Made Holy: Psalm 13

Psalm 13

To the leader. A Psalm of David.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, ‘I have prevailed’;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.

But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.

It’s been over three months now since many of us started working or learning from home. All of a sudden, old routines and habits changed as we quickly adapted to new locations and developed new patterns. We moved furniture at home and scoured the shelves at work for things we might need. I call those early days the “spring pivot.” 

For me, one of the most important things was developing a new filing system, of all things — a way to keep track. And one of the first things I did was rethink the way I keep track of people I’m holding in prayer. 

Long before COVID and our renewed awareness of the struggle for racial justice, there, of course, have been people for whom all is not right in the world. It might be illness or grief, loss of a job, mental illness, or broken relationships. Those things have not gone away. They’re just more complicated and bring an added layer of isolation. 

Well before the world was thrust into limbo, some of us have been wondering with the psalmist: “How long, O Lord? How long will this go on? How long will I live with pain?” The uncertainty makes it all the more difficult, and the psalmist knows it. 

In her book, “Small Victories,” Anne Lamott writes about her friend Carol and pretty much sums up the pathos of tonight’s psalm. “Several years ago,” she writes, “Carol got leukemia. She did all the standard medical treatments, including enough chemotherapy to last a lifetime. She shook and she baked and she lost all (her hair), and she got very sick from the treatments. But they seemed to be working for a while, and the people of (her town) cooked and shopped for her and drove her around and kept her company and donated buckets of blood. She sloughed off all the nonessential aspects of her life, tossed them out of the airplane so she could fly a little higher, but the cancer stripped her way down, as it does, and when the chemo was over, she built her life back up. Then there were a number of recurrences, and she needed more rounds of treatment, and life got stripped back to surviving the disease and the cure, and then she’d build her life and health back up all over again. You would think that God or life would hold everything else back, like a traffic cop holding back the traffic so the baby ducks can cross the street, but this was not the case. Real life reared its head.” 

Our psalm for tonight (Psalm 13) is a cry for help. It’s a prayer for when the bottom falls out. It might be a prayer for you or for someone you love, but someone you know is crying out tonight. 

In its six short verses, it holds not only anguish but a promise, too: You are not alone. For thousands of years, the people of God have cried out with these very words, and the words are deep enough to hold your truth. God is big enough to take anything you’ve got. You don’t have to hold back. You can own the pain and fling it at God, but you won’t lose God. God’s love is loyal. Steadfast love, the Bible calls it. It’s not fickle; it won’t leave you or desert you. It’s a love that’s like God — this God who keeps promises, establishes justice, and defends the vulnerable. As hard as it is to see it when you’re in it, sometimes the steadfast love of God is known through human love and loyalty.

By now, you have likely heard stories about Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, located near 31st Street and Minnehaha Avenue. Four weeks ago, the church became an impromptu first aid station during the uprising that followed the killing of George Floyd. The neighborhood then became a food desert, so the church pivoted and established a distribution center to help nourish, launder and diaper the neighborhood. 

Four weeks ago, Ingrid Rasmussen, the lead pastor, was eight months pregnant, and yesterday she had a new post on Facebook. 

Ingrid’s husband and young daughter drove her to the hospital a few days ago, and they dropped her off at the hospital entrance. Because of Covid, they made the difficult decision that it would be best for her to go alone. She wheeled her bag into the hospital and began the long process of check-in and waiting for the baby to be delivered. 

She writes that she eventually “found (herself) in a trauma room with a nurse named Bintou. When Bintou asked if anyone would be joining (her, Ingrid) wept. Bintou embraced (Ingrid and told her she would never be alone). She was right. Bintou, Ying, Dr. Olson, Margaret, Muna and many others carried (her) over the course of 48 hours with hands and hearts sculpted by years of caring for strangers.” She was also supported from a distance by family members blessing her and praying for the strength of women, past and present, to surround her. Eventually, a little boy named Lars Anders was placed in her arms. But 48 hours feels like an eternity when a child’s journey to life and breath in this world progresses at its own pace. 

Like a woman in labor, the psalmist asks, “How long, O Lord?” Like a cancer patient going through treatment, the psalmist asks, “How long, O Lord?” Like a person oppressed by generations of injustice, the psalmist asks, “How long, O Lord?” But the prayer is not without hope. It holds a promise, even when it’s hard to believe:

God hears your cries. You are not alone. God’s love is faithful. You will sing again to the Lord. Cling to that hope. We sing with you and for you now.  Amen.