As a Deer… Psm. 42-43
Scott L. Stearman: KBC June 24, 07
A popular marketing campaign for a tractor company says: “nothing runs like a deer.” Here there is truth in advertising. If you’ve ever seen a deer run, you know it is true. They are spry and speedy. They often disappear before you get a really good look (or for some of you Bambi killers, a good shot!). Yesterday there was a news story about a doe who found itself on an elementary school roof. No one knew how it ran up there and it didn’t know how to get down. I’ve known of deer running right through plate glass windows, and we have all heard of terrible accidents caused by deer running across a highway.
All that running must make Bambi thirsty. Maybe this is why the Psalmist chose to make this his image: a deer panting… an animal yearning for the water which would quench a dry throat, longing for the liquid life that revives, refreshes, and restores. Were he writing in our context maybe he’d picture a black lab after a long walk, tongue hanging almost to the floor, looking up to the master who will once again fill the water bowl. I suppose the animal isn’t as central as the panting.
Like so many things in life, thirst is contextual. Sitting my streams of clear sparkling water, you aren’t likely to get thirsty. Running from predators, fighting off foes, these are the contexts in which you get thirsty. And your thirst echoes with the question: “where are you water? Why are you so hard to find…?”
I was reminded this week about thirst while at Passport youth camp. In the afternoons we were sent out to do mission work. In this case we were being housed on Mercer’s campus, and the youth were divided up into their Bible study groups and sent out into various part of Macon, GA. They worked with children at VBS camps, painted houses in habitat projects, worked in the back yard of an elderly person, OR to dug ditches for irrigation in a community garden. Guess which one I was assigned? Yes, LW and I spent several hours in the hot and humid GA days with a shovel in our hand. While some of our youth who will remain unnamed (DC) were swimming with kids at a day care camp, we were shoveling, moving brinks for a walkway, and planting roses.
Our first day on the job, our large water can ran out. As a farm kid from OK, the sin of letting your water-cooler run out is right next to forgetting your hat. Both are the actions of an imbecile. (I refrained from sharing this with our leader who was responsible for getting the cooler, btw. Fortunately the next day we had two.)
It was good to be reminded about thirst. I’ve not been thirsty for some time, for you only thirst for what isn’t there. Thirst is a physical reaction to an inadequate resource. In an air-conditioned building with spouts of running water all over the place, I don’t approach it. In the hot GA sun, with a shovel in my hand, I was reminded of the blessing of water coolers.
Where was the water that quenched the psalmist thirst? Moving on from the poetry, what he’s literally asking: “Where is the God, who will bring justice? Where is the sense that life makes sense? Where is the vindication victor, the saving Savior, the foundational rock?” Verse 9: “I say to God my Rock, “why have you forgotten me?”
Before we seek the answer, let us validate the question. Yesterday I heard a discussion about current popular literary works, and the point was made that of all the recent popular works of fiction, only one had a tragic ending. We like to eschew from our lives that which causes us to ask tough questions. Even we Christians have not always been comfortable with the question-asking part of our Hebrew heritage. But this is the question Christ asked on the cross before he died, but sometimes we find it easier to masquerade as people who pontificate rather than people who ponder: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
It is important for us to note that this is not just a feeling, a subjective state. It is a case in fact that the world is in a major mess, and it is an objective fact that evil is at times victorious. The Psalmist isn’t just after that warm and fuzzy feeling of what today is called “authentic worship” – what he’s panting for is God’s evident work in the world.
Don’t you too wonder why God isn’t more evidently obvious in our broken world? Don’t you too find yourself panting for angels to bust a few heads, for lighting bolts to hit a few child-abusers, for manna to drop in Darfur, for water to flow in central Africa, for freedom and peace to reign in Iraq? I watch the news, and in my air-conditioned room on my plush couch, I pant. When I run through the list of ills, my tongue is parched, it hangs from my mouth and look up saying: fill my bowl! I’m conscious that no pious platitude will quench. I ask the Psalmist question of verse 2: “when can I go and meet with God?”
