Do you remember when you could call into a radio station and request a song? When I was a kid I called into the local radio station when I was Sam’s age to request B.B. King’s standard Stand by Me for my Mom.
Stand by Me originated in Gospel music and the 2nd verse of the song is drawn from our Scripture text for this morning Psalm 46.
If the sky that we look upon
should tumble and fall
or the mountains
crumble to the sea
I won’t be afraid
No, I won’t shed a tear.
Just as long as you stand, stand by me.
This line seemed to me to be a perfect expression of the kind of trust that a child has in a faithful and loving parent and the sense of security that the presence of a parent can bring despite circumstances.
The 46th Psalm has been called the Song of Songs of faith. It is the inspiration for another song, Martin Luther’s magisterial hymn: A Mighty Fortress is our God. In this hymn Luther begins with the premise that one of the possible translations of “strength” in the verse: “God is our refuge and our strength” could be defense, or strong tower. To have faith in God means to trust that God is a bulwark never failing.
For me, Psalm 46 elicits an immediate physical response of comfort. As soon as I hear the first two verse:
God is our refuge and strength
a very present help in trouble
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change
though the mountains shake into the heart of the sea.
Something within me loosens; I reflexively lower my shoulders and release my breath. This is more than just my personal response.
These words find us 3,000 years after they were originally written. Words that have been prayed through plagues, battlefields, prisons, sickness, death. Words that have uttered before in quarantine, in refugee camps, and in exile, recited while hiding in jungles or facing down crematoriums. These words have seen gallows, sinking ships, bread lines and locusts. These words are stronger than our response to them.
The text promises that God is near-by, proximate, close at hand. It repeats one of the most frequent commands in the Bible: “Do not be afraid!” but
in the form of an affirmation. Therefore we will not be afraid.
The text does not deny that there are things to be afraid of both in the physical world of nature and in the day-to-day world of people and politics.
The earth changes ...
The Psalmist tells us to put no trust in the earth
or the sod you stand upon. Even the stability of mountains can be shaken...
Everything can be rendered as chaotic and tumultuous as the sea.
Politics and world affairs also threaten to displace, to bring desolation and violence. The text reminds us to not be surprised when we see great nations dissolving before our eyes.
We are reminded that because of God’s great love we will not be overcome.
In our translation the text concludes with an invitation: “Be still and know that I am God.” Mystics have pondered what it means to “be still and know that I am God.” I don’t have anything fresh or especially insightful to say about what this text might be saying to us in our own time and in our spaces and places, but I will try to say something here anyway.
I take the command “to be still” to be an invitation into a very deep and particular form of listening and attention. A form of listening that accepts as fact that God has promised to be “ever-present in trouble.” This is difficult to remember sometimes. I have to catch myself all the time.. It is my first instinct to pray that God will be with people who are facing tough diagnoses or decisions or death.
When I do this, I try to stop myself and to take a moment and be still in the knowledge that God is already present.
God is more concerned, more vexed, and more filled with love and care than I am. When this happens, I try to shift my prayer to: “Let this person be made aware of your loving presence God.”
To be still and know that I am God can also be an invitation to deeper insight and reflection.My spiritual director sometimes invites me to imagine Jesus sitting with me in difficult situations. What words of encouragement or comfort might Jesus offer? Maybe Jesus is just their weeping... In tought conversations, I ask Jesus to sit with me and listen for what I cannot hear, to see what I cannot see…
To “be still and know” can be a call to allow God to mediate in our experiences with others
“Be still and know” can also be a call to be more attentive to how God is working in the world. This is why I think we come to worship each week…. not because God is only or even especially here, but it is a way of tuning our attention to the places and spaces where God might be at work.
There is another way of reading think verse of the Psalmist :to be still and know that I am God.” The Psalmist is saying that God has the capacity to say to the tumult of nations and the earth:Stop, desist: BE STILL! God can bring wars and warfare to an end and quell the tempestuous of nature.
Be still and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations.
The Psalmist is making a claim that God is ultimately in control. There has been lots of ink spilled about what it means to say God is in control. Does God so throughly determines everything that happens that humans have no freedom? Does God have so little control over what is happening that He is stuck in the muck of human suffering right along side us?
The middle view in my mind is one that see God—in the words of the Psalmist-- as“ever present” Constantly at work…. Not controlling the acts of humans or nations, but working continually to bring goodness, grace, life, light and truth.
And the wonder and the mystery of this is that we can participate with God in the work of bringing life out of every kind of death.
This week is filled with lots of anxiety as we await the election. I pray that we can find the deep stillness, confidence, and hope that find in resting in God’s promise to be very present with us in trouble
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