Year C Sixth Sunday after Pentecost July 15th, 2001 Psalm 25:1-21
Title: “Overcoming the enemy within and without.”
This is an alphabetic psalm, each verse begins with a succeeding letter of the alphabet. The psalm existed in written form long before it was adopted for common worship. The alphabetic structure, while making it easy to memorize, imposes rather rigid strictures. Thus there is little progression of thought. The letter with which a word begins determines where the word and following sentence falls within the structure. If you remember the old song, “Mother” where each letter stands for an idea – “M” is for the many things, “O” if for and when you put them all together “they spell MOTHER – you get the idea. In English we say from “A to Z;” the Hebrew would say from “Aleph to Tau.” God is all encompassing.
The psalm is impossible to date. It shares many ideas consonant with Jeremiah, so it could be from the late pre-exilic period. More likely, because it also has affinities with Wisdom Literature, it could be much later. The alphabetic structure also makes it difficult to classify this psalm. There are elements of “lament,” wherein the psalmist asks forgiveness for breaking the covenant and there are elements of “confidence” wherein he trusts in the Lord’s goodness. Mostly, this is a prayer. It is appropriate for most occasions. It can be prayed individually or communally. In fact, verse twenty-two, tacked on later and out of alphabetic sequence, makes it seem more communal than it really is.
The only structure one can see in this psalm is the variation of direct and indirect address to Yahweh. Verse one to seven, pray to Yahweh in the second person; verses eight to fifteen, speak about him in the third person; and verses sixteen to twenty-one, return to the second person.
In verse one, I wait for you, O Lord, this is a fundamental spiritual attitude. “Waiting” recognizes that God’s time and timing are different from that of humans. The spirit of patience and humility defers to God in all things. It never asks or tells God to “hurry up.” So, the psalmist prays with this caveat. Actually the verb is not in the text and must be supplied from the context and the demands of the alphabetic structure.
In verse two, do not let my enemies gloat over me, although he trusts, the waiting for the Lord does produce anxiety until the Lord responds. The “enemies” could refer to anything or anyone opposed to God first, and then him because he is God’s. Thus, it could refer to his own sinfulness, even though here it clearly means people. If God does not respond, his enemies – his and God’s – will gloat, claiming that God is either powerless or does not care what happens to him. His ego may tell him that God is powerless to help. His ego may even ask God to prove He, God, exists by performing some small miracle.
In verse three, no one is disgraced who waits for you, the psalmist’s enemies – and God’s – like to point to the “silence” of God as proof of either the ineffectiveness of trust and prayer or the powerlessness of God. The psalmist objects. It is his enemies who, in time, will be put to shame.
In verse four, make known to me your ways, first he prays for revelation. “Ways” is virtually synonymous with “Torah,” meaning instruction – the helpful, directive expression of the will of Yahweh, the clarification of ethical dilemmas.
In verses five, guide me in your truth, next, he prays for the help to live out his new understanding of the situation as God has revealed it.
You are God, my savior, “My” here is broader than personal. It includes the whole community, under the aspect of “corporate personality”.
In verse seven, remember no more the sins of my youth, these, “sins of youth,” could either be idolatry or adultery. The desire to be strengthened to walk in God’s ways recalls the psalmist’s failure to walk consistently in those ways in the past. Hence, he asks for forgiveness, aware that he is not worthy.
Remember me only in the light of you love, just as the psalmist considers prayer to be “remembering” Yahweh’s presence and character, so he considers God as “remembering” him when he listens to that prayer. He asked to be remembered not in the unfavorable, but true, light of his sins, his character, but of God’s love, God’s character.
In verses eight to fifteen, this is a reflection on the character of God, the way God is and acts. He is not so much telling God about himself as speaking to himself and any who would hear about God, being reassured that God is forgiving. It is God’s nature.
In verse twelve, fear the Lord, “Fear” does not imply terror or even anxiety, but an attitude of reverence and awe toward God, which translates into a way of living.
In verse fourteen, the counsel of the Lord, the Hebrew sod means “council” and “counsel” as well as “friendship.” Both the circle of one’s friends and associates, which form a sort of “council” with whom a person consults about life matters, and the matters which are discussed with them, getting their “counsel” are what is meant by this term. Applied to God it amounts to God’s friendly advice to his covenant partners. The covenant was not merely a conditional contract, offering rewards in return for obedience, but a privileged and intimate relationship of friendship.
The covenant instructs them, Lit, “And his covenant he makes known to them.” “Covenant” means all that is involved in being faithful to God’s way of seeing, thinking and doing.
In verse fifteen, my eyes are ever upon the Lord, the psalmist maintains a fixed gaze upon the Lord to discern every nuance of his mood. He is sensitive to that and therefore “waits” until Lord either signals or acts. Nothing or no one else, not friends, enemies, or his own sinful distractions can come close in comparison with the Lord’s constant love.
In verses sixteen to twenty-one, the psalmist returns to his direct address to the Lord. Having been assured that it is God’s nature to forgive, he feels rid of the “enemy within.” Now he turns to the “enemy without.” He asks for deliverance from all that as well.
