Praying the Psalms - June, 2008

I decided recently in preparing a pastoral prayer for Morning Worship to pray through the psalm for the day with its text spread out in front of me while praying. It was a moving experience to merge the psalm with the theme chosen from all the texts for the day, and to do so spontaneously in light of what the people and I were bringing that week or facing the next.In light of that experience, and the many comments from others on how helpful it had been to them, I have decided to adopt this practice as a weekly discipline for my own benefit—both to let the Psalms shape my praying and to offer up, in that context, what I and those to whom I am ministering are facing and feeling week by week.In doing so, I am fully aware that I am only entering in on a historic practice, followed by God’s people in every age. My hope is simply to learn myself from the discipline how to better enter into God’s sovereign presence and be filled with his Spirit.

Week of June 1 (Third after Pentecost), Psalm 46

O Lord of earth and sky and sea, you who also inhabit the whole of space and time, we stand amazed that with so much to govern beyond us you still keep track of your people in every age. Stream by stream through centuries of time you have merged your people into that river of yours which makes glad the city of God.
How is it that you can be in our midst, even while managing the whole universe? Why is it that you deign to help us day by day, as each morning dawns upon us? How can it be that while nations are in an uproar and kingdoms all around us totter you remain a very present help in trouble, our refuge and strength?
Help us to enter into our inheritance this week as your people—not by reason of our strength but by grace through faith. Renew in our hearts and minds all the great acts in sacred history by which you have made yourself known, and help us to step into the footprints of your Spirit alive and active today.
Still the lesser voices around us that vie for our attention, until we know that you and you alone are God. Remind us also not only that you are with us as your people but that no matter what else appears to be so, you will be exalted among the nations, indeed, exalted in the earth.

Week of June 8 (Fourth after Pentecost) Psalm 50:7-15

Dear God, reading your word sometimes catches me completely off guard. And earlier translation of verse 9 says: I will accept no bull from your house. I know, of course, what that points to in the psalm. Clear reference is made to the whole Old Testament sacrificial system that often became a substitute among your people for a truer sacrifice of inner attitudes contrary to your will.
Yet our own religious sacrifices are often no less contrived. We too make offerings that mask unrighteousness in our hearts. How much “bull” have we not offered to you over years, and how much more do we try offering you even yet?
Wesley Nelson—bless his memory!-- once preached a sermon on this, noting how one soul when asked to repent of his sin, literally offered up on your altar “a bad temper, two theater tickets, and a pack of cigarettes.” Wesley asked rightly wondered what God was going to do with those! God wants us on his altar, not just our vices—or even our virtues.
What you spoke through the psalmist sounds a warning we all need to hear: You give your mouth free reign for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your kin; you slander your own mother’s child. These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought I was one just like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you.
Lord, have mercy. Help us not to forget who it is to whom we now come this week in prayer and worship. And help us hear in coming the invitation you still extend: Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me; to those who go the right way I will show the salvation of God.

Week of June 15 (Fifth after Pentecost) Psalm 100

When I think of this psalm, Lord, I recall a man in my wife’s home church in Kansas City who literally, when singing, made no more than “a joyful noise.” I admired that man and remember later telling him so. Not only that, I told his story at a retreat once in Canada, and someone after hearing came up and said, “For the first time in my life I was encouraged tonight after hearing that story to sing the closing song, even though I‘m just a monotone! And you know what? I’m going to keep singing from this night on.”
Why not? The hearts of both men were obviously in their singing. They loved you, God, and worshiped with gladness for the privilege of coming into your presence. They knew that you had made them and that they were yours—your people, and the sheep of your pasture. They also knew that you are good, that your steadfast love endures forever and [your] faithfulness to all generations.
Lord, open our eyes that we may see. Open our ears to hear. And open our throats from within to sing, voice or no voice. Listen for our praise beyond even the finest melodies we can frame to the motion of our hearts! Amen.

Week of June 22 Sixth after Pentecost) Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

As servants of yours, Dear Lord, and of all to whom you have sent us over the years, we confess with the psalmist our need of encouragement. I am poor sand needy. It has not been uncommon for us to pray with him, Gladden the heart of your servant, for we have often needed a new burst of joy in our lives
We know that you…are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you. Yet in times of trouble, and even in all-too-frequent days of less than satisfying duty, our souls thirst for your blessing. We need to see you then, and feel the touch of your hand on our shoulder. For we know with the psalmist, that there is none like you among the gods…nor are there any works like yours.
We also know in our hearts that you are the Lord even of those who do not seem to think so. All the nations you have made shall come and bow down before you, for…you alone are God. Renew that faith in us this week, and resurrect in our spirits the hope in you that fills even life’s dull routines with meaning.
Show me a sign of your favor, the psalmist prayed. Show us one as well. Send us into this week both confident in your call and assured of your blessing. And what we pray for ourselves we pray also for brothers and sisters all over the world in need of your blessing.

Week of June 29 (Seventh after Pentecost) Psalm 13

Reading this Psalm, O God, in light of the Old Testament text on Abraham’s call to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, makes it somehow come alive for me. What remarkable faith he showed in his willingness even to do that! The Apostle Paul warns his readers in Romans 6, the Epistle text, that we have a choice--to yield our members to sin as instruments of wickedness or present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present [our] members to God as instruments of righteousness.
King David, like all of us, failed you, Lord, in his waywardness and wickedness. Yet when he called on you for forgiveness and deliverance, you did not fail him, any more than you failed Abraham, or have failed us. I belong in the household of faith with them—simultaneously, as Luther says, justus et peccator, sinner and saint. How could that ever have been apart from your love and grace? No wonder I have come to trust in you. How else could I have survived, much less served others?
Martin Luther’s Sacristy Prayer comes to mind, Lord--the prayer he prayed every week before going in to preach and teach. An illustrated copy it has not only hung on my wall for years but framed my ministry as well. It’s last paragraph expresses my longing: “Use me as thy instrument in thy service. Only do not thou forsake me, for if I am left to myself I will certainly bring it all to destruction. Amen.”