Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Martin Luther took the 46th Psalm and set those words to a beer drinking song (that’s actually true!) because the people he cared for were living in stormy times. Today, people tell me they’re hitting the wall, approaching despair, becoming exhausted in our stormy times. Tossed and battered day after day… one crisis follows another. Storms, both natural and human made, are deadly and unrelenting. The earth changes, mountains shake, the chaos of the sea rages on shore at near category five levels. Lots of Psalm 46 kind of days these days!
So much fear and anger out there. Some people actually cheer as others are hurt or killed. Horrible actions are dismissed or covered up… our upcoming elections are filled with hate, fear, and lies. Voter suppression is rampant… the dignity of human beings is ignored. Then there’s the church! Those of us who used to be younger remember the church used to feel like it was on solid ground and now it feels more like sinking sand. But into ALL that, God makes US that same Psalm 46 promise that God made when it was written and when Luther set those words to a beer drinking song! The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge!
Now, I think it might be good to talk about this “God of Jacob” for just a little bit because the God of Jacob ain’t just any old god. The God of Jacob is tricksy. The God of Jacob is sneaky. The God of Jacob isn’t above a low blow. The God of Jacob helped Jacob’s mom, Rebekah, cheat his older brother Esau out of his birthright. The God of Jacob helped them trick Isaac, Jacob and Esau’s, blind and dying father, into blessing Jacob instead of Esau which just wasn’t at all very nice! The God of Jacob is THAT sort of God!
The God of Jacob sent Jacob BACK to meet up with the brother he had cheated, just a few chapters later. That, as you might imagine, scared the ever lovin’ poo out of Jacob! The God of Jacob is THAT sort of God! The God of Jacob is the One who wrestled with Jacob in the middle of a river all night long to keep Jacob moving toward that scary encounter. The God of Jacob is the One who won that fight by “Putting Jacob’s hip out of joint” and by “hip” he meant a much more sensitive area that’s around the same HIGHT as a hip, but around the corner from the hip, if you know what I mean!
THAT’s the God of Jacob. Sneaky! Bold! Brash! A break the rules, sneaky and even low-blow dealing God, willing to do whatever it takes to get the world moving where the world needs to move! The God of Jacob is willing to get your attention in the most attention-getting ways! THAT’s the Lord of hosts that’s with us; THAT’s the God of Jacob who is our refuge.
You would think THAT sort of God would be able to keep our attention, but the storms of life THESE days are SO distracting, aren’t they? They make it SO HARD to remember EVEN this attention demanding, God of Jacob! The mountains of breaking news, shaking our pockets and purses with alerts are so hard to ignore, like the sound of waters raging around us, it all demands our constant attention no matter what we try.
It reminds me of that story of Peter wanting to walk on the water. To me our world feels like that! It feels like I’d LIKE to step out of the boat and walk on the chaos of the world toward Jesus. I’d LIKE for the chaos of the sea to be kept firmly under my feet, but like Peter, that works only as long I keep my eye on Jesus, but as soon as I get distracted by all that raging chaos around me… just like Peter… I'm SUNK... washed up… ALL wet.
I don’t think that makes you or me or Peter unfaithful. I think what that makes us… is human! It’s human to get distracted by the chaos of the world and like Peter, end up all wet. Peter, it turns out wasn’t Divine like Jesus. Walking on water was not his Spiritual gift… and it’s not ours either… unless you’ve been holding out on me! This is why we NEED each other... NEED to gather together every week with one another, to remind each other in our very understandably distracted human lives, that even while the mountains shake and the seas rage and we find ourselves getting more than just a little bit soggy… THAT’S NOT the end of the story! Even after Peter got distracted… even after he was sunk… he got pulled out. The Lord of hosts was with him! The God of Jacob grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the refuge of the boat!
This Psalm is a great reminder… Luther’s beer drinking song using the words of this Psalm is a good reminder… celebrating Reformation Sunday today is a good reminder… Both of the ways the God of Jacob has worked in the past AND the ways the God of Jacob IS STILL working in our world today! It’s a good reminder that the God of Jacob might very well be working in ways we don’t expect and that the God of Jacob works, not by eliminating chaos but by diving into it and wrestling. The God of Jacob doesn’t dry up oceans to save folks like Peter… the God go Jacob reaches right INTO our chaos, and pulls us all right THROUGH it!
The chaotic, loud and obnoxious voices of hate, fear, racism, exclusion, sexism, gender bias, anger, lying and violence will continue to yell out from under the rocks and up from deep-dark pits where they live. It will all continue to sound genuinely horrible… feel completely unbearable and drive us understandably toward despair. But through it all, through all that noise, through all the chaos, through all the unrelenting storms… the Lord of Hosts IS with us! A mighty fortress IS our God! The God of Jacob IS our stronghold and reaches through EVERY chaos… through EVERY storm… through EVERY form of hate… through EVERY assault on human dignity… through EVERY injustice… the God of Jacob reaches through it ALL… down through the waters of the world's worst chaotic storms, down through our Baptisms, grabs us by our collars, and pulls us out of death and into a NEW and abundant life each and every day. The Lord of hosts IS with us. The God of Jacob IS our refuge. Amen.
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