Psalm 130

1    Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice; let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2    If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, O Lord, who could stand?

3    For there is forgiveness with you; therefore you shall be feared.

4    I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; in his word is my hope.

5    My soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

6    O Israel, wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

Waiting

What are you waiting for? In recent days, many people are waiting in TSA lines for hours, fearful of missing a flight. We may wait for results of a medical test, fearful that news won’t be good. We may wait to hear from a potential employer, fearful we won’t get the job. We may wait to hear from college admissions, fearful that our future is being decided by a faceless committee. We may wait for life to be different somehow, fearful that that might never happen. There’s a spiritual dimension to this, as we hear in the psalm this week, that we are to wait on the Lord. In various places, the psalmists seem fearful that God is not paying attention or not going to look on us kindly, or out to get us, all part of fear-based religion.

What would it mean to wait for the Lord without fear or anxiety? Scripture gives us examples of folks who showed us the way. Abraham and Sarah heard a promise from God that they would have innumerable descendants. They had to wait until they were more than 90 years old to see hope of that promise coming true. Joseph, of technicolor coat fame, spent years in prison, forced to wait for vindication. Moses spent forty years in the desert keeping track of sheep before he received his commission to bring freedom to the enslaved Israelites. The children of Israel, carried into exile, asked: “How long, O Lord?” as the prophet Isaiah told them that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. St. Paul spent way more time in prison than I suspect he would have wished. So much work to be done. So many churches to plant. This cloud of witnesses helps us recognize that waiting is not easy, that we may well wonder whether God is attentive to our needs. I’m wondering if you ever have those wonderings.

What does it take to wait without fear or anxiety? One of the ways we can do that is to remember stories of scripture, imagining ourselves in their plot lines, finding examples of what it means to trust, what it means to have faith as we wait. Here’s how that quality of faith or trust is described in the New Testament book of Hebrews (11:1,2): “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval.”

Another way is to look at our own history and think about ways we’ve seen God acting in our own lives, giving thanks for God’s gracious activity. All of it has to do with nurturing a spirit of hope in place of a spirit of fear or anxiety. St. Paul talks a lot about hope in the 8th chapter of his letter to the Romans, a vision for all of creation. He wrote:

"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Elsewhere in his letters, St. Paul speaks about the ways in which faith, hope and love are intertwined (I Corinthians 13:13). How do we wait without fear? Early in my ministry, a wise lay person reminded me that the opposite of love is not hate. She said that the opposite of love is fear. So perhaps the way to navigate our own personal waiting period is to focus on putting love into action while we wait.

I have no way of knowing where you find waiting to be challenging. I’m guessing everyone knows that challenge. It’s easy to let fear and anxiety take hold as we wait. The life to which Jesus calls us presents another way. His way of love. How can you walk in that way this week?

-Jay Sidebotham