Sermon 3/12/3017 “Lift up your eyes”

Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection:
Text: Psalm 121
Day: 2Lent, Year A

“Lift up your eyes”

I lift up my eyes to the hills;
from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the LORD,
the maker of heaven and earth.

We cherish this psalm in difficult times because it reminds us that the God who made us is with us and will sustain us. Many a person, in the dark days of life, has found comfort, if not peace, by reciting Psalm 121. I, myself, have been greatly sheltered by the assurance of God’s continued presence with me that I found in these words.

However, despite the comfort Psalm 121 provides to us, this psalm probably was not written by or for someone calling out to God in distress. Instead, the consensus among biblical scholars is that our Psalm today was a psalm of pilgrimage, a psalm said by a person going on a journey up to Jerusalem, the Holy City of God. Some think that this Psalm was said as a kind of liturgy at the start of the journey, others as the travelers walked those last difficult 10 miles uphill into Jerusalem toward the Temple there.

I lift up my eyes to the hills;
from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the LORD,
the maker of heaven and earth.

In this psalm the traveler asks that question so familiar to us all: Where will our protection come from during what might be a difficult and challenging journey. Of course, this psalm was written long before the days of on-star assistance and cell phones and satellite communications. Journeys were on foot, or on animals who moved slowly in comparison to our means of travel today. Back then journeys presented the threat of bandits, wild animals, and even deadly weather. So a prayer or song or liturgy used at the start of a trip and along the way would remind the travelers to place their faith in God-their-creator to protect them and keep them safe along the way.

The hills, you see, were the home of foreign gods, pagan idols, lesser gods. The travelers might pass by those hills along the way to their final destination, but God’s people owed those hill-gods NO homage. In other words, the psalmist is saying, “I lift up my eyes and see many possible and lesser gods to turn to for strength, but I will pass them by in favor of the Lord who created me; in HIM will I put my trust.”

The traveler doesn’t look up at the hills for long, though. Instead, he affirms that help and protection along the way come from the one who created us in the first place, the one who is the maker of heaven and earth, the maker of the traveler, the maker of all that is. This God is the one who is awake 24/7 and walks with the psalmist, the one who protects the traveler from the heat of the sun and also from being “moonstruck,” that lunacy which the ancients believed could come from the light of the moon. This God and no other is the only worthy companion along the journey to Jerusalem. This God and no other is the only worthy companion in this journey we call our lives.

That’s how we Christians today have appropriated Psalm 121 for OUR use. We see life as a journey and we use Psalm 121 to assure ourselves that God is with us all along the journey of our lives. We use Psalm 121 to remind ourselves that God-our-creator will protect us all along THAT way, and beyond.

There are many dangers in life’s journey today, even with all our modern gizmos. Our dangers are physical: disease, injury, accident, war, infirmity, or natural disasters. Our dangers are economic: recession, depression, unemployment, outsourcing, downsizing, insolvency, debt, or theft. Our dangers are spiritual: doubt, sin, evil, corruption, fundamentalism, extremism, or false teaching. Our dangers are political: extreme patriotism, polarization of beliefs, or writing off “the other.” Our dangers include just denying that life is a journey or that there is a God who both created us and sustains us on the journey of life.

Today and throughout the church year we affirm that we reject the “lesser gods” that live all around us, whether they still live in the hills or have moved in next door. You know, the lesser gods of materialism, addiction, cynicism, atheism, and agnosticism. In Lent, though, we sort through our journey in life to see if any of these lesser gods have joined us on the road, have snuck unnoticed into our traveling party.

During Lent, we check to see whether any of the seven deadly sins (pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, or sloth) are hiding in our luggage and are making our journey a most difficult slog. If so, we can empty our lives of what shouldn’t be there, and turn or re-turn to the Lord our God, turn or re-turn to Christ Jesus, and ask for his assistance in cleaning up our travels and purifying our lives.

I lift up my eyes to the hills;
from where is my help to come?
My help comes from the LORD,
the maker of heaven and earth.

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