The Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 26, 2006
Psalm 131
 
            When a pastor has been ordained thirty-five years you would assume that a congregation could no longer surprise them. You would be wrong.
 
            You have not just surprised me, you have shocked me. You are telling me one of my sermons in this series on the Psalms of Ascents has struck a clear chord of connection with you. I cannot remember so many people repeating back to me what I said with a look of fatigue and appreciation.
 
            I once preached about the being our own worst enemy: pointing out that “in life pain is inevitable, but misery is optional,” and people responded so strongly with appreciation that I was surprised. This time, though, your response to one of my Lenten sermons was shocking.
 
            As we make our Lenten journey to the cross I have preached on the Psalms from the section known as the Psalms of Ascents, Psalms 120-134.
 
            Ash Wednesday themed on repentance and from Psalm 120 you were captured by the perspective of the Psalm writer on liars. With Psalm 125 you appreciated the picture the Psalmist gives of our ‘rock-solid’ God and the theme was living secure. When I asked what you admired about Jesus, someone was bold enough to suggest his obedience. Obedience is another word for Jesus’ perseverance and ours in light of Psalm 129. You are good listeners and you have fed back to me the meaning of these Psalms.
 
            It was, though, Psalm 123 that struck the chord in you that shocked me. You may recall it was the Sunday the sermon was about serving. The illustration capturing your attention was the prayer someone prayed who felt they had way too much on their plate: “Lord, give me patience…and give it to me quickly.” Many of you have quoted that back to me and continue to comment on it.
 
            You have quoted the prayer for patience…to be given by God immediately…while sharing that you feel overwhelmed. There is too much on your plate. There is too much, too often, and it is becoming a problem. You need patience, you say, because you are aware of becoming someone you don’t want to be: the parent who is short with their children, rather than patient and listening. You are the spouse who barks back rather than forgive that one you love. You are the co-worker who has no time to listen to and help that person at work. You are the friend that shows impatience as the joke another tells you gets long and a bit boring.
 
            So, you tell me, you pray, “Lord, give me patience…and give it to me quickly.” It is a prayer of desperation. You pray with sighs of fatigue asking, “Help me, O Lord.”
 
            I thought of your felt need for consolation and comfort when I watched the closing moments this week of the men’s basketball game where Duke lost to LSU. Duke was beat, both in score and spirit at the closing seconds of the game. Coach K took his all-American senior, J. J. Riddick, out of the game. Coach K embraced his beaten player, clearly in need of consolation at the end of his final college basketball game; a game that did not end as he wanted.
 
            An embrace of consolation and comfort is given. The Psalmist tells us today that God is like a mother who holds her weaned child in a close embrace. God is like that mother who is accepting and forgiving with her love, though the child may often not deserve it.
 
            In fact, God so embraces you like a loving mother that God climbed the cross in Jesus and stretched out his arms of mercy to die. In that sacrifice is the holy embrace of God, loving and forgiving you. In those outstretched arms of Jesus on cross comes an embrace that comforts you in all your sorrows, even the moments you feel overwhelmed, feel your plate is too full and you are becoming people you would rather not be. The embracing arms of Jesus come with love and forgiveness, like a mother with her weaned child.
 
            There is more, though, that the embracing arms of God bring. God embraces you with gifts. God gives you the gift of patience. It is a patience with you who act as though you can save yourselves and everyone else, so you allow your plates to become entirely too full and do not observe healthy limits and boundaries. God is patience with you when you would be your own saviors. God’s patience gifts you with patience of your own.
 
            The embracing arms of God gift you with hope. Did you hear the words in Psalm 131 that speak of hope? “O Israel, wait upon the Lord…” “Wait upon the Lord” focuses you on God as the one who gives you life now and forevermore in Jesus. “Wait upon the Lord” makes possible your patience and grants you comfort.
 
            It is, however, the third gift of God’s embracing arms that is at the center of the Psalm today: the gift of humility. Humility is having confidence in God, not in yourself. Arrogance is the opposite of humility; arrogance is confidence in yourself to save yourselves. Humility is confidently trusting God to embrace you from the cross with the powerful love that saves you even from death itself.
 
            You see, the good news today is you do not have to do it all. Be confident in God’s love for you. Be confident that God will embrace you from the cross and that you are then one of God’s beloved children in Jesus Christ. That is enough. It is enough to be beloved of Jesus. Wait upon the Lord and pray, “Embrace me, O Lord, with your accepting and forgiving love of the cross. Amen.”