Psalm Steps>“Moving On” (Repentance), Psalm 120 Pastor Bob Leroe, Cliftondale Congregational Church, Saugus, Massachusetts
Have you ever lived somewhere you hated? In my Army days, soldiers often said their favorite assignment was “the last one and the next one.” A lot of people grow discontented with where they are. I readily admit the place I liked the least was Fort Bliss (a true oxymoron) in El Paso, Texas. The Sergeants Major Academy bookstore at Bliss sold a T-shirt with a picture of El Paso in a car’s rear-view mirror, the sight we longed to see! Doing SonCreek Junction gave me Texas flashbacks! I wasn’t fully prepared for VBS because I never bought any western clothing. I was in rebellion (some soldiers really rebel—they go AWOL); I was from the northeast, and I didn’t want anyone in Texas to think I was a cowboy!
We’re supposed to be saints, but sometimes we look a lot like the world. We should be making a statement that this world isn’t our home. When people see us, where do they think we’re from? Do they know we’re citizens of heaven? Or do we fit into our secular culture all too nicely? Are we set apart, different from our environment? Overseas we were told not to look “too American” due to the threat of terrorism. And in church we’re told not to look “too worldly”. We will be set apart from our culture if we’re dissatisfied. C.S. Lewis remarked, “If this world does not satisfy me, perhaps it is because I was made for another world.” Some of us are way too comfortable in this fallen world.
Most of you know that Laura and I are buying a home in Saugus. We’ve lived like wanderers our entire 27 years of married life, and before that, I traveled all over the world with my parents as an “Army Brat”. We’ve never had a place we could call home. We have a plaque in the parsonage that reads: “Home is Where the Army Sends You.” When I was in Desert Storm someone asked me where “home” was. I answered, “Right now it’s Saudi Arabia” (a revolting thought). Counting my moves as a military dependent and a Chaplain, I’ve lived in 26 different places. Now that I’m retired from the service, I want to settle down, to put down roots. And as excited as we are to have a home of our own, we know that our permanent home isn’t here—it’s in heaven. In II Corinthians, Paul describes our bodies as tents, which are impermanent structures compared to what we’ll experience in heaven. We will exchange a temporal life for an eternal dwelling place.
In the meantime, we are pilgrims, traveling toward our heavenly destination. We’re on a different path than the world, than those who live for self. We pray for and try to change our society, to make a Christian impact, but we are realistic enough to know that until Christ returns, we can at best have a limited influence on our world. Science, politics, education, and financial prosperity will not produce peace in our world—only God can. We have to become sick of the lies and fed up with the values of our world before we walk the pilgrim pathway. I heard it said, “Once you’ve tasted the grace of God, you’re ruined for the things of the world.”
Psalm 120 is a song of Hezekiah, who is sick of the lies and hatred he’s had to endure. He’s been suffering in Meshech, a nation north of Israel, and Kedar, SE of Israel; these were hostile, pagan lands, and Hezekiah sings as a homeless wanderer. Psalm 120 is the first of a series of fifteen “Pilgrim Psalms” or “Songs of Ascents (or “degrees”)”, which were sung by those who journeyed to the Jewish Temple for the annual feasts (Passover, Pentecost, the Day of Atonement, etc). You could imagine the Pilgrims singing these psalms aboard the Mayflower. Have you ever sung songs on a long car trip? Each of these psalms is a “step” along the journey. Eugene Peterson calls this series of Psalms, “a long obedience in the same direction.” Some scholars say that these songs were sung walking up the fifteen steps of the Temple. Psalm 120 is not a happy song—it’s more like the Blues! Psalm 120 begins with distress, and ends with war. But it’s an honest and important song.
Some people think being a minister must be a pleasant life—surrounded always by kind, loving people…for this reason, clergy are criticized for being out of touch with the hostility of this world. Perhaps where you work it’s not at all like church: people are at each other’s throats, a “zero defects” mentality reigns, there’s constant pressure to compete and succeed, plus anxiety and insecurity take away any job satisfaction.
I know what it’s like to be in a hostile environment—in Bosnia every home I passed had bullet holes and other damage from the on-going conflict. In Korea I lived a few miles from Panmunjun, the tense DMZ/demilitarized zone between the North and South. During the week I spent in Israel, an Arab from a hang-glider machine-gunned a group of Israeli soldiers. In Desert Storm I drove along the “highway of death and destruction” and counseled wounded soldiers. In peacetime I had to deal with a military that was both downsizing and deploying and where one mistake could cost soldiers their career. Hezekiah cries, “I am a man of peace; but when I speak, they are for war” (vs 7). We do not live in a peaceful world where things are OK and getting better. I’m sure there are many times we might concur with the title of an old Broadway musical, “Stop the World—I Want to Get Off!”
Hezekiah cries out, “Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips and deceitful tongues” (vs 2). Was he talking about politicians? Keith Green wrote a song that says, “I was lied to, but You told the truth, for You are the Truth.” Both singers remind us that we live in a world filled with lies. We’ve been told that people are basically good, that the world is a good place, that looking good is more important than being good, that material prosperity is the measure of success. When confronted with the truth, people deny reality and choose darkness rather than walking in the light. Advertisers claim to know what we need, entertainers promise distractions from our problems, alcohol and drugs provide an escape from reality, politicians offer to solve our problems, yet nothing in this world can satisfy our deepest, inner longings. A pilgrim is one who has become dissatisfied with the way things are and is on the way toward something better. Liars, vs 4 states, will be punished for their deceit and their sins will be exposed.
Hezekiah realizes in vs 6 that he has “lived too long among those who hate peace.” He wants to move. He’s homesick. On a humanitarian deployment in Pennsylvania a homesick soldier was missing; we found him walking down the interstate with tears streaming down his face trying to get back to Maryland. Realizing the hostility of our environment and wanting to leave is a sign of repentance. John warns us, “Do not love the world or anything it offers. When you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only lust for physical pleasure, lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. The world and its desires pass away, but those who do the will of God live forever” (I Jn 2:15-17).
We are sinners, and we remain so until we come to our senses and realize our predicament. We turn from our sin to Christ, Who promises to forgive us, to give us abundant and eternal life. This turning is repentance. Some people think repentance is an emotion, that it’s feeling really sorry, saddened by our situation. We can feel sad all the day long, but until we turn and leave, we’re stuck. Repentance involves change, moving. It’s deciding that I’ve been wrong in supposing that I can manage my own life. It’s realizing that no amount of education or training can lift me up to Higher Ground. Repentance is a decision to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and become a pilgrim on the path of peace. “I call on the Lord in my distress and He answers me” (vs 1). We turn to God and He responds; He changes us, transforming our thinking and providing strength.
A few years ago while visiting relatives in NJ, we went to Ellis Island in New York harbor. It is a marvelous monument to the spirit of our unique nation. I used to live across the harbor on Governor’s Island in New York Harbor, long before Ellis Island opened to the public. I could see the buildings, but could only wonder what it was like at that gateway to America. My grandparents came from Norway, Sweden, Ireland, and Belgium to settle in New Jersey. They left their hardships in Europe to seek out a better life for themselves, a place where they could make a new start. The process of immigration made an American out of what was a European. And our spiritual journey, our pilgrimage, is what makes a Christian out of a foreigner.
The Bible says that we were once spiritually aliens, but now we are part of God’s family. Repentance is the first step in Christian immigration. It sets us on our way, traveling in the Light. Repentance is a rejection that is also an acceptance, a leaving that develops into an arriving, a ‘no’ to the world that is a ‘yes’ to God.
