Chained Elephants Psalm 142:1-7 You don t see elephants in the circus anymore. And if you go to the Philadelphia Zoo, you won t see them there either. I m not sure if they are still on view in other zoos. And it wasn t just PETA that got this to happen. It s just that we have begun to realize that elephants, while they are incredibly strong, are also sensitive and intelligent animals. them. But let s go back a few years when elephants were still held in captivity. And how they trained You see, when a baby elephant was brought into captivity, or born into it, a shackle was placed around its leg, and that was attached to a chain. And the chain was attached to stakes in the ground. Trainers wanted baby elephants to learn that they could not move of their own free will. They could only move if and when and where and how far the trainers wanted them to. Of course as the elephants grew, the chains were taken off. But the elephants had become so limited by that chain that they didn t realize they were now free. In their minds, the shackles, the chains, the stakes were still there. Of course, an adult elephant could just pull a stake out of the ground with a minimum of effort and walk wherever it wanted to. But in its mind, the chain was still there. And there is nothing more powerful than an invisible chain. For while it may not exist in the material world, it is still there in the mental one. And the elephant, sad to say, believes in a lie. What invisible chains hold us back? What immaterial keep us from living free lives? What prisons are we in? Are there fears that prevent us from going out into the world and living victorious lives? Are there doubts that stop us from letting God guide our paths? Are there frustrations and worries and anxieties that threaten to overwhelm us? Do we nurse anger at ourselves, at others, at God, instead of letting it go and becoming strong and sure? Do we draw a nice, tight circle around ourselves so that nothing can get in that might threaten our vulnerability? What chains hold us back? Well, I m sure we could all answer those questions with more than one or two responses.
And while we might apply a spiritual Band Aid and say that God will help us, well, it s not that easy. He will, but the lies still color our lives, the chains still inhibit us, the hope still dwindles. Which is why this Psalm, Psalm 142, not one of the most familiar of the Psalms, is so important. Now, if you happened to open your Bibles as Paul was reading it, this Psalm has a heading: Of David when he was in the cave. The explanation is that these words came from the time when David was on the run from King Saul, who in his murderous rage, would have done anything to eliminate his threat to the throne. But the words of this Psalm are not just limited to his life on the run. They speak to all of us as we flee from the enemies and adversaries and persecutors who beset us. Even if those things are the fears and doubts and worries and angers that keep us chained like those elephants. And David, in these words, does not apply a spiritual Band Aid to his problem. These words are bold; they are filled with power; they remind us when we are in chains that God is the one, the only one, who can and will break the chains, and bring us out of the prisons which we too often believe in. You are likely all familiar with the painting The Scream by Edvard Munch. Done in 1893, it has been called the second most familiar painting in history, only after the Mona Lisa. Art critics suggest that it is an autobiographical painting, as Munch reaches down to the depths of his soul, screaming out of loneliness and frustration. For, in the background, you see two figures walking away from him, figures of those who had accompanied him on his journey, but are now abandoning him. He has no one to trust, no one to stand by him, no one to lift him up. And so he screams. Well, David had no one on earth to trust, no one on earth to rely upon, no one on earth to hear his cry of anguish. Ah, but he does have someone to cry to. The Lord of all the universe. The one who will never abandon us, the one who is close to us wherever we are. There are two Latin phrases that David would have understood: Deus Absconditus and Deus Revelatus. The God who absconded, and the God who revealed Himself. And David knew, he always knew, that God had not absconded, but was always revealing Himself in all of His power and presence and glory. Munch s companions had left him; God had not. I m not sure if Munch knew this, but David did. When he screamed, he knew who was listening. No, we don t actually have to scream. But we can trust that God hears even the quiet whispers that just barely escape from our souls. He hears even the still small voice that lifts up our hungry souls.
And even when our cries to Him are almost unintelligible guttural sounds, well, as Paul said in Romans 8:26, the Spirit prays for us in sighs or moanings, too deep for words. We cry. He hears. We pour our complaints to Him. He pays attention. We tell Him our troubles. Well, He knows them full well already. Too often, though, our prayers are formulaic, perfunctory, and overly polite. God will listen to those prayers, to be sure, but He wants to hear those prayers that rise up from the very depths of our souls and spill out in power. For our spiritual screams show absolute trust in Him. The last meeting of West Jersey Presbytery was held at the Greenwich Presbyterian Church outside of Bridgeton, way outside of Bridgeton, on the Cohansey River. It s the kind of community that if you weren t actually going there, you d probably never find it. Sue Golding and I were driving there Sue at the wheel and I with my trusty directions in hand. I should add that there was a note on the presbytery agenda that stated that there might not be either cell phone service or GPS service in that section of Cumberland County. Those directions were important! But Sue and I were gamely following the printed directions. And we discovered that someone else was following us we discovered that because at one point, we thought we were going the wrong way, so we turned around and headed in the opposite direction from the one in which we were going. Then turned around again, since apparently we had been going in the right direction all along. We did arrive at the church. On time actually. So did the folks who were following us. And I ll give Dave Kershaw credit for this. For as he began his first meeting as the Moderator of West Jersey Presbytery, he commented that, according to Wikipedia, there are thirty-one miles of road in Greenwich Township. And he added: I know. I ve been on every one of them! Listen again to verse 3 in this Psalm: When my soul languishes, it is you who knows my way. God knows our way. He knows where we have been, where we are now, and where we are going. It s like He has a satellite over us and can look right down from Heaven and pick out each one of us and say to Himself: I know where he, she, they are. Even if he, she, they, I, us, are being held in invisible chains. Even if our souls are in prison. Even if our souls are languishing and we are lost. Or think we are. For we are never lost. As someone it might have been Yogi Berra - once said: I ve never been lost, but I ve been a mite confused for a few days. But God is never confused. And even when our fears and frustrations and doubts and despairs and hungers and hurts and angers and anxieties send us down roads we never should travel, or even if they keep us chained to a place where we don t want to be, don t need to be, He knows where we are.
