes: Why should we put our faith in a God whose power is compared to thunder that smashes cedars and winds that strip the forest bare when all most of us really want is to lead peaceful lives as far away as possible from the storm?

Of course, that’s wishful thinking.     Like it or not, there are storms.   Some of them come with predictions and expectations, and others overcome us without warning.

How do we put our faith in this God?  What God is this?

That answer is right there in the Psalm, the same place that gave us these questions.

The words of this Psalm, singing to a God who is Powerful and Mighty ,it isn’t a proclamation that the world is the way that it should be,  the words of this Psalm are  a hope for a coming reality.

In these words we can embrace the contradictions.  That God is all powerful, and yet the world is not yet the way that it should be.

We aren’t the first to cry, nor will we be the last to encounter storms.

There are still storms, and God is still in them, right there with us.

Not only is God with us, God came among us, and lived and suffered, and cried, and prayed, and raged against a world that was not what God hoped or intended.

And God promised.

Knowing that we are not alone can bring comfort in the storm, and what can help get us through the storms is the promise of this Mighty, Powerful God.

Salvation.  Forgiveness.  Hope.

As we get beat down by the rain and blown by the wind we wait for it.

We hope for it. We trust in it. 

As it says in Romans 8:28, the verse just after the ones which were the focus of Bob’s sermon last week,” We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.”

We can say God if God and God is good and know that this is what we mean.  Not that all things are good, but that God is always.  Always.  Always working for good.

In the chaos of the storm we know that God has promised to us salvation and although we are tempted to give up.  God can handle our storms, questions, hopes, and gratitude, it might even be argued that this is what we were created for, in the words of Craig Wright’s hymn recalling the words said by God to Job, “Where were you, “Where were you when I crafted you a language... / So you could live and die with dignity / And shake your fist with poetry, imagining creation from the first"[4]

What can help get us through the storms is the promise of this Mighty, Powerful God.

The world which God has promised.  And Jesus said, (John 14:3) And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also

What God?  That God.

God has made and continues to make the promise. And God does not break promises.

So we wait. Hebrew for ‘wait’ actually means: wait and trust. My friend Matt translates it this way: bet on it. God is coming for sure, bringing salvation: bet on it. [i].

God has made us a promise.  Before the storm, and it is the same in the midst of the storm.  There is more than what we can see. 

Some days we are active partners in bringing about the world God has promised.  Some days we have to beg for forgiveness for the ways in which we have hindered its arrival.  And some days we are in the storm, and all we can do is hang on.

When we are in the storm we can know:  Not only is God with us, offering a balm for our broken hearts, but God is working, hoping to work with us, for a better tomorrow. 

What God?  That God.  Amen