"Do not fret yourself because of evildoers; *
do not be jealous of those who do wrong.
For they shall soon wither like the grass, *
and like the green grass fade away.
Put your trust in the Lord and do good; *
dwell in the land and feed on its riches.
Take delight in the Lord, *
and he shall give you your heart's desire.
Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him, *
and he will bring it to pass.
He will make your righteousness as clear as the light *
and your just dealing as the noonday.
Be still before the Lord *
and wait patiently for him.
Do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, *
the one who succeeds in evil schemes.
Refrain from anger, leave rage alone; *
do not fret yourself; it leads only to evil.
For evildoers shall be cut off, *
but those who wait upon the Lord shall possess the land."
--Psalm 37: 1-10
I love the Psalms! Whether we read them together as we do
most days or chant them to each other, the Psalms
carry so much meaning; they are incredibly rich because they speak to the whole human
condition. They’ve got it all. From joy
to anger, from sadness to confusion, no matter what we are feeling, we can always turn to the Psalms to speak for us.
This is certainly true for Psalm 37, which deals with
emotions that, I suspect, many of us have wrestled with in recent days, namely
fear and worry. As we look at a world
that sometimes seems to be tearing itself apart, how are we supposed to
feel? Last week, of course, was the first
presidential debate, and regardless of what side of the aisle you fall on, odds
are you were distraught, maybe even angry over the way the candidates responded
to one another, and perhaps it heightened your anxiety around the upcoming election.
How then are we supposed to feel when we see our leaders act in such a way? The
only place to go that makes sense is a place of fear, of deep worry and dread
for the future, a place of finger-pointing and blame. Still, if we take a moment to listen to David, God’s lyricist and poet, whisper these words to us, we may find God
offering us something more than fear or dread.
There is Good News in the very first line of Psalm 37, in
the first half of the first verse. “Do
not fret yourself because of evil doers.”
Do not fret yourself. Did you
notice that those words occur 3 times in those 10 verses?? It seems God is really trying to tell us
something, huh? Do not fret
yourself. It reminds me of the very
first words said by the angels whenever they come to earth in the stories of
Scripture. Remember what those words
are: “Don't be afraid.” To know God is to know love, and we know that
perfect love casts out fear. So do not
be afraid of the things that evil folks are doing. When you look at the world and cannot
understand why it is the way it is, do not fret yourself because if there is
any judgment to be given, it will be given by God, not by us. So all that is left for us to do is delight in the Lord, as the Psalm says, and leave the worry and the blame and the
judgment up to God.
How can we possibly do this? Well, the Psalm tells us to “put your trust
in the Lord and do good.” What does it mean to do good? It means to take care of
the things that we can take care of, to focus on the good that we can do, and to trust
God’s power working in us and through us. Do this, David tells us, and we won’t fret ourselves. It’s easier said than done, I know—I come
from a long line of worriers. And I’m
sure that when David put this Psalm together he was dealing with plenty of
worry—perhaps over the physical enemies that were enclosing around him, or the
weight of his own sinfulness, or something else entirely. Still, he knows that if he puts his trust in
God, if he focuses on doing good, then God will deal with the rest.
How, then, do we really put our trust in the Lord? One way is—and this is my favorite part of
the Psalm; I could preach a whole sermon on this one line—“be still before the
Lord.” Be still before the Lord. To be still before the Lord means
just that. It means letting go of our
judgments about how we think the world is supposed to be. To be still before the Lord means to stop for
a minute. Stop the madness of our lives. Stop running from one thing to the next so frantically. Stop judging others for the way they lead their lives. Stop living in fear. Just stop......and breathe. Breathe in
God’s mercy, breathe out God’s love. Be still. And just breathe. Notice your breath. Breathe in God’s mercy. Breathe out God’s love. Be still before the Lord. Be still.
Let go of the anxiety. Let go of
the fear. Do not fret yourself. Just breathe.
Breathe in God’s mercy. Breathe
out God’s love. This past Sunday the congregation and I a breathing exercise with this in-mind, stopping in the middle of the sermon to just breathe.
We begin to let go of the fretting, and we begin to truly
put our trust in the Lord when we stop, when we’re still, and when we realize
that the very breath we breathe is none other than the breath of God. Yes, God is already in us. So many of us don't know that, or we don't believe it. But when we believe that fact, our whole perspective begins to change, and we are able to let go. We spend so
much of our time worrying about the outside world that we forget about the
world inside us, forget about God inside us.
That worry leads to fretting, and that fretting, as the Psalm says,
leads to evil. Yet when we are still
before the Lord and know that Jesus himself resides inside of each of
us—scholars call this the ‘cosmic Christ,’ the Jesus that exists in all living
things—then we let go of all that negativity and see the world for what it
is: good. Very good, in fact. At least, that’s shat God called it. It can be dark and fearful, it can be strange
and confusing, but when we surrender ourselves to the God of love and are still
and connect with Jesus inside of us, all the other stuff melts away. No more fretting.