“Steady my footsteps in your word; let no iniquity have dominion over me.”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
 
Steady my footsteps in your word. This directive is one of the gems of psalm 119, in my opinion. There are other familiar poetic phrases from this often neglected psalm which include “your word is a lamp unto my feet”, “let your loving kindness be my comfort, O Lord”, “you are my refuge and shield”, and so on. And yet I will admit a certain internal groaning when I see that this psalm is the appointed one for the day. Or I should say, a portion of this psalm is appointed.
 
Psalm 119 is the longest of the psalms and while it has a unifying theme of the law, God’s word, it is sometimes difficult to see where it is going. We hear “God’s word”, or a synonym for God’s teachings repeated over and over. It has 22 stanzas, each stanza with eight verses. In Hebrew it is an acrostic poem. Each stanza represents a letter of the alphabet and then each verse begins with that same letter. Today’s passage is for the letter Pe (pay) so originally these 8 verses began with Pe words. This structure is lost in the translation to English and so it often seems that the verses have little to no connection. To us as readers now, they can be unrelated phrases strung together.
 
I have chosen to take this as my text this morning for a few reasons which also have what might be considered a “thin connection” but in my mind they are related. I invite you into my reflections.

I always find the psalms to be of comfort especially in stressful times and use them in most pastoral situations, as do many clergy. They are a rich source of assurance about God and his love of humankind, as well as acknowledgement of the depth of human emotion, both grief and joy. I encourage you to watch the short teaching videos that our curate Marisa is currently doing on the psalms.
 
Specifically this morning’s verses of psalm 119 talk about the word of God as a source of rejoicing and delight. God’s teachings are a divine and cherished gift, not something to restrict us, but rather to give us structure. The word of God brings light in our darkness. However, we are not left merely to contemplate what God has told us. Rather we are directed to put into action what we are taught. Loving God and loving our neighbor has to be carried out by what we do, not just what we think. This Pe stanza uses the words, footsteps, eyes, heart, mouth, all parts of our bodies, implying action in response to God’s direction. We also learn that following God’s word, seeking to love God, requires God’s help. We cannot “do love” on our own. We are reminded that it is God’s grace which directs us, leads us and supports us.
 
The particular line that stood out to me this morning is “Steady my footsteps in your word” or in another translation, “Order my steps in your word.”  
 
There is a song based on this phrase which I first heard while worshiping in a traditional African American church. “Order my steps in your word” is sung over and over, in an easy tune. Then the tune rises and the words are: Lead me guide me every day, Send your anointing Father I pray. And the verse finishes with “Order my steps in your word”. The next verse is “Order my tongue in Your Word” following the same pattern. Other verses include the phrases “guide my feet in your word” and “wash my heart in your word”. The constant plea is to God for His direction and guidance. We don’t just know God’s teachings with our minds; we seek for God to infuse all of our body and all of our action in his precepts.
 
Reading this one line of Psalm 119, remembering this song (and where I first heard it) came at the same time that I heard of one of my personal hero’s death. John Lewis was a Civil Rights Leader, US Representative from Georgia, and a man deeply grounded in God’s word.
 
In thinking of his life along with this song, I realized just how much God had directed his footsteps in multiple marches, memorably in Selma Alabama, crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. How God had continually directed his tongue, Baptist preacher that he was, stirring crowds to non-violent action over multiple decades. Steeped in scripture and theology he sought righteousness in the middle of oppression. His feet were guided as he walked with God. John Lewis was a man who loved God and his neighbor, with all his heart and who sought to follow Jesus, God’s embodied word. I believe it was because of his deep faith that he was able to be tenacious and continue to seek justice. John Lewis was a light, reflecting God’s light in a dark world. May he rest in peace and may we strive to follow his example.
 
I invite you to your own musings on the psalms this week and may God “Order our steps in His Word”.
Amen.

