90

 

This summer at St Nicholas’ Church we have been exploring a sermon series on the Psalms, or songbook of ancient Israel. Most of the Psalms are around 3,000 years old and associated with king David, written by him or in the tradition associated with him. Today I spoke about Psalm 90, which is associated with Moses, five hundred years before the time of David. Moses is the survivor of genocide whom God sent to Pharaoh to demand that he release the Israelites from conscripted labour to depart generations of oppression in Egypt, the superpower of the day.

Psalm 90 has been associated with funerals, though that has become less common and therefore less familiar, and invites us to take an honest look at our lives, through the lens of God’s wrath and of God’s steadfast love. Both these things are good news.

When we speak of God’s wrath, we are not speaking of some out-of-control anger. God is not a man who is fun to be around after a drink or two, but who turns predictably unpredictably violent after five or six. The wrath of God is God’s settled resistance to evil.

Throughout the Bible, God sets out the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, and calls a people—a society—to choose good. It isn’t, on the whole, ambiguous. The ten commandments set out moral positions such as, don’t exploit workers, treat older people with respect, don’t murder, steal, or cheat on your spouse. Again and again, God calls society to give special care to the most vulnerable, citing the widows and orphans, and immigrants.

When we turn our backs on the good, to pursue what is evil — fear, hatred, enmity, selfishness, greed — we can expect to run into God’s settled resistance. If we have enough resources, enough personal wealth, we can keep pressing against that resistance for a long time. You might become a billionaire, or the president of a superpower — a pharaoh — but, eventually, there comes a reckoning. Moses saw this close up in the stand-off between pharaoh and God.

The purpose of God’s wrath is to press us to turn back. Indeed, this is so important that we are created with God’s wrath internalised within us, for it has another name: our conscience. Our conscience, being clear when we choose the good and guilty when we choose the evil. Again, we have a choice: to harden our heart — as pharaoh did — or to humble our heart — as Moses, who had murdered a ‘bad man,’ knew what it was to choose evil, did. It did not end well for pharaoh.

The aim of God’s wrath is that we should turn back after days, or weeks, or at most months, rather than years or decades. But my prayer is that we might know the wrath of God all the days of our life, calling us back when we wander.

Because the psalm goes on to speak of God’s steadfast love. Of experiencing compassion, steadfast love, joy, gladness, glory, favour, and prosperity. This is God’s default position towards humanity, that we should be able to say that God’s steadfast love has been out dwelling place, our refuge, our home address, throughout generations. This is the home to which God’s wrath resists our wandering away from.

For, just as God is not a violent drunk, neither is he a man who spends every waking hour in the office, never having time for his children. God is not so busy with the geo-politics of the Middle East that he has no interest in you. No, God delights in you. Moses prays, and I pray with him, that we might know that steadfast love our whole life long, at least as much if not moreso than our awareness of God’s wrath.

The psalm concludes ‘prosper for us the work of our hands — O prosper the work of our hands!’ which is to say, may the way I live, the way I make my living, be a blessing to the world, to those around me.

Today, I spoke about this psalm at the baptism of the son of friends of mine. My prayer for him — and for me, and for us all — is that we would know the wrath of God all the years of our life; that we would know our home to be within the steadfast love of God our whole life long; and that God would prosper the work of our hands, to the blessing of the world, whatever it might be that we do with our lives.

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn us back to dust
and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past
or like a watch in the night.

5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

7 For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.

11 Who considers the power of your anger?
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.

13 Turn, O Lord! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us
and as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!

(NRSVue translation)