Psalm 121

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come?

2 My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved and he who watches over you will not fall asleep.

4 Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep;

5 The Lord himself watches over you; the Lord is your shade at your right hand,

6 So that the sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; it is he who shall keep you safe.

8 The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in, from this time forth for evermore.

(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. Please note that these days in the church, there are two tracks of readings in the lectionary, offering a choice of psalms. Your church may or may not have read the psalm included in this email.)

Anne Lamott has reminded us that we need only three words to pray: thanks, help and wow.

The psalm reprinted in this email, one you may have heard in church yesterday, zooms in on that second word: help. If you’ve spent any time with toddlers, you may recognize that refrain: I’ll do it myself. Independence and self-sufficiency have their place. In fact, they are celebrated in our culture. But the psalmist gives us an alternative, which is to recognize that we are dependent on God’s help.

You may have run across my favorite paraphrase of the first beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit. I’m not entirely sure what it means to be poor in spirit, let alone why that is a blessed thing. The rendering that has been helpful to me goes like this: Blessed are those who know their need of God. Seems to me, that’s the first step in offering a prayer for help. It is a matter of recognizing that there is a need.

In the research of RenewalWorks, we found that about 25% of churches surveyed reflected an archetype labeled complacent. It’s echoed in the voice of the woman who said that she didn’t think there was any need for transformation in her life. She didn’t expect that from church. One complacent congregation, with tongue in cheek, revised the tagline for their church. In light of their diagnosis of spiritual complacency, here’s what they had to say about themselves: We’re spiritually shallow and fine with that.

If we turn to the gospels, we see that it’s people at the end of their ropes who seem to connect most closely with Jesus. A parent whose child is dying or dead. A leper pushed to the margins. A demon-possessed man with no control of his life. A tax collector who chose a career that made him a pariah. Those marginalized in society because they are sinners. We can see it in the lives of the fishermen/disciples. One never reads about them catching any fish without Jesus’ help. Not exactly successful in their professional pursuits. In one way or another, they all know their need of God. They know they need help. And they come to Jesus. It’s why in our conversations with folks about their spiritual journey, when people are asked to name a time when they have grown spiritually, it is most often a time when they encountered crisis or loss.

Compare that to the really religious folks of Jesus’ day. I sometimes get nervous that they correspond to today’s clergy (i.e., yours truly). Along with the people in political power, they see little need in their lives. They recognize Jesus only as disrupter. Things were comfortable with them and while they knew Jesus came to comfort the afflicted, they weren’t wild about the fact that Jesus came to afflict the comfortable.

After getting in touch with a reality of a need for help, need of a higher power, then where do we look for help? We find in our culture, people often look for help in all the wrong places. Maybe folks believe that help comes in simply working harder, in getting a better job, getting a raise. Maybe folks believe that help comes in finding the perfect relationship. Maybe the answer will come with finding some substance that eases pain. The wisdom of the desert father come to mind: Do not give your heart to that which will not satisfy your heart.

Which leads to the need to remember, with the help of the psalm, where our help comes from. Our help comes from God, the maker of heaven and earth. That’s where faith comes in, that spirit of absolute dependence cited by Paul Tillich as definition of faith. I suspect some readers find themselves in need of help this Monday morning, facing challenges beyond their own ability to resolve. May the words of this psalm with it’s call to lift our eyes to the hills, offer a way to find the help we need.

And once we experience that help, we’re led to Anne Lamott’s other two words that sum up all our prayers: thanks and wow.

-Jay Sidebotham