Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Wisdom Wednesday Pause, Psalm 25

Grace and peace to you, I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Today is Wednesday, February 21, 2024. We are now in the season of Lent, here at Peakland. In the sanctuary, we have our purple banners and paraments as a sign of the season. Lent is the 40 plus days from Ash Wednesday until Good Friday, which we in the church use to strengthen our faith and to recharge our spiritual disciplines like worship and prayer, service and generosity. We strengthen our faith and strengthen our relationship with God now during Lent, so that we can celebrate our new lives with Jesus Christ on Easter. This Lenten Season, we at Peakland are reading this book: Pause Spending Lent with the Psalms. This past Sunday in worship, which was the first Sunday of Lent, our scripture was Psalm 25 which says in part: To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust, let me now be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths, Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day log. Remember not the sins of my youth, or my transgressions, Remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness for those who keep the Lord’s covenant and testimonies. What stands out for me in this Psalm are the pathways of the Lord. O Lord, teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness. Most Bibles ascribe Psalm 25 to David, the shepherd King who, 1000 years before Jesus, united the Tribes of Israel and Judah into one nation. As I said on Sunday during my sermon, poor David is having a time of it. This Psalm is a like a heartfelt confession that David is giving directly to God. He feels besieged by enemies around him and he torments himself with memories of his past sins and his current transgressions. He’s a mess! That’s good news for us, because, let’s confess it, sometimes, often times, life is messy for us. We have folks around us who make life messy and complicated for us, and I know I often torment myself about the mistakes that I make, even those stupid things I did as a kid that are still painful for me to remember. Psalm 25 reminds us that even when life is messy and complicated, God is good and God is upright. God is faithful in loving us, even when we aren’t very faithful and loving. Even when life is complicated, especially when life is complicated and we don’t know which way to Go, David knows and we know too, that God is even now setting the proper pathway before us and showing us the way to go. An American theologian I admire named Frederick Beekner, writes, If you want to know who you are, watch your feet. Because where your feet take you, that is who you are. This Lenten Season we at Peakland invite you to let your feet bring you here to our church. We’re working together to discern the pathways Christ would have us walk. This upcoming Saturday, February 24 a team of 15 of us us are using our feet to walk for the Coldest Night of the Year Fundraiser for Miriam’s House, which provides shelter for the homeless in the Lynchburg area. We at Peakland believe it is essential to our faith to provide comfort and care to those in need. That’s one of the pathways Christ invites us to walk. If you’d like to support Miriam’s House and help raise funds in the name of the Peakland team, follow the link in the description. If you’d like to walk with us here at Peakland United Methodist Church as we walk the pathwys Christ would have us go then check out our website at PeaklandUMC.org and reach out to me at PeaklandPastor@gmail.com Thanks be to God. Link to Coldest Night: https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/TeamFundraisingPage.aspx?teamID=1007285&langPref=en-CA