From Dawn to Dusk, JOY!

Our Stewardship theme this year comes from Psalm 65, a declaration of God’s glory: “From dawn to dusk, you inspire shouts of joy.” So, this morning, I want us to take a close look at the verses of the psalm, remember that the psalms were the hymns of the Hebrew people. So, what does this hymn say about how has God inspires us to shout with joy?

First, God answers prayer. The New International Version that I read this morning translates the verse, “When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.” I love the poetry of the Hebrew here, though. The literal translation is “Iniquity prevails against me, our transgressions you have covered them.”

Inquity prevails against me. Iniquity is that dirty, guilty feeling we get inside when we know that we willingly, knowingly, made a choice to engage in something that we ought not to have been involved in. Iniquity prevails against me: my insides are churning and I can’t stop thinking about it. Iniquity prevails against me: I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway, and now, my head is hung and I don’t want to make eye contact. Iniquity prevails against me: I thought I could do it and forget about it, or justify it to myself, or just put it to the back of my mind because I’d never be caught…but I can’t.

The hymn continues, “our transgressions you have covered them.” Transgression is the act itself. There are two kinds of transgression: crossing the line, breaking the law, and violating trust, breaking a relationship. Our transgressions, you, God, have covered them. In the days of the Temple, the priest covered sins by offering a sacrifice for them, restoring the sinner to the same respectfulness that they had before they sinned and relieving the sinner of their guilt, their iniquity. So, the hymn is describing that relief and release of joy that we experience when we are weighed down by guilt for our sins, pray, and God covers our transgressions and we are forgiven.

The first verses of Psalm 65 make us pause and get real. It’s like a beauty pageant queen after she’s been crowned and goes back stage. The fake eyelashes come off, the hair piece, the makeup, the push up, the Spanx, the glue, the tape, the hairspray is combed out, the sweats and house shoes are put on, and she goes home to chill with family and friends. She is not at all what you saw on the stage…but she’s real. And because she is real, there with her friends and family who love and accept her as she is, she is joyful.

God loves you, and everything you have done or not done. All the mistakes you have made. All the pain you have caused. All the lies you have lived. All you have to do is ask, and God has covered over them. Pause. Get real. Just pause, right here. Close your eyes and take a deep breath and hold it. What iniquity threatens to prevail against you? God has covered your transgression. Take a deep breath. What joy!

Remember, Psalm 65 isn’t a solo, this is a hymn for the whole to sing together, and look who all the hymn includes, it’s not just the Hebrew people, it’s not just the Israelites, “all flesh shall come to God,.…the hope of all the ends of the earth and the farthest seas.”

Sometimes, I will have someone ask why we all read the Prayer of Confession together, especially when it has occurred to that person that they are not guilty of everything that is being confessed. The reason we confess together is that we are guilty as a community, as the body of Christ, of these transgressions happening in our world. God’s vision for humanity, the kingdom of God, is a beloved community, not a collection of righteous individuals.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann points out that what we have here in Psalm 65 a public, community celebration of God’s forgiveness. This is a dramatic claim! The whole people of God (including, presumably the king) “concedes its guilt and celebrates its forgiveness.” The main problem today, Brueggemann suggests is “that public imagination is so filled with pride, self-serving complacency, and moral numbness that we could hardly imagine an act of public repentance or acknowledgement of forgiveness, for to ask for and receive forgiveness is to be vulnerable.” (The Message of the Psalms)

And that leads us to the second point of the psalm, once we have had the weight of iniquity lifted off of us, we can see the wonder around us. The hymn recounts the power of God in creation – forming the mountains, stilling the roaring of the seas and their waves (the symbol of chaos and evil in Hebrew poetry) and the turmoil of the nations. The whole earth is filled with awe at God’s wonders; from the rising of the sun to its setting, God inspires shouts of joy.

But it is easy to confuse joy with everything being happy or “perfect”. I did it this week. I was in a yoga class this week and at the end, the instructor said, “Close your eyes and picture something that gives you joy to focus on all day today.” And I started thinking of all the reasons to reject what came to mind because homes have projects, and flowerbeds have weeds, relationships are complicated, even vacations have challenges, and for all the ways I see God at work I see more that could be. And I left without deciding on something that gives me joy and forgot about it.

As I worked on the bulletin for this Sunday, I came across a grandparent recalling a trip to the beach with three grandsons. The two older boys jumped right in, but Eli, the youngest, was actually “flinging” himself bodily into the waves, abandoning himself to the uncertainty and the scary thrill of the surf.

As I nervously awaited his appearance above each swallowing wave, I was amazed at the look on his little emerging face. First, a bit of sputtering but then sheer joy. JOY. And the grandparent wrote, “I couldn’t help but feel the same thrilling joy as I watched his sweet little face fill with exhilaration. How could I not?” The complete trust, the abandonment of control.

And when I went to yoga the next day, the same invitation came, ““Close your eyes and picture something that gives you joy to focus on all day today.” Except, I didn’t forget the invitation when I left, I started opening to receive joy. There is this old monastic insight about living a joy-filled life. Take time, take at least some time each day, to do one thing at-a-time. Joy takes time. Time to notice, time to be where you are. And it takes a receptivity. Joy is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and you have to be open to receiving it.

That afternoon, I was heading out of my office to do something when an elementary-aged boy on fall break pointed to some trays on the ground outside the Transition Kindergarten room. The trays had some oddly shaped bead-like things drying on them – orange, purple, and green. “What is that?” he asked. “I don’t know. They were painting it earlier.” And then I stopped, and we wondered together about what these little round bead-things were that they had painted and what they would do with them, and we laughed, and we fist-bumped, a moment of connection, a moment of joy.

As I have reflected on the last year at Farmington, preparing the stewardship materials, I went through the newsletters and scrolled through the pictures. There have been so many moments of joy. We are inspired to shout for joy when we see God at work in our world and through us.

We started hosting Room in the Inn again, caring for those at the margins, providing shelter now mostly for women and children, the most vulnerable through the night on the street. Then this fall, we collected school supplies for those children to be prepared with what they need to learn. Those relationships have brought so much joy.

We packaged another 20,000 meals that were sent to Philippines to mission schools where the children come hungry and are able to eat so that then they are ready to learn. We know that education changes the future, what a joy to be a part of a better future for these children.

Welcoming Madonna’s Celebration Troupe in worship is always a joy as they lead us to be fully engaged in praising God. Celebrating the ministries of Doug Barr and Shelley Wann as they responded to God’s call to move from staff at Farmington to what is next was bittersweet, but filled with so much joy. And there were Wednesday nights and Fellowship Coffees and Wednesday night dinners, Friendsgiving and Lessons and Carols and VBS, but the joy is most evident in the pictures of twos and threes, talking, laughing…joy. We are inspired to shout for joy when we see God at work in our world and through us.

From sunrise to sunset, God inspires shouts of joy. May we all learn the hymn.