But instead of immediate satisfaction, instead of finding the ultimate water cooler, what the Psalmist finds is… tears: “my tears have been my food, while men say to me: where is your God?”
“Where” is a question of geography, and we are theologically sophisticated enough to know that God is not any-where, he is every-where. But that doesn’t answer the question, it just puts it off.
In fact… the question isn’t answered. There’s no attempt to say where God is, or why God does what God does, or why God doesn’t do, what God doesn’t do, in fact there’s no attempt here at justifying, explaining, theorizing at all. What we do find is this:
1) Memories of encountering God in worship. V. 4…
2) Memories of God’s work in the past. V. 5 … geographical reminders that God has been faithful in the past.
3) A decision to hope in the God of the future. Vs. 5, 11, 43:5 “put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,”
I suppose it’s natural that at camp this week I spent some time reflecting on my own church camp experience. It too was a place of sweat and thirst, for it took place every July in southern OK… in a humid place called Falls Creek. Falls Creek was renown for being the largest youth camp in the world… 5,000 kids for 5 different weeks. It was a phenomenon to behold. 5,000 teenagers on 160 acres, none of whom were allowed to neither wear shorts above the knee nor swim with the opposite sex, or for that mater do anything else with the opposite sex – even holding hands was forbidden.
As I listened on Tuesday to an articulate and beautiful African-American woman speak (a law-school and theology student from Emory) I thought about some of my speakers. Like Bailey Smith, who famously said that God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jewish person. Who told frightening stories about teens who put off making a decision for Jesus and who then died in car wrecks and plane crashes. As he spewed fire and brimstone, marching up and down the stage like a prowling lion, he did his absolute best to scare the evil out of you.
I’m all for hell being scared out, and want every person to know about the love of Christ which has grounded and oriented and saved my life. But I’m less sure about the decisions of sleep-deprived teens who come forward after 29 verses of Just as I Am in 95 degree heat under a tin roof.
So, while I may be a bit cynical about some of the things done at my youth camp, I will say this. I was reminded that in spite of the short-comings of the speakers, God was still inhabiting the praise of his people. And in those old BB McKinney hymns, God was working. In the testimony of the missionaries, in the strident sermons of the evangelists, God was working… sometimes in spite.
And it wasn’t just in the worship. It was in the love that I sensed in those chaperons who went with us. It was great to know that you were genuinely loved by people who didn’t have to love you like your parents did. There in the eyes and hearts of those brave adults, I knew where God was. As I interacted with difficult teens this week (from other churches, of course, ours are angels) I tried to remember that small things can have a lasting impression. But mostly I just tried to love the person behind that ever-ready teen mask, because I, like the Psalmist, can look back at meeting God in the worshiping community.
I identify with the Psalmist’s experience of encountering God in worship and in the worshiping community. I have encountered God there, and here, but at the end of the day, I have also seen God at work in the world. Not always where, I’d like, and certainly not always when I’d like, but real nonetheless.
Looking across a field of teens on a hot GA summer day, working on a community garden in a poor Macon neighborhood… I know God’s work in Christ is real.
Hearing that last year youth associated with Passport Camps raised 150,000 dollars for water wells in Malawi… helps me know that God isn’t through with this world yet.
Seeing that God can still speak to kids in the quiet voice of a soft-spoken AA woman (and that he doesn’t need the antics of a loud prancing preacher) helped me know there’s still hope.
And so, here I am again. I read the paper, watch the news, and get thirsty. I hear about yet another cancer diagnosis, another 5 killed in Iraq, another terrorist plot, this one foiled. The bees are dying, the glaciers are melting, the temperatures are rising… and my enemies say: “and where is…”
I pant for God, wondering when, where, how…
And I go to youth camp, look into the eyes of kids who are being shaped by Grace, whose futures are bright with the hope of love, who are learning to care for a world in need of their gifts… and my water-cooler overflows.
