Psalm 80:1-7,17-19

By Joseph Moore
November 27, 2011
Reading: Psalm 80:1-7,17-19

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
you who lead Joseph like a flock!
You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth
before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh.
Stir up your might,
and come to save us!
Restore us, O God;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.
O LORD God of hosts,
how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
You have fed them with the bread of tears,
and given them tears to drink in full measure.
You make us the scorn of our neighbors;
our enemies laugh among themselves.
Restore us, O God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.
But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
the one whom you made strong for yourself.
Then we will never turn back from you;
give us life, and we will call on your name.
Restore us, O LORD God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved.

My wife Shelley, and I have a good friend who is not from this country. Our
friend decided that she needed to get the full experience of our high holy day
called Black Friday…so…Thanksgiving evening she drove to San Macros at
10:00 PM. She didn’t go so much to shop as to experience the insanity of it
all. I for one don’t feel the need to experience the madness to know it to be
so…

This Black Friday shopping event has grown into something quite
extraordinary. As a nation we spent over 11 billion dollars on Justin Bieber
CD’s and new lap top computers…It’s easy to for preachers to talk about the
gross extravagance and rampant consumerism that lies behind 1000’s of
people staying up all night to save $20 on a new TV. Many of you have
heard that tired sermon before. I think today’s text from Isaiah and the
Psalm’s take us down a different, more difficult road.

I think it’s interesting how many of us spent Thursday eating with family
and friends. Some of us called loved ones who couldn’t be with us in
person. We remembered those who aren’t with us any longer...those who
have died. Our sense of loss is heightened even as we remember those
things for which we are thankful. Many of us recognized that we have so
much to be Thankful for. Thanksgiving is a holiday that, at it’s best, reminds
us that ‘there is enough.’ Ideally, as a nation we pause to recognize all that
we have been blessed with, we say thanks…thanks to one another…thanks
to God. It’s a good holiday, it’s a good lead-in to Advent and Christmas.

But there’s something that feels a little off don’t you think? It’s strange to
have a holiday centered around thankgsiving and gratitude followed by an
11 billion dollar shopping binge.

On one hand; Thanksgiving. A grateful recognition of all that we have been
given. On the other hand; compulsive consumption. That unhealthy belief
that we can buy our happiness.

On Thursday (11/24/11), the Statesman editorial board wrote, in part:

“We’re in the season now when it is impossible to escape images of
happiness. You look at the perfect smiles on all those perfect families
all the advertising and you can’t help but ask yourself: Can anybody
really be that happy?

What about all the unemployed? What about all the gloomy economic
news out of Europe and what about the failure of that congressional
super committee that turned out to be not so super?

You don’t have to look very hard or very far to find studies or articles
on holiday depression. The common theme is that we’re all being
pressured to live up to a Norman Rockwell ideal of familial bliss that
by and large doesn’t exist anywhere except in those paintings.”

Ask any pastor and she or he will tell you that what we’ve been told the
holidays should be like…and what many of us experience to be true are
vastly different things. And the dissonance between the two can be
overwhelming. We talk of Peace and Goodwill and we read stories of car
bombs and missile attacks. Advent is a dark and troubling time for many
people.

Today is the first day of Advent. It is also the first day of the new liturgical
year. It marks the period during which we prepare and wait for the birth of
Jesus. We wait for that day upon which in the words of Isaiah, God might
tear open the heavens and come down” or in the words of today’s Psalm, that
God might restore us, let God’s face shine, that we might be saved.

Advent and the Church year begin here. With a call to God by the prophet
and the Psalmist to come down and change everything. Isaiah, the Psalmest,
and many of you cry…Come down o Lord and change everything because
things need to be changed.

People being trampled to near death on shopping holidays, protesters being
beaten and maimed, soldiers and civilians killed in senseless wars, an alley
full of homeless people sleeping behind the church each night…oh God
come down and change everything…

We’ve been told “tis the season to be jolly.” We’ve been told all we need to
do is buy more stuff…you’ll feel better when you do. We’ve filled our
calendars to facilitate celebrating with one another but in the process we’ve
left no space for silence, stillness, or contemplation.

The season of Advent…a true Advent recognizes that those things we
confess to be true so often fail to line up with the reality of the world.
Advent work is hard work. It’s a dark time. It leaves no room for
sentimentalism. Advent says to a people that want to feel good instead of
being good…stop…listen...Come see a little child who grows up to change
the world…do these things…So that God might restore, so that God might
shine, so that God might save.

Advent, this dark season of waiting, is a time when we recognize, indeed
when we live into the tension between what we confess to be true…God has
come…God is here…God will come again…with the reality that too often
we, at best, catch only catch glimpses of God’s presence on earth. It’s hard,
dirty work, to wait for God to restore, to shine, and to save us.

The Psalmist wrestles with the tension between our confession and the
reality of our world. The author begins by praising the Shepherd of Israel
who sits enthroned above. She recognizes the power of God and begs God
to “come and save us” She begs God to restore us…to let God’s light
shine…and to save us. Because she believes God can do these things...

