Dueling Psalms, 130-19

Note: As I said in my “Breaking Silence” post yesterday I decided to go to the lectionary to look for some inspiration about the depressing state the world is in right now, and as usual the Word is there if we choose to look. One of the texts for this Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary is Psalm 130, a never-failing, classic writing on coping with difficult situations. I found this post on that Psalm from 2017 which still seems quite relevant, and so I share it first before turning to another great text from Mark 5, the healing of Jairus’ daughter, which is the Gospel lesson in this Sunday’s lectionary.

No, that 130-19 is not a lopsided NBA finals basketball score! It’s the score of my attitude adjustment a few days ago when I awoke in one of those woe-is-me moods and thought of the lament known as De Profundis in Psalm 130. That’s Latin for “O crap I have to face another day of aches and pains and bad news!”

My arthritis was nagging at me, my chronic back trouble was moving up the pain scale, and the news was full of more terrorist attacks and hate crimes. Reading the newspaper over my morning coffee used to be one of my favorite times of the day. I still do it out of a sense of duty to be an informed citizen, but it has become an increasingly depressing task.

Psalm 130 begins “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!” As tensions between our nation and others mount, as our president foolishly believes his own nationalistic rhetoric that we can shrug off our responsibility for climate change and go it alone, as fears of terror attacks increase, and partisan politics paralyze any attempt to address critical domestic and international issues responsibly, I often wonder if God or anyone is listening to the voice of my supplications.

Later that same morning I went out to work in our lawn and gardens still down in the depths. We are blessed to live on a beautiful property decorated with my wife’s gardening handiwork, a pond, trees and flowers. But the beauty requires hard work, especially this time of year when the grass and the weeds are being very fruitful and multiplying. It’s the work that prompts me at times to say that “yard work” is made up of two four-letter words.

But the birds were in good humor that morning and serenaded me as I went forth to mow the lawn. And then I looked up at the blue sky dotted with huge languishing cotton ball clouds pictured above, a sight not seen nearly often enough in central Ohio, and my heart shifted gears from Psalm 130 to 19: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” (Psalm 19:1-4).

In basketball 19 doesn’t beat 130, but in the game of faithful living it does. God’s presence is all around us no matter how far down in the depths we are feeling. We just have to look for it with all our senses. No, the skies are not always breathtakingly beautiful, but the loving God of all creation is always surrounding us if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Even the author of De Profundis knew that while in the depths, and Psalm 130 ends with this statement of faith and hope: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem. It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.”

It is necessary to cry out for help, to admit our helplessness to cope with the slings and arrows of life. It is also necessary to wait patiently and hopefully because the arc of moral justice bends ever so slowly. But we are also called to take action to collaborate in our own healing, and that’s exactly what Jairus and the woman with the 12-year flow of blood do in the Gospel lesson for this week.

Their story in Mark 5:21-43 describes two people in the depths of despair. Jairus, a powerful leader of the synagogue is helpless to save his gravely ill daughter and seeks Jesus out and humbles himself by kneeling at Jesus’ feet, begging for healing for his little girl. But as often happens in ministry, Jesus is interrupted right in the middle of this crisis by a person from the other end of the socio-economic spectrum.

A woman who is unclean because she has had a flow of blood for 12 years is also desperate. So much so that she risks coming out in public seeking healing because a multitude of doctors have only made her worse. She humbles herself in a different way, only wanting to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment; and immediately she feels her body healed.

Jesus, of course, feels power go out from him and seeks the woman out – not to scold or condemn her, but to praise her for her faith which has healed her.

But alas, news comes that Jairus’ daughter has died while Jesus was busy healing the woman. When Jesus assures Jairus that his daughter is not really dead the crowd laughs at him. That happens to people who dare to believe in God’s power in spite of evidence that evil and suffering have prevailed.

And Jesus goes to Jairus’ home, tells the little girl to get up, and when she does he instructs those there to give the girl something to eat. Just another day’s work for Jesus because he believes and heals those who dare to believe with him and through him.

Like Jairus and the woman we often have much suffering and fear we need to be healed of. These texts make it clear the formula for healing is to admit the mess we’re in, cry out for help, wait patiently for deliverance, and when Jesus’ is in the neighborhood (which is always) take action to find him so faith can make us whole too.