“Help in times of trouble”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, November 24, 2023
Psalm 102 (Forward, p. 26)
This prayer of dereliction certainly ‘covers the waterfront’. While its opening verses are very personal, very individual, its preface suggests that it is appropriately used by anyone who is hurting and needy. Here we might note two aspects of the author’s troubles.
Firstly, there is his physical ailments, his physical suffering and agony, which are significant. “My days disappear like smoke, and my bones are burning as though in a furnace. I am wasting away like grass, and my appetite is gone. My groaning never stops, and my bones can be seen through my skin. I am like a lonely owl in the desert or a restless sparrow alone on a roof” (verses 3-7). The descriptions are generic enough as to apply to many people and many ailments, and its mentions of ‘fever, frailty, wasting, pain, sleeplessness, melancholy, rejection, and despair’ (to quote Kidner) are specific enough to ‘strike a familiar chord’ with quite a multitude of sufferers. Surely many of us can sympathize with our psalmist in his woes and echo his feelings, certainly at certain times of our lives.
But there is more here than just the personal. There is also a corporate element here, a concern for Zion, the city of Jerusalem. “Our Lord, you are King forever, and will always be famous. You will show pity to Zion because the time has come. We, your servants, love each stone in the city, and we are sad to see them lying in the dust. Our Lord, the nations will honour you; and all kings on earth will praise your glory. You will rebuild the city of Zion. Your glory will be seen, and the prayers of the homeless will be answered” (verses 12-17). And while our own present-day concerns may not necessarily have to do with the welfare of that city—though, right now that might indeed be the case—haven’t we often had concerns about the state of our city, country and world? And, haven’t we often asked for, yearned for, God’s swift and decisive intervention?
But then, even in the midst of his recurrent appeals to God for help, there is—to many of us ‘moderns’ at least—a rather discordant note. It is the element of his criticisms of God, where the psalmist lays the blame for his woes at the feet of God:
“My enemies insult me all day, and they use my name for a curse word. Instead of food, I have ashes to eat and tears to drink, because you are furious and have thrown me aside” (verses 8-10);
“I should be strong, but you, our Lord, have made an old person of me” (verse 23);
To many today, this attribution of cause may seem strange for we seldom hold God accountable to every nasty thing that happens upon earth, suggesting instead that they are due to human depravity and human choice and free will. But even so, do we not often say, or think, such things as: “What I have done to deserve this?”, or, “God must be punishing me,” when things go awry?
Be that what it may—whether believe this or not—the psalmist’s message is clear and undeniable: no matter what its cause, and no matter what the circumstance, whether it be personal or communal, we can, and should, always go to God for help and relief. As the psalm points out, God is sovereign and can be trusted to fulfill, to play out, His loving and gracious will. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “I have become like a vulture in the wilderness, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake and groan; I am like a sparrow, lonely on a housetop” (verses 6-7).
“I was in graduate school, chanting the Tenebrae service, before ever hearing this, or any other psalm of lament, in the liturgy. Oh, we use Psalms 51 and 32—both masterpieces of penitential poetry—and Psalm 22 (‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’) on Maundy Thursday. But we don’t often hear psalms like 88 and 102.
“And while a homiletics teacher once told me my sermons contained ‘too much exhortation, and not enough Good News.’ I think we forget at our perils that ‘Israel’ means ‘he strives with God.’ I feel like a vulture in the wilderness, an owl among the ruins, a lonely sparrow on a housetop just about every blessed day. I’d never prevail if I never strove, like Jacob, with God. Like the raw eggs Rocky Balboa drank for breakfast, we need to be nourished into fighting trim with the words of those who strove before us. We may not find them palatable, but they will give us strength.”
Moving Forward: “Do you find this psalm challenging to read? Why?”
[For the uninitiated, Rocky Balboa is a 2006 American sports drama film starring Sylvester Stallone, as Rocky, a clearly aging and over-the-hill retired boxer, who is challenged to an exhibition charity match with an aspiring young boxer.]