Growing up, we quickly discover that there is both good and bad in the world. That reality may strike us upon seeing a fight spool out on the playground; or it could be that we had a lesson about the animal kingdom in school, a first glimpse at the survival-of-the-fittest; or we could know in our bones, having seen how our parents treat each other since we were small. By the time we’re adults, most of us have come to the conclusion that humans are just devilishly good at hurting one another. 

This is our reality, our world in a nutshell—a world where women tuck keys between their fingers to walk to their cars, where the medical professionals treating COVID-19 patients aren’t able to access the protective gear they need, and where poverty and wealth live just blocks away without even crossing paths. 

We live in a fallen world. We do the best we can. And we long for deliverance. We pray for the suffering to end. But all too often, it doesn’t. All too often we find ourselves in situations we don’t choose, where we feel as powerless as a stalk of wheat overshadowed by a virulent weed. 

Jesus put before them another parable. The kingdom of heaven, he said, is like a field where a man plants good seed; but while his servants were sleeping, an enemy slipped over the gate and sowed weeds among the wheat. No one guessed that the deed had been done until much too late, when pulling up the weeds would mean pulling up the wheat, too. “Let them grow together until the harvest,” the master decided. “Then and only then will we separate them.” We might imagine the servants raising their eyebrows at this statement; but the decision had been made, and not by them. 

Given the parable’s uncomfortable implications, it comes as no surprise that Jesus’ disciples are interested in an explanation. “Tell us,” they say, “what you meant by this parable of the weeds in the field.” And he does. The master, Jesus explains, is the Son of Man. The enemy is the devil. The field is the world. And we’re all planted in it, good and bad together, growing up until the harvest arrives.   

Entrenched as we are in reams of bad news these days, it’s easy for us to relate to the disciples’ confusion and to the servants’ dismay. Did the master really mean to let the weeds and the wheat stay as they are all the way until the harvest? Wouldn’t it have been better to get rid of the weeds at some point, even if it risked some of the crop? Wouldn’t it be nicer if the children of the kingdom could just get a break?  

But the answer we get, the answer we will always get until Jesus comes again is no. God’s will is for good and evil to grow together in every aspect of our world—which of course leaves us asking the question: why?   

It’s easy to get tied up in knots trying to figure that out, though that doesn’t prevent many of us from trying. We want answers. We want justice. We want peace. Now. And for good reason. Not one of us here has escaped the experience of good and evil clashing in our lives. Like the psalmist, we cry out, “O God, the arrogant rise up against me; a band of violent men seeks my life; they have not set you before their eyes.” What will happen to us? we ask. What will happen to the wheat when the weed grows taller, leaning over the plant, taking its rain and stealing its sunlight? Will the Lord simply let it die?   

“But you, O Lord,” the psalmist writes, “are gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and full of kindness and truth. . . . Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed, because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.”   

In the midst of our suffering, in the midst of our struggle to live alongside the evil in the world and to battle the evil in ourselves, we are nevertheless watched over and cared for by Christ, who is merciful and gracious, always ready to “give strength to his servant and save the child of his handmaid.” He has not nor will he ever leave us alone as we live out our lives in this present evil age. Every moment of every day, he walks the fields of the world, tending the wheat and whispering to the weeds, telling all who will hear of the power and mercy of the God who can turn thorns into cypress trees and briers into myrtle.  

The master said that the weeds and the wheat would remain together, that we who are his children might grow in strength as we exercise our faith in this era between the gardens—and that we might also, by our very presence in the world, give testimony to the One who saves.  

As we pray for strength, for a sign of God’s favor, the world around us notices and wonders just what it’s seeing. Pain, death, and sin plague everyone, but as the children of God bow their heads at the foot of the cross and seek the way of the LORD, they are witnessing to the children of darkness. “God, show us a sign of your favor,” we pray, “that those who hate us may see it and learn that the LORD reigns and that he is merciful and gracious even to his enemies.” Weed and wheat will be together until the end, according to the will of the Father—but it is so for our sake and for the sake of the lost, that all might come within the reach of his saving embrace. AMEN.  

