Expanding
March 3, 2024
Year B; 3rd Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20: 1-17
Psalm 19
John 2: 13-22
Psalm 19:14
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our
hearts be acceptable in your sight,
O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
Homily by Rev. Megan Limburg
Careful listeners might have noticed that the final verse of our psalm today, Psalm 19, is the words I pray just before I preach, slightly altered. Psalm 19 is a single voice, an individual speaking to, praying to, singing to God. But as preaching is hopefully a give and take between us, I changed the words slightly to include you all, so that the prayer asks, that as I speak, AND you listen and meditate and wonder and question, God is with you as much as with me.
In fact, it occurs to me this prayer would make more sense alternating:
I would say: Let the words of my mouth
You all would say: and the meditations of all our hearts
Together: be acceptable in your sight,
O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
I hasten to add that praying this verse from Psalm 19 before I preach is absolutely not original to me. I borrowed it from many preachers I have heard.
Now, if you have been attending worship at Trinity/SMWC for a while you might remember a time when I began my sermons differently.
And in fact, since I was ordained almost 12 years ago, I have prayed before I preach on the model of my dear friend Harold.
As I have mentioned before, I met Harold and his wife Virginia in the church I would join, Church of Our Saviour, in Charlottesville, when I was 24 years old. I was baptized and confirmed on the same day, and Harold and Virginia became central in my life, my faith journey, my ordination journey, Tim’s and my journey.
Harold and Virginia planted the seeds that led to my ordination as a priest. However, those seeds took a long time to sprout and grow! I met Harold and Virginia in 1986 and I was ordained in 2012. A long and winding road is not a bad path to many things!
After I was ordained, though, whenever I had a question in my head about what to do in ministry, at the altar, in preaching, I thought: “What did Harold do?”
And when I started to preach in churches after ordination, I actually already knew what I would say before I preached, because I had heard Harold say it many times:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And I did so for several years. But I began to tune in that perhaps, a broader prayer might let more folks join in and connect.
Now I must note that I only attended Church of our Saviour full-time for 3 years, and then sporadically for several more. So, whenever I thought of Harold and what he would do, I mainly thought of him in the 1980s and 90s. And few of us might want to be stuck in our 1980s selves.
Harold will turn 84 in a few weeks, and is still preaching occasionally, and I have not heard him preach in many years, so chances are good he has changed his pre-preaching prayer too.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, is classic, but limiting for me in two ways.
First, though I’m only saying, “I do this in the name of God”, I still might sound like God already agrees with me, always a chancy assumption.
Second, this form uses traditional language for the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, beautiful language, but limiting God to the masculine. God of course is not male or female or any other earthly understanding, God is beyond our knowing. We glimpse now, only through a mirror darkly.
In addition, as much as many folks have loved their fathers, some have had difficult, painful, even abusive relationships. I do not want my words from the pulpit or altar to cause further pain among those listening, as much is possible.
So I considered more inclusive, descriptive words that, again, many others use before preaching or in blessings. And I found:
God, the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sustainer.
These words might remind us of God who made us all and our earth, God who saved us all in Jesus, and God who sustains us, remains with us in our earthly life, in the Holy Spirit.
As I have settled on the Psalm 19 verse to open my preaching, you may hear God, the Creator, the Redeemer, the Sustainer, in our closing blessing, the other place I have used Father, Son, and Holy Spirit language.
I am aware that changing any language is dangerous territory, even upsetting some, as we all yearn for things to remain the same.
But as I have already done so, I wanted to share why I have, and then today here is Psalm 19, opening a door.
So, I’d like to end this sermon by sharing The Message translation from the Biblical scholar Eugene Peterson, of the last verses of Psalm 19, expanding our minds even further, and giving us much to literally chew on!
So, if you’d like turn back to page 5 in your bulletin; first I’ll read verses 12-14 as printed in the New Revised Standard version:
12 Who can tell how often he offends? *
cleanse me from my secret faults.
13 Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins;
let them not get dominion over me; *
then shall I be whole and sound,
and innocent of a great offense.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my
heart be acceptable in your sight, *
O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
And now those same verses in The Message version, to chew on:
Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!
Keep me from stupid sins,
from thinking I can take over your work;
Then I can start this day sun-washed,
scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
These are the words in my mouth;
these are what I chew on and pray.
Accept them when I place them
on the morning altar,
O God, my Altar-Rock,
God, Priest-of-My-Altar.
Amen.