In verse twenty-one, let honesty and virtue preserve me, fortified with forgiveness for personal sin, the psalmist can now tap into the strengths of God to withstand any onslaught from without. God’s character and qualities are now available to him and he trusts in their effectiveness.
I wait for you, O Lord, “Wait” is another word for “trust.” He accepts God’s time and timing as well as his wisdom and counsel. It is the waiting of expectation, not resignation. There is at the close of the psalm no answer, only waiting. The result is assured, but unresolved. It is guaranteed, but not yet delivered.
In verse twenty-two, Redeem Israel, this verse is clearly a postscript. It falls outside the alphabetic pattern. Added later, it has the effect of turning what was an individual prayer into one suitable for the whole community. As such, it looks to the coming of the Messiah who will “ransom Israel” from all her woes.
Sermon
A man threatened by enemies, whose way of life has been marked so far by “sins of youth,” prays for forgiveness, for rescue from his enemies, and, above all, for an new orientation of his life along the “ways” of Yahweh. This individual represents the whole nation and its history. And ours.
The “enemy” is twofold. There is the “enemy within” which keeps us from enjoying life, companionship, and converse with God. That enemy or those enemies must constantly be dealt with by appeal to a power outside ourselves and greater than ourselves. No amount of personally willed and carried-out discipline will suffice. The same is true of the “enemies without.” Be they disease or its threat, people opposed to us because they are opposed to God, ideas touting self-sufficiency or control, they are all “enemies.” Once perceived as such and not minimized by calling them “problems we have no recourse but to depend on and trust in God, our friend, counselor, and covenant partner.
But God is not like us. He takes his time. We must patiently trust and expectantly hope. Nothing tested the trust of the Israelites more than what they perceived as the ‘delay” of the coming of the Messiah, who would defeat all of Israel’s enemies. The impious thought only of the “enemies without,” the nations. The pious knew better. They concentrated on the “enemy within,” sin.
Patience does not just happen. Though it is a gift, its ground can be cultivated by the very traits the psalmist exhibits. We can be open to instruction, guidance, learning his ways. This lays the foundation for right decisions. We can persist in being alert to any, hand, signals the Lord gives us, no matter how subtle. We can be penitent, recognizing we are undeserving of God’s attention, let alone his forgiveness. We can be reverent in his sight, honoring his presence as we would that of a friend. All these attitudes and habits enrich the soil wherein hope and trust can flourish despite the emotional-weather conditions.
We can rely on God to deliver on his promises.
We need to distinguish between what God has actually promised from what we wish, think, and hope he has promised.
God is the power outside ourselves who gives us the power to overcome both the “enemy within” and “enemies without.”
Prayer is the “plug-in” whereby that power is communicated to us, into us, and through us against God’s enemies.
Waiting for the Lord: While the Lord is always present to and for us, available to talk to, and always acting in the world, he does not take orders from us. We have to wait for him to decide when and how he will intervene in our lives. When we realize he always knows better, this waiting becomes rather easy not to mention wise. The Lord sees and knows things we never could. We might be convinced we know what he should do and when, like right now!, but when we think about it, remember, about his character, his consistent pattern of behavior, we back off, relax, and just wait and watch. He acts. He comes through. He delivers. But, he does not promise to do things our way or to deliver like Domino’s Pizza, in twenty minutes or even twenty years. He might, but then again, maybe not. He will, though, eventually.
Structured Prayer: While it is perfectly fine to ramble in God’s presence, to pray to him without an agenda, without rehearsing or planning what we will say, it is also good to converse with the Lord in a more formal and structured way. Alphabetical psalms such as this one are a good example of structured prayer. Each sentence starts with a word that begins with the next letter of the alphabet. It’s like playing a game with God, the only rule being that we use the alphabet in order. Remember the “car game” where the next geographical place name must begin with the letter the last word ended in?
However, the alphabetical psalms teach a lesson, too. The alphabet is all encompassing. It contains all the letters one needs to write anything. God is like the alphabet in that he contains within himself all possibility and he expresses his will in words which, when spoken, bring what he says into being. Because of that, his words promises really, can be trusted to come true. Using alphabetical psalms to pray is a way of saying to God that he alone is the answer to all needs, problems, questions and prayer.
Remembering:Remembering is deliberately becoming conscious of and making present, mentally and emotionally, past experiences. When the psalmist asks God to “Remember not the sins of my youth,” the psalmist himself is actually remembering them. So is God. God really does not forget our sins, though he forgives them. He is God. He cannot forget. What the psalmist means is, “Do not hold them against me.” The psalmist himself is not letting past sins keep him from relating to God. They may have been forgiven, but they still loom large in his memory and he still regrets them. However, remembering they have been forgiven and wishing they had never happened, he gets past them, forgives himself, and talks to God like a forgiven, if humbled, friend. We also need to be careful that past sins do not keep us from talking to and relating to God in a friendly manner. The devil, the “enemy within,” will always try to get us to re-own past sins and “forget” or doubt they were forgiven. Amen.
