Scripture: Psalm 90.1-6, 13-17

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    throughout all generations.
² Before the mountains were born
    or you brought forth the whole world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

³ You turn people back to dust,
    saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
⁴ A thousand years in your sight
    are like a day that has just gone by,
    or like a watch in the night.
⁵ Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
    they are like the new grass of the morning:
⁶ In the morning it springs up new,
    but by evening it is dry and withered.

¹³ Relent, Lord! How long will it be?
    Have compassion on your servants.
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
    that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    for as many years as we have seen trouble.
¹⁶ May your deeds be shown to your servants,
    your splendor to their children.

¹⁷ May the favor^[a] of the Lord our God rest on us;
    establish the work of our hands for us—
    yes, establish the work of our hands.

Pastor’s Message;

Many of you have heard of Proyecto Abrigo, the house-building ministry along the border of Mexico near Ciudad Juarez. Before the pandemic, mission teams – many of them youth groups – would travel to this area to help build 12’ x 24’ cinder block houses for families, many of whom worked in the American-owned manufacturing plants.

The cinder block houses were an upgrade from the makeshift shelters many of these families fashioned from scavenged materials: corrugated tin, cardboard – anything they could find to incorporate into something in which to live.

When she was in high school, my daughter went on one of these trips two or three times, and I remember her sharing an experience after her return from one. It was her second visit, and she connected with the family whose house she helped build the first time she traveled to the border two years before. The family brought out a photo album they had put together that showed pictures of Eva and her crew building the house, as well as photos of their children growing up in their new home and special times in the family’s life.

Eva shared that she was very moved by this. She felt a deep connection to this family and that their lives had been woven together. Eva said it expanded her understanding of “home,” and that deep themes began to emerge for her of what it means to be “home,” to belong, and what it means to be grateful for a place to rest and just be.

Psalm 90 explores this theme of home. It’s the only psalm that is attributed to Moses, which indicates its importance in the psalter. Many of the psalms refer to the two great over-arching stories of the Hebrew scriptures: the exodus: God’s liberation of the people from slavery in Egypt — and exile: the unthinkable destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians, the levelling of homes and the land, and the relocation of many of the people to far-flung parts of the Babylonian Empire.

The story of the exodus speaks of the people finally being given a home after slavery. The story of exile speaks of having that home violently and traumatically ripped from them.

Many of the psalms were likely written and edited during and after the exile. They were used in ancient Israelite worship, offering praise and thanksgiving to God, or bringing before the Holy One individual or communal lament. The psalms not only offer us glimpses into the ancient heart and psyche of the people of Israel, they also show us Israel’s utter honesty with God. There’s praise, anger, sadness, indignation, stated wishes for vengeance upon enemies. The psalms run the gamut of human experience and emotion; and all of this is offered to God in worship. Even as the psalmist cries out “How long, O Lord?”, that cry is undergirded with a trust that God hears and receives the cry.

The reality of the people as many of the psalms were composed was bleak: destroyed homes, ransacked and destroyed Temple, the king imprisoned and in exile hundreds of miles away, the landscape bearing the scars of war and destruction, vineyards and gardens ransacked.

For a psalm to be attributed to Moses gives us an indication of its importance. What might be the purpose of calling on the name and the memory of Moses?

Rather than being an indication of authorship by Moses, it sends us back to the stories about Moses in the book of Exodus. Let’s consider: during Moses’ time the people were either enslaved or wandering in the wilderness. There was no Temple, no monarch, no palace, no place to call home – those things hadn’t happened yet.

And consider Moses himself: he doesn’t have enough time left in his life to enter what will become home for the people. He doesn’t get to see the Promised Land.

The psalmist pulls all of these elements from the life of Moses into the pain the Israelites are experiencing in exile. How does one find home when one doesn’t have access to home? How does one live with the reality that our time in this life is finite? Does the work we engage in even matter when finitude defines our living? And what about the heart-breaking fact that we often don’t see much good come from our work? Moses spends all those years leading the people to the Promised Land, and he dies before he gets to enter that land.

Time. There is never enough time. Not for to-do lists. Or projects. Or to be with family. Or to live. Chronos – time as measured on a clock, or calendar – marches on despite our protests and begging for it to stop.

On the other hand, Kairos – or God’s time – isn’t a measurement. Kairos is eternal and ever-present all at the same time. Kairos is God’s home, and Kairos is also a trait of God. Kairos is who God is and how God is.

My chronos time pales in comparison, as do all human attempts to measure our worth and our lives. IF we’re honest, this can make life feel a bit futile.

The psalmist, however, begins with an affirmation that is powerful: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations\before the mountains were brought forth\or ever you had formed the earth and the world\from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Before – before – the world was created, our dwelling place was in God. This reframes the human narrative, doesn’t it? It gives our grief, our loss, our sadness, our anxiety a reality check, because before all that human angst existed, we had a home. We have a home.

The Holy One encompasses all time and all space. We are held, even if everything in chronological time is going to hell. Our origins and our endings are contained within the Divine. It’s both in the human domain – the sadness and frustration of finitude, and coming to know that we belong to and have our being in the Spirit of God who is Kairos – eternal, and present right now in this moment.

As I say this, I realize we have hearts that still hurt with grief and loss. But Psalm 90 holds out for us and invites us into an assurance – an embrace – that can hold all of our angst and sadness. Psalm 90 calls us home.

I’d like to close with a blessing by Jan Richardson, a United Methodist clergywoman, artist and writer. Her work has been an important & life-affirming resource for me in the last few years. She has experienced the sudden death of her beloved, and has written blessings that speak to that experience. Let us pray:

Blessing the House of the Heart