A popular marketing campaign for a tractor company says: “nothing runs like a deer.” Here there is truth in advertising. If you’ve ever seen a deer run, you know it is true. They are spry and speedy. They often disappear before you get a really good look (or for some of you Bambi killers, a good shot!). Yesterday there was a news story about a doe who found itself on an elementary school roof. No one knew how it ran up there and it didn’t know how to get down. I’ve known of deer running right through plate glass windows, and we have all heard of terrible accidents caused by deer running across a highway.
All that running must make Bambi thirsty. Maybe this is why the Psalmist chose to make this his image: a deer panting… an animal yearning for the water which would quench a dry throat, longing for the liquid life that revives, refreshes, and restores. Were he writing in our context maybe he’d picture a black lab after a long walk, tongue hanging almost to the floor, looking up to the master who will once again fill the water bowl. I suppose the animal isn’t as central as the panting.
Like so many things in life, thirst is contextual. Sitting my streams of clear sparkling water, you aren’t likely to get thirsty. Running from predators, fighting off foes, these are the contexts in which you get thirsty. And your thirst echoes with the question: “where are you water? Why are you so hard to find…?”
I was reminded this week about thirst while at Passport youth camp. In the afternoons we were sent out to do mission work. In this case we were being housed on Mercer’s campus, and the youth were divided up into their Bible study groups and sent out into various part of Macon, GA. They worked with children at VBS camps, painted houses in habitat projects, worked in the back yard of an elderly person, OR to dug ditches for irrigation in a community garden. Guess which one I was assigned? Yes, LW and I spent several hours in the hot and humid GA days with a shovel in our hand. While some of our youth who will remain unnamed (DC) were swimming with kids at a day care camp, we were shoveling, moving brinks for a walkway, and planting roses.
Our first day on the job, our large water can ran out. As a farm kid from OK, the sin of letting your water-cooler run out is right next to forgetting your hat. Both are the actions of an imbecile. (I refrained from sharing this with our leader who was responsible for getting the cooler, btw. Fortunately the next day we had two.)
It was good to be reminded about thirst. I’ve not been thirsty for some time, for you only thirst for what isn’t there. Thirst is a physical reaction to an inadequate resource. In an air-conditioned building with spouts of running water all over the place, I don’t approach it. In the hot GA sun, with a shovel in my hand, I was reminded of the blessing of water coolers.
Where was the water that quenched the psalmist thirst? Moving on from the poetry, what he’s literally asking: “Where is the God, who will bring justice? Where is the sense that life makes sense? Where is the vindication victor, the saving Savior, the foundational rock?” Verse 9: “I say to God my Rock, “why have you forgotten me?”
Before we seek the answer, let us validate the question. Yesterday I heard a discussion about current popular literary works, and the point was made that of all the recent popular works of fiction, only one had a tragic ending. We like to eschew from our lives that which causes us to ask tough questions. Even we Christians have not always been comfortable with the question-asking part of our Hebrew heritage. But this is the question Christ asked on the cross before he died, but sometimes we find it easier to masquerade as people who pontificate rather than people who ponder: “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
It is important for us to note that this is not just a feeling, a subjective state. It is a case in fact that the world is in a major mess, and it is an objective fact that evil is at times victorious. The Psalmist isn’t just after that warm and fuzzy feeling of what today is called “authentic worship” – what he’s panting for is God’s evident work in the world.
Don’t you too wonder why God isn’t more evidently obvious in our broken world? Don’t you too find yourself panting for angels to bust a few heads, for lighting bolts to hit a few child-abusers, for manna to drop in Darfur, for water to flow in central Africa, for freedom and peace to reign in Iraq? I watch the news, and in my air-conditioned room on my plush couch, I pant. When I run through the list of ills, my tongue is parched, it hangs from my mouth and look up saying: fill my bowl! I’m conscious that no pious platitude will quench. I ask the Psalmist question of verse 2: “when can I go and meet with God?”
