The LCA provides this sermon edited for lay-reading, with thanks to the original author.
Psalm 123
A Picture of a Spiritual Person.
We are loaded up with so much information in our age we can easily be overwhelmed by it all. In an attempt to keep this information under control, we compartmentalise it or divide it into specialist areas. Take the medical field for example: there are so many specialists needed as general practitioners can’t be expected to diagnose and treat every disease. But sometimes specialists can give conflicting advice: for example, the medication for one ailment may aggravate another unrelated condition. The health of the whole person needs to be the central, focal point for successful treatment.
It is the same with religion, or ‘spirituality’. One can go to the “Mind, Body and Spirit” show in Sydney each year and sample a confusion of claims and religious practices at hundreds of different booths. Thousands of people pay good money to get in! Much of the information they will receive will be useless, some of it will be downright dangerous. Why? Because the true centre of spirituality is not the focus of their “treatments”.
In this climate it seems we need to state the patently obvious: the centre of spirituality is God!
The answer to spirituality cannot be found in what people do. It can’t be found by consulting tarot cards, star charts, or one’s personal feelings! The centre of spirituality is God.
So the psalmist of Psalm 123 focuses on God:
“I lift my eyes to you, O God, enthroned in heaven.”
The Scriptures say the answer to one’s spirituality is not found on this earth. It is not in the trees, or in one’s mind, or even in the stars. One needs to lift one’s eyes up to God. The living God lives in a different dimension, ‘enthroned in heaven’. There is the God who is Spirit, the God of Love, and the God who is also human – in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit uses the Scriptures to connect us with God. We are even invited to sit at the table of God to be spiritually fed and strengthened. The psalmist uses the picture of a good servant (or slave girl) who anticipates her mistress’s needs. She has one eye on her mistress all the time their guests are present to pick up the slightest cue for what is needed. In verse 2 we are reminded,
“a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal”.
Like the top waiter in a quality restaurant who has one eye continually on one’s table, and anticipates one’s needs and picks up the slightest signals for attention (if only all waiters were like that!), so the child of God keeps one eye on God and picks up the slightest cues to please Him. Our aim is to please God.
What pleases God? What does God look for more than anything else in spiritual people?
Some people would probably say, ‘Going to Church would be the most important!’ But they are wrong. God wants all of one’s life, not just an hour or two on Sundays! To be a spiritual person, one’s most important call is to focus on God continually. We call this ‘faith’ or ‘trust’. In John 6:28 the people ask Jesus:
“What does God want us to do?” Jesus told them, “This is what God wants you to do: believe in the one he has sent.”
The Christian is to continually keep one eye on Jesus – the one God sent! This is called ‘faith’. Through Jesus, we are no longer in a slave / master relationship. We are now a daughter or son in the family of God. We sit at God’s table!
What sort of life did Jesus live? He lovingly kept one eye on the Father! Even when he was being crucified and people taunted him and scoffed at him, Jesus called out to the Father:
“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”
We might be called to go through a horrible experience. You may have experienced this time of hell on earth. It can be utterly devastating to feel God has deserted us. For example, someone might persistently ridicule you at work for being a Christian, using weak jokes and nasty asides, and they never let up. You feel like ducking your head, or slinking off, and maybe you are tempted to turn your back on God. Or perhaps you have lost something dear to you, like a dream you held for the future: maybe your job, your health, or your partner. Maybe all three at once.
At times like this we can feel forsaken by God. Then, just like Jesus on the cross, we need to keep on turning to God and calling out for mercy!
The Psalmist in Psalm 123 has had enough of abuse and calls out to God for a break:
“We look to the Lord our God for his mercy,
just as servants keep their eyes on their master,
as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy,
for we have had our fill of contempt.
We have had our fill of the scoffing of the proud and the contempt of the arrogant.”
Jesus kept one eye on the Father - even when he was being crucified, scoffed at and being verbally and physically abused on the cross. Does anyone ever scoff at you for being a Christian? Then you are in good company with Jesus. Why should we, who are also children of the Father, expect better treatment than Jesus?
Jesus always keeps one eye on the Father, and the other eye out for the special needs of people, including you and me. In this respect, Jesus is like the best servant or slave, anticipating people’s deepest needs. He reaches out to us to wash us clean with forgiveness. He reaches out to us when we stumble and fall to put us back on our feet, to give us a new start. Jesus’ love for all people means he keeps an eye on you and me and the person next to us. Even the people we might not want to see close up: the dregs of society. Jesus keeps his eye out for them especially.
It is great to see Jesus today in the soup kitchens and the coffee vans ministering to the poor, the homeless and those with mental illnesses. We have many opportunities to open our hearts and share with people like this too. A mark of spiritual people is that they keep an eye out for the people in our world who have special needs.
Jesus had no time for the people who were full of themselves. On the very night Jesus was betrayed by Judas, some of his closest followers were arguing about which of them was to be the greatest. They wanted to be the King of the castle! Jesus, taking on the role of the lowest slave in the house, took a bowl of water and a towel and got down on his knees and washed their feet. Jesus is the servant mentioned in Psalm 123. He is your servant and mine. He does the dirty work of cleaning up sin and washing away evil.
Sometimes we get tired. We feel spiritually weak, and maybe even spiritually dead. Then Jesus comes to us and washes not only our tired and dirty feet, but our whole selves, with forgiveness and a new start. He invites us to his table to share in his body and blood, his death and resurrection. He is even preparing a place for us in his own home. Jesus knows and anticipates our deepest needs – even when we don’t realise them ourselves.
To grow spiritually one does not need to go to the “Body, Mind and Spirit” show, or read the cards or the stars. Every day one simply looks away from one’s self and focuses on God: one eye on Jesus, and the other eye on the special needs of other people God puts us next to. It is like the Psalmist says,
“I lift my eyes to you,
O God, enthroned in heaven.
We look to the Lord our God for his mercy,
just as servants keep their eyes on their master,
as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal.
Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy,
for we have had our fill of contempt.
We have had our fill of the scoffing of the proud and the contempt of the arrogant.”
As a spiritual person, keep one eye on the God who loves you, and an eye on people in need. It can be as simple as that!
Amen.
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