And will take us where we should be. If we let Him. For that s the problem we too often have when we are wearing those chains. We are afraid to let go and let God. And if you ve never made that your spiritual motto, well, maybe it is time to adopt it Let go and let God. You might be lost; But He isn t. And so we won t be. A number of years ago, one of our elders had a very clever devotion to begin a Session meeting. She set a large Mason jar on the table in front of us and filled it with small stones. Then she poured into the jar some gravel, which filled in a lot of the spaces between those stones. Then she took sandbox sand and poured it into the jar and it filled in the spaces between the gravel and stones. But she still wasn t done. Next, she poured water from a pitcher into the jar up to the rim. And then, finally, the jar was full. Her point, of course, was this: God fills our lives up the very rim, filling in all of the empty spots and leaving nothing lacking. That phrase in verse 5: You are my portion rings loud and clear. You are my portion. You are the one who fills in all the empty places. You are the one who provides all that we need. You are the one who offers us the portion you want us to have. And I guarantee you that it is a big portion. And David even adds my portion in the land of the living. For God keeps us in the land of the living to overcome all the big and little, daily deaths that we face. It might not be the portion we want. Or that we expected. It might take longer to get it than we thought it would take. It might require more from us than we thought it would. But our portion is coming to us. A portion of strength to overcome the weakness that besets us. A portion of courage to break the chains that entrap us. A portion of confidence to refuse to give in to the limits life puts upon us. A portion that enables us to be free. For we are free if we are in God s hands. As Paul said in Galatians, Chapter 5: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Not for shackles or chains or stakes real or imagined. And so we can trust. We can hope. We can cling to our faith. We can face the unexpected, or even the expected, with a confidence that will not fail or fade. life. As Swiss theologian Emil Brunner wrote: As oxygen is to the lungs, so hope is to the meaning of But do we hope as we should? Do we place our confidence in God as we can? Do we count on the portion that He has to offer us? Or do we sit, eyes downcast, staring at our chains?
I ve known a lot of Christians who do. Even ministers who do, sad to say. Van Gogh has always been my favorite artist. And the painting of his that I like best is one called simply Rain. It hangs in the Philadelphia Art Museum and it always grabs my attention when we are there. It is a scene that he saw from the window of the asylum he was in during one of his several hospitalizations for depression and other issues. Two things about the picture are striking. First, although it is raining, it is not a depressing kind of rain. Rather, he gives the idea that the rain is bringing forth life from the earth, restoring the dry ground into green again. But the other striking thing about it is that Van Gogh did not paint the bars that were in his window. It was an asylum he was in, after all, and in those days, asylums had bars. But Van Gogh chose not to paint the bars; chose not to see them; chose not to be limited by them; chose not to be imprisoned by them, despite where he was. He chose, instead, to see the world, his world, as it should be, free and full of burgeoning life. He had chains, to be sure. But he chose to break free from them. I think David would have liked that picture. For he knew that no chains of fear or alienation or rejection or anger or doubt or anything else could keep him in prison. God had freed him and always would. The elephants might think that they are still in chains. But with God, the chains that we too often think are real are not.
Worship 10/23/16 Call: Litany Assurance: Litany Children s Message: Box Prayer: Loving God, hear us when we pray to you. Hear our hungers and needs; hear our struggles and trials; hear our broken dreams and hopes. And give us the faith to wait until you bring us through. Loving God, watch us as we walk this journey through life; guide us in the paths that led to righteousness and grace; protect us and preserve us from those things that would separate us from you. And give us the courage to walk where you lead us, especially when it is not where we thought we would be going. Loving God, may we have your portion of the blessings of life; give to us from the abundance you hold out to us; shower us with all that would enable us to be whole. And give us the patience we need to await your blessings and the understanding that what you give us what we need and not always what we want. Needs, etc. LORD S PRAYER