But instead of immediate satisfaction, instead of finding the ultimate water cooler, what the Psalmist finds is… tears: “my tears have been my food, while men say to me: where is your God?”
“Where” is a question of geography, and we are theologically sophisticated enough to know that God is not any-where, he is every-where. But that doesn’t answer the question, it just puts it off.
In fact… the question isn’t answered. There’s no attempt to say where God is, or why God does what God does, or why God doesn’t do, what God doesn’t do, in fact there’s no attempt here at justifying, explaining, theorizing at all. What we do find is this:
1) Memories of encountering God in worship. V. 4…
2) Memories of God’s work in the past. V. 5 … geographical reminders that God has been faithful in the past.
3) A decision to hope in the God of the future. Vs. 5, 11, 43:5 “put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,”
I suppose it’s natural that at camp this week I spent some time reflecting on my own church camp experience. It too was a place of sweat and thirst, for it took place every July in southern OK… in a humid place called Falls Creek. Falls Creek was renown for being the largest youth camp in the world… 5,000 kids for 5 different weeks. It was a phenomenon to behold. 5,000 teenagers on 160 acres, none of whom were allowed to neither wear shorts above the knee nor swim with the opposite sex, or for that mater do anything else with the opposite sex – even holding hands was forbidden.
As I listened on Tuesday to an articulate and beautiful African-American woman speak (a law-school and theology student from Emory) I thought about some of my speakers. Like Bailey Smith, who famously said that God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jewish person. Who told frightening stories about teens who put off making a decision for Jesus and who then died in car wrecks and plane crashes. As he spewed fire and brimstone, marching up and down the stage like a prowling lion, he did his absolute best to scare the evil out of you.
I’m all for hell being scared out, and want every person to know about the love of Christ which has grounded and oriented and saved my life. But I’m less sure about the decisions of sleep-deprived teens who come forward after 29 verses of Just as I Am in 95 degree heat under a tin roof.
So, while I may be a bit cynical about some of the things done at my youth camp, I will say this. I was reminded that in spite of the short-comings of the speakers, God was still inhabiting the praise of his people. And in those old BB McKinney hymns, God was working. In the testimony of the missionaries, in the strident sermons of the evangelists, God was working… sometimes in spite.
And it wasn’t just in the worship. It was in the love that I sensed in those chaperons who went with us. It was great to know that you were genuinely loved by people who didn’t have to love you like your parents did. There in the eyes and hearts of those brave adults, I knew where God was. As I interacted with difficult teens this week (from other churches, of course, ours are angels) I tried to remember that small things can have a lasting impression. But mostly I just tried to love the person behind that ever-ready teen mask, because I, like the Psalmist, can look back at meeting God in the worshiping community.
I identify with the Psalmist’s experience of encountering God in worship and in the worshiping community. I have encountered God there, and here, but at the end of the day, I have also seen God at work in the world. Not always where, I’d like, and certainly not always when I’d like, but real nonetheless.
Looking across a field of teens on a hot GA summer day, working on a community garden in a poor Macon neighborhood… I know God’s work in Christ is real.
Hearing that last year youth associated with Passport Camps raised 150,000 dollars for water wells in Malawi… helps me know that God isn’t through with this world yet.
Seeing that God can still speak to kids in the quiet voice of a soft-spoken AA woman (and that he doesn’t need the antics of a loud prancing preacher) helped me know there’s still hope.
And so, here I am again. I read the paper, watch the news, and get thirsty. I hear about yet another cancer diagnosis, another 5 killed in Iraq, another terrorist plot, this one foiled. The bees are dying, the glaciers are melting, the temperatures are rising… and my enemies say: “and where is…”
I pant for God, wondering when, where, how…
And I go to youth camp, look into the eyes of kids who are being shaped by Grace, whose futures are bright with the hope of love, who are learning to care for a world in need of their gifts… and my water-cooler overflows.
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