And then…as quickly as praise and honor are ascribed to God the writer
blames God for the darkness of the world. “O LORD God of hosts, how long
will you be angry with your people’s prayers? You have fed them with the
bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us
the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.”

It is interesting that this one of the few Psalms in which the people aren’t
confronted with their own complicity as to why the world isn’t as it should
be. In wonderfully poetic language God is confronted by her people, why o
Lord have you fed us with the bread of tears? Why o Lord have you made
us the scorn of our neighbors. Why o Lord do the powerful seem only to
grow more and more powerful? Why o Lord have you removed your favor
from us? Why o Lord are there no jobs? Why o Lord does evil triumph?

It’s a dark Psalm. Yet it’s an expectant Psalm. It’s dark, but ultimately
hopeful. Three times the Psalmist begs God to restore the people…to let
God’s face shine…to save them. It’s dark, difficult work.

All week I’ve found myself thinking about a scene from the wonderful
novel, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” The novel chronicles an immigrant
family in Brooklyn in the early part of the 20th Century. In one scene, Betty
Smith (the author) writes,

At midnight on the Eve of our dear Saviour's birth, the kids gathered
where there were unsold trees. The man threw each tree in turn,
starting with the biggest. Kids volunteered to stand up against the
throwing. If a boy didn't fall down under the impact, the tree was his.
If he fell, he forfeited his chance at winning a tree. Only the roughest
boys and some of the young men elected to be hit by the big trees. The
others waited shrewdly until a tree came up that they could stand
against. The little kids waited for the tiny, foot-high trees and shrieked
in delight when they won one.

On the Christmas Eve when Francie was ten and Neeley nine, mama
consented to let them go down and have their first try for a tree.
Francie had picked out her tree earlier in the day. She had stood near it
all afternoon and evening praying that no one would buy it. To her joy,
it was still there at midnight. It was the biggest tree in the
neighborhood and its price was so high that no one could afford to buy
it. It was ten feet high. Its branches were bound with new white rope
and it came to a sure pure point at the top.

The man took this tree out first.

Francie stepped forward. "Me, Mister."

A spurt of derisive laughter came from the tree man. The kids
snickered. A few adults who had gathered to watch the fun, guffawed.

"Aw g'wan. You're too little," the tree man objected.

"Me and my brother — we're not too little together."

She pulled Neeley forward. The man looked at them a thin girl of ten
with starveling hollows in her cheeks but with the chin still babyround.
He looked at the little boy with his fair hair and round blue
eyes — Neeley Nolan, all innocence and trust.

Francie and Neeley stood at one end of (a lane of people) and the big
man with the big tree at the other. It was a human funnel with Francie
and her brother making the small end of it. The man flexed his great
arms to throw the great tree. He noticed how tiny the children looked
at the end of the short lane. For the split part of a moment, the tree
thrower went through a kind of Gethsemane.

"Oh, Jesus," his soul agonized, "why don't I just give 'em the tree, say
Merry Christmas and let 'em go? …He finally came to his conclusion.
"Oh, what the hell! Them two kids is gotta live in this world. They got
to get used to it. They got to learn to give and to take punishment. And
by Jesus, it ain't give but take, take, take all the time in this Goddamned
world." As he threw the tree with all his strength, his heart
wailed out, "It's a…damned, rotten, lousy world!"

Francie saw the tree leave his hands. There was a split bit of being
when time and space had no meaning. The whole world stood still as
something dark and monstrous came through the air. The tree came
towards her blotting out all memory of her ever having lived. There
was nothing-nothing but pungent darkness and something that grew
and grew as it rushed at her. She staggered as the tree hit them. Neeley
went to his knees but she pulled him up fiercely before he could go
down. There was a mighty swishing sound as the tree settled.
Everything was dark, green and prickly. Then she felt a sharp pain at
the side of her head where the trunk of the tree had hit her. She felt
Neeley trembling.

When some of the older boys pulled the tree away, they found Francie
and her brother standing upright, hand in hand. Blood was coming
from scratches on Neeley's face. He looked more like a baby than ever
with his bewildered blue eyes and the fairness of his skin made more
noticeable because of the clear red blood. But they were smiling. Had
they not won the biggest tree in the neighborhood? Some of the boys
hollered "Hooray!" A few adults clapped. (The tree man eulogized
them by screaming, "And now get the hell out of here with your tree,
you lousy bastards.")

I think...we are each of us, in some way, invited to be like Little Francie and
young Neeley. We hope for abundance in the midst of the pungent darkness.
Advent…Christmas…life…it rarely looks like we think it should.

It’s messy. But we don’t stand-alone. It’s messy. It’s dark. But together…
we stand…we lift one another up when we fall down…we gather at this
table…and in the darkness of a world that always winds up killing Jesus…
we light candles to welcome him again, and again, and again. We light
candles…mere sparks for the bonfire to come on Christmas morning.

Restore us O God…make your face shine upon us…save us…

Amen.