Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Sermon – Psalm 104:24-35 – Send Forth Your Spirit
Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Presbyterian Churches
June 12, 2011
We have been looking at what it means to believe in the Jesus. This is an important task because believing in Jesus Christ leads us to eternal life. To believe in Jesus means more than believing statements about Jesus. Rather we must believe in, have faith in, Jesus trusting him with our lives. This comes about through prayer and meditation on scripture. And by meditating on the psalms we learn that the heart of Christian prayer is praising God. Today we will see that by praising God we come to understand the world we live in as God's creation. Let's pray.
“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)
Psalm 104
1Bless the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent 3you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind, 4you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers.
5You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight. 8They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys to the place that you appointed for them. 9You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
10You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
14You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth, 15and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart. 16The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees. 18The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.
19You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. 20You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. 21The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. 23People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening.
24O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. 26There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. 27These all look to you to give them their food in due season; 28when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
30When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.
31May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works—32who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.
33I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. 35Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!
Psalm 104 is a hymn meant to be sung by people thousands of years ago. It is also a prayer of someone who had learned how to praise God. This author has looked into the vastness of the world, the blue sky, the deep seas, clouds, wind, fire and has found God. This is what happens when we begin praising God in prayer: we begin to see God all around us. We become aware of God's presence with us and God's continuing care of us. The reason for this is that by praising God we acknowledge God as the creator and the world as God's creation.
According to the psalmist, before God's creation of the world all was covered by water. The valleys were filled up and the water rose to cover the top of the mountains. Our blue planet was entirely blue. Remember that the word “flood” is often used in the Bible as a metaphor for chaos. So chaos was the state of the world before creation. The world was disordered, unbounded, not limited in any way. God's creative force was to place limits, boundaries, and order on the world. God placed limits on the sun ordering its rise and fall setting the cycle of day and night. God set the boundaries for temperature setting the cycle of seasons. God ordered the waters to live within limits setting the cycle of tides and rainfall. And so by setting limits and boundaries God ordered the world.
We all know about limits and boundaries. The Session at Beaver Dam has set a limit on how much mildew can accumulate on the outside of the church. With the church located near a swamp mildew is a big problem. So when it gets too bad a contractor is called and the mildew is removed restoring the outside of the church. Regular maintenance is required to maintain things like the church and even the created world. Rain and wind can cause rivers to overflow in floods, and giant storms with destroying winds. Droughts parch the land and the crops burn in the field. The ground can violate a boundary causing an earthquake or tsunami. But whenever a boundary is passed or a limit exceeded God's creative spirit is always there working to restore the created order. This is how we know that God is always with us because whatever happens to violate the limits God has imposed the Holy Spirit is there to restore it.
Today we are experiencing a drought on the eastern shore. This is the second year of high heat and little rain. Limits established by God for annual rainfall are not being met. It would be tempting to curse God when this happens. But as Christian we have learned to praise God for creation and so we have faith that God's spirit will come and restore the normal rainfall amounts we need. What we need to do is to pray, praising God for creation and requesting that the Spirit restore the limits of creation by sending rain to our fields.
The limits and boundaries God has established for creation makes life possible. It provides us with food to eat, fresh water to drink, and air to breath. And so it is important to praise God continually for all of these blessings.
Were it not for the ongoing work of God's spirit we would surely die. One question the psalmist asked was why do the great predators not eat humans. If the lions, tigers, and bears wanted they could feast on people fairly easily. Unless we have a knife or a firearm we a pretty defenseless. So why are the Great White sharks not lining up off the coast of Ocean City for a Fourth of July people feast? The answer, according to the psalmist, is that this would violate the order God has established in creation. The predators have been given by God the night to hunt while we are safely sleeping in our homes. And the predators sleep when we rise in the morning.
So what should be our response to all these blessings we receive from God: air to breath, water to drink, food to eat, clothes to wear, homes to live in, protection from the predators. The psalmist says that the only response is to sing praises to God. And that is why we are in worship today. All week long we have experienced God's good creation and we come here on Sunday to praise God in song and pray. We do this because the seven day cycle with a sabbath rest is one of the limits God has establish for our happiness.
Of course not everyone wants to live with limits. Some people ignore God's boundaries. They see God as a limit to their freedom. They want to be free from God and God's ordering of the world. They ignore the limits God has established. So they curse God and go about their own lives. But whenever someone ignores the limits of creation consequences result. If you drive above the speed limit you will get a ticket. If you send lewd pictures of yourself to young women on the internet you will get caught and possibly lose your job. The Bible calls those who ignore God's limits wicked. The wicked will perish because without God's creative limits all that remains that remains is chaos, the flood. So the wicked ignore the boundaries God has established to their own peril.
Lest anyone doubt the consequences of ignoring the limits God has imposed lets look at some headlines of the chaos in the world from this week's Drudge Report: “SWAT TEAM BREAKS DOWN DOOR OVER STUDENT LOANS, US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION BUYS 27 SHOTGUNS, RANDOM MOB ATTACKS CAUSE CONCERN IN CHICAGO, NEARLY HALF OF ALL AMERICANS FEAR ANOTHER GREAT DEPRESSION, TWO ELEPHANTs GO ON A RAMPAGE GORE A MAN TO DEATH, CITY SHUTS DOWN AN $11 MILLION FOUNTAIN BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE USING IT AS A TOILET. I could keep going with this list. In every instance God's boundaries and limits are being ignored and chaos, the flood, is returning to the earth.
Our only hope is what we celebrate on Pentecost Sunday, the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was present with God at creation and was the creative force God used to set boundaries and limit the world. Our hope is the that Holy Spirit will come and restore God's created order removing the chaos of the world, lifting us up from the flood. We have this hope because we believe in Jesus, trusting Jesus with our lives. This hope comes to us as we praise God and see God at work in the world. When we know that God is with us then we can live our lives within the limits and boundaries God has created for us, and we can have the confidence that whenever floods arise and chaos abounds our prayers will be heard and the Holy Spirit will come to restore the created order.
Today our drought continues. It is very hot. The limits God has imposed for rainfall have been violated. We need the Holy Spirit to come and restore the created order. We need the Holy Spirit to bring the rain. So we need to pray.
“O God, in Whom we live and move, and have our being, grant us rain, in due abundance, that, being sufficiently helped with temporal, we may the more confidently seek after eternal gifts. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.” (Novena in Honor of St. Isidore: Patron of Farmers by National Catholic Rural Life Conference, National Catholic Rural Life Conference) http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/prayers/view.cfm?id=832
“O God, our heavenly Father, you who by your Son Jesus Christ promised to all those who seek your kingdom, and its righteousness, all things necessary for their bodily sustenance: Send us, we pray you, in this our great need, such moderate rain and showers, that we may have water to drink, for our homes, gardens and fields, and also receive the fruits of the earth to our comfort, and your glory; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.” (Peter Toon – Adapted from the Book of Common Prayer 1662)
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