God tells us in his Word today how effective his Word is. And if we’re more used to receiving human words than receiving the divine Word, as most of us probably are, we may have trouble believing what God tells us.
 
In the case of the human word, we all know you can’t trust everything you hear. There’s spin and disinformation. There’s hyperbole on one side and minimizing on the other.
 
There’s also the fact that we humans often say one thing with good intentions, but then find ourselves doing something else. We tell people we are turning over a new leaf on diet or exercise, but then it doesn’t happen. We post memes or news stories online to be seen supporting a cause, but we don’t actually make real changes ourselves. Or maybe we try the popular technique of affirmations: Repeat three times, I am content and at peace -- except, to be honest, we’re actually feeling peevish and agitated. The human word goes out from the human mouth, and very often, what it says is not quite the same as what actually happens.
 
Listen, in contrast, to what God tells us about the divine Word through the prophet Isaiah today:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
 
When we read a portion of  Scripture we always need to look at the whole book for context, and in the context, this is God telling his people they can count on a particular promise he’s made them. The promise is of liberation and restoration to their homeland, from which they’ve been exiled.  God speaks their liberation, and it is. They don’t exit their captivity right away, but, what God says, is and it does come to pass. Genesis, the first book in the Bible, depicts the entirety of our universe coming into being by God just speaking it. God said, let there be light, and there was light. God speaks, and it is.
 
This utterly reliable communication that Isaiah is talking about comes to its real fulfillment in Jesus. In Jesus, God speaks his ultimate Word to the universe – we even call Jesus the Word of God. Jesus is God’s communication in person, God in person. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.
 
What God says does not return empty but accomplishes that which he purposes. So what is this in-person speech that we can be confident does what it says?  What does God say to us in Jesus?
Well, God says things that if we receive them into the depths of our being and accept that they are true, will change us completely.
 
He says: you are mine. You are forgiven. You have nothing to fear. I have already changed the world. I have already conquered evil. Death has no power over you once I have claimed you. Sin has no rights over you once you belong to me. All that needs to be done for you to be acceptable and worthy is done. It is finished. And of course that’s the final word of Jesus from the Cross: it is finished. And it is.
Listen again to what God tells us through Isaiah:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
 
God’s purpose cannot be stopped. It can be delayed or pushed away or misrepresented, but it cannot be stopped. This is why we study Scripture, to learn what God says, and thus what is. This is why we read the Bible; to receive the reliable divine Word rather than just our own unreliable human words.
 
There’s nothing wrong with human words and human feelings, of course, but they aren’t what we come to church to receive. We come to church because here we are addressed by a Word that can be ultimately counted on, a Word that does what it says, a Word whose message we were made to receive:
 
You are mine. You are forgiven. You have nothing to fear. I have already changed the world. I have already conquered evil. Death has no power over you once I have claimed you. Sin has no rights over you once you belong to me. All that needs to be done for you to be acceptable and worthy is done. It is finished. Thanks be to God for his glorious Gospel.

Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am happy to report to you that the contactless communions we have been doing over the past few weeks have been very well received. One person said afterwards that it was like a ray of sunshine had come into their room to have the sacrament again. Another commented how connected they felt to both the altar and the community of Emmanuel to take communion. Our prayer book has a short service that is used for these types of “special” circumstances, including familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer, scripture, confession and absolution. Please contact me if you would like to receive in this way.

In hearing today’s gospel I was reminded of a time I was on the receiving end of this sacrament. It happened some years ago when I was taking much longer than expected, to recover from a surgery. I experienced a lot of pain and was unable to be still in the bed. After a week in hospital Bishop Beckwith came to what is now called OSF to anoint me and give me Holy Communion. Bishop Beckwith was trained under the 1928 prayer book rather than the 1979 and so he began the service a little differently. He said, “Hear the word of God to all who truly turn to him.”

I paid attention.

“Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Immediately I became still and calm. I won’t say the pain lessened, but I did not notice it. My limbs quit thrashing.