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Psalm 62 evokes such great images.
“A Mighty Fortress is Our God, a bulwark never failing. Our helper he, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.”
Fortress,
Rock,
Refuge,
Shelter.
We feel protected. The walls of God will block out every assailant, every foe. We can retreat into the safety and comfort of God’s arms. As our sung refrain says, “Rest in God alone. Rest in God alone.”
The psalmist is very insistent on this point. In fact, the Hebrew word that is used for “alone”, ‘ak, only occurs 24 times in the whole psalter, and 6 of those times are in this one psalm!
verse 1 For God alone ('ak) my soul waits in silence. . .
verse 2 God alone ('ak) is my rock and my salvation. . .
verse 4 Their only ('ak) plan is to bring down a person of prominence. . .
verse 5 For God alone ('ak) my soul waits in silence. . .
verse 6 God alone ('ak) is my rock and my salvation. . .
verse 9 Those of low estate are but ('ak) a breath. . .
‘ak has a dual meaning—“only or alone” and “truly and indeed.” Rolf Jacobson of Luther Seminary suggests “The truth is that in Hebrew the term most likely has a sense of double-entendre -- at each point it meaning carries both senses of the term. To wait for God alone means to wait on God indeed! To truly hope in God means that one must hope only in God!”
It is a statement of faith.
In God We Trust.
God Alone.
Or as Jesus would have heard proclaimed in the temple, the Great Shema, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
In a vacuum, this might be an easy thing to do, trust in God, rest in God alone. But as we all know too well, we live in a world that pulls us in other directions. We live in a world where there are other claims for our loyalty, our trust, even our hope.
So what do we do? Do we retreat into the walled courtyard, draw up the bridges, and hunker down? Do we view the world as something to shut ourselves away from? Is that what God does for us, to provide an escape from the trials and tribulations of this life? Is that the salvation that is promised? Is that what it means to Rest in God alone, and let other things take care of themselves?
I don’t think so. We trust in God alone.
We trust in God indeed.
We know that there is that shelter from the storm. We know that God is the unshakeable Rock on which we stand.
We know that God is a mighty Fortress, able to withstand any Evil.
We know that if we need refuge,
God is always there.
And on that Rock…
and from that place of feeling sure …
we are to live our lives.
And maybe because we trust in God’s love,
And stand on the promises of God,
We will end up on a collision course
with the way the world operates,
and with the powers
that think they control that world.
Jesus calls us, o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea; day by day his sweet voice soundeth saying, “Christian, follow me.”
Jesus is walking along the seashore, and sees Peter and Andrew, and then James and John. And calls them out of what they knew of life,
calls them out of the comfort of existence
—fishing,
what they had done,
and their fathers before them,
and their fathers before them…
calls them to the unknown,
calls them into a dangerous conversation
and eventual confrontation
with the powers that be in their world.
Now, we could surmise that these guys had no idea what they were in for!
But still, how extraordinary,
that they left their nets,
“immediately”
and followed.
Did they sense that this was one who they could put their trust in?
Did they stand on their faith in God and God’s promises, however they understood it at the time?
Did a lifetime of repetition, of saying the Shema, of reciting the psalms, of having to live out “In God Alone We Trust” that so many oppressed peoples cling to, did that prepare them to respond
Without weighing the pros and cons
Without having the family discussion about how the business was going to manage without the young
Without hesitation
I was struck by a poem written by Jan Richardson who runs a site called the Painted Prayerbook. She is a United Methodist minister, but has left the parish to do ministry through her paintings, her poems, and her blogs. In thinking about this moment of Jesus calling the disciples, she imagines it as an end, as well as a beginning. Almost something inevitable. Her poem is called “Blessing the Nets.”
You could cast it in your sleep,
its familiar arc embedded in your muscle memory
after months
Years
a lifetime
of gathering in
what you thought would sustain you forever.
You would not have imagined it would be so easy to cast aside, would never have believed the immediacy with which your hands could release their familiar grip,
could let it go,
could let it simply continue its arcing path
away from you.
But when the call came you did not hesitate,
did not pause,
did not delay to follow,
as if your body had suddenly remembered
the final curve of the arc,
as if the release begun in your hands
now passed through you entirely
and you let go of everything
to cast yourself
with abandon
upon the waiting world.
(Jan Richardson, paintedprayerbook.com, Jan. 19, 2012)
For God Alone my soul waits in silence.
God Alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress.
In God We Trust.
And because we trust,
because God is our salvation,
our home,
the One who calls us Beloved,
we too, can hear the call of Jesus.
We too can respond.
We too can cast ourselves,
with abandon,
upon the waiting,
hungering,
needy world.
May it be so, Alleluia, Amen.
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