on Psalm 65

 

Our summer sermon series at St Nicholas’ explores the Psalms. This coming Sunday, our psalm will be Psalm 65 (text below).

Psalm 65 is written for the person who presides over the public worship of the gathered community, which makes it very appropriate for this weekend, when my colleague Katherine will step into that role for the first time.

It is a ‘David psalm’—a psalm composed in the tradition of David, with a David outlook, from a David perspective. And it speaks of the temple, which, at the time of David, did not exist. It is future-oriented.

For Christians, that future orientation points to Jesus—who claimed that the temple was a ‘type’ fulfilled in his own body—and to the community who proclaim him as Lord—as the rightful heir of David—those whom the disciple Jesus gave the nickname ‘stone’ imagined as living stones being built into a temple.

Psalm 65 speaks of people rooted in place, a community close nearby, or surrounding, the temple. We might call that a parish. A community, of young and old, of many different kinds of people, who find their lives blessed by proximity to the temple, or to the community who is rooted in both this place and that Lord Jesus.

We are told, in our neo-liberal world, that there is no such thing as community any more, only (increasingly polarised) individuals. But, in fact, we are created as persons, who only find the fullness of identity in relation to other persons—not just like-minded persons, but in the diversity of persons found in, and committed to, the place we are found. This diversity is the glory of a parish; and the tragedy of many a local church congregation has been their inability to embrace certain identities as divine gift. The local congregation, within the local parish, should function as a community that holds us, grounds us, nurtures us, such that we discover who we are—whom God has created us to be—and are able to flourish. Too many people have felt that they have had no choice but to leave the community behind in search of a more nurturing one.

But Psalm 65 goes on to speak of salvation, of God at work to save, to bring us into a place of healing and wholeness. To calm the storms that rage, within us and around about us. To usher in something new: morning and evening; fruitful creativity and harmonious order, and joyful celebration and rest.

Hard ground softened. Barren ground swollen with good things.

Again and again, in time, in season.

There’s a hymn often sung at funerals and cup finals that says, ‘change and decay in all around I see; O, thou who changest not, abide with me.’ But this is, at best, only part of the picture; for God is continually bringing about change, drawing life out of death, hope out of hibernation.

And it is the role of the one called to oversee the worship of the community to notice that which is not yet; to call the people back to a future-orientation; to remind us of hope that is grounded in God’s faithfulness in every age before us.

Psalm 65

To the leader. A Psalm of David. A Song.

1 Praise is due to you,

O God, in Zion,

and to you shall vows be performed,

2 O you who answer prayer!

To you all flesh shall come.

3 When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us,

you forgive our transgressions.

4 Happy are those whom you choose and bring near

to live in your courts.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,

your holy temple.

5 By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,

O God of our salvation;

you are the hope of all the ends of the earth

and of the farthest seas.

6 By your strength you established the mountains;

you are girded with might.

7 You silence the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

the tumult of the peoples.

8 Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;

you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

9 You visit the earth and water it;

you greatly enrich it;

the river of God is full of water;

you provide the people with grain,

for so you have prepared it.

10 You water its furrows abundantly,

settling its ridges,

softening it with showers,

and blessing its growth.

11 You crown the year with your bounty;

your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow;

the hills gird themselves with joy;

13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks;

the valleys deck themselves with grain;

they shout and sing together for joy.