The 24/7 God

Hilton Head Island, SC – October 27, 2013
The Chapel Without Walls
Psalms 120 & 121
A Sermon by John M. Miller

Text – He will not let your foot be moved, he who keeps you will not slumber.  Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. – Psalm 121:3-4 (RSV)

 

Psalm 119 is the longest of all the 150 Psalms.  It has 176 verses in total.  It is divided up into sections, one section for each of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet.  Each section begins with a word whose first letter is the next one in the alphabet.

 

            Psalms 120 to 134 are collectively called “The Songs of Ascent.”  With the exception of Psalm 132, they are among the shortest of the Psalms.  Setting aside Psalm 132, which has 18 verses, the other Songs of Ascent are from 3 to 9 verses in length.

 

            Why are they called “The Songs of Ascent”?  There are basically two theories for providing an answer.  First, wherever anyone lived in the land of Israel, to go to the temple in Jerusalem, they literally had to ascend to get there; they went up in altitude.  There is a long mountain range about 50 miles in length which runs from Shechem in the north to Hebron in the south.  Jerusalem is at the highest location on that long ridge; it is about 2500 feet above sea level.  So whether you go to Jerusalem from the north or the south along that ridge, you are constantly climbing up as you walk along.  And if you go to Jerusalem east from the Plain of Sharon along the Mediterranean Sea or west from the Jordan Valley, you are climbing quickly up the steep shanks of the mountainous spine of Israel.  The idea presumably is that whenever pilgrims went up to Jerusalem from wherever they lived in the Holy Land, they would recite these fifteen Psalms as they walked along.  It was part of the tradition of the pilgrimage.

 

            The other theory about why they are called the Songs of Ascent is that when one got close to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the only way to get up to the platform where the temple was located was to climb up a set of stairs.  There were stairways leading up to the temple from several directions, and since Mr. Otis had not invented his elevator, shanks ponies were the only means of conveyance to the top, and the steps were the only reasonable way to get to the holy destination.  Going up the steep sides of Mt. Moriah would be too difficult for most people.  The sets of stairs were the only viable alternative.  And the thinking behind this theory is that some of the people went up the steps on their knees, reciting the Songs of Ascent as they went.

 

            Have you ever been to any of the various famous Roman Catholic shrines around the world which are associated with miraculous cures?  There is Lourdes in France or Assisi in Italy or Guadaloupe in Mexico or St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal.  Many people with different kinds of impairments also may go up the steps to these shrines on their knees, imploring God to bring them healing when they reach their goal of getting into the shrine at the top of their climb.  The first time I observed this phenomenon was over fifty years ago when we were in Montreal to set sail for Scotland.  On a brief tour of the city before our embarkation, we went to St. Joseph’s, and I was amazed to see a few dozen people laboriously hoisting themselves up, step by step, to get into impressive church near the top of Mont Real, Mount Royal.  There was an ever-memorable expression of ecstasy on their faces as they silently sang their own personal songs of ascent.

 

            Many of us are familiar with several Psalms which we can almost recite by heart: the 1st, the 23rd, the 100th.  My guess is that many of the Jews in biblical times committed the Songs of Ascent to memory.  They did so because at least four times a year they went up to Jerusalem and the temple to celebrate the four great festivals of the Jews.  In order to heighten the spiritual experience, they sang these particular fifteen Psalms as they walked up to the Holy City, or, having arrived there, walked or crawled up the steps to the Temple Mount. 

 

            Most of the Songs of Ascent are positive in their essential content, but a few are not.  Earlier I read Psalm 120, the first of the Songs, and cheerful it isn’t.  But 121 is very positive.  In  fact, 121 is possibly the most familiar of the Songs of Ascent.  It begins with two phrases, whose meaning is rendered very differently from one another in the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.  The KJV says, “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills (comma), from whence cometh my help (period).”  That translation suggests that our help comes from the hills.  The RSV expresses it in another way: “I lift up my eyes to the hills (period).  From when does my help come (question mark)?”  Then it provides the answer: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (121:2).

 

            “All good comes from God,” said St. Augustine.  Everything that helps us in any way also comes from God.  That certainly cannot be scientifically verified, but it can be authenticated by faith.  And the Songs of Ascent are definitely songs of faith.

 

            Then Psalm 121 offers two of the most comforting verses to be found anywhere in the Bible.  “He (God) will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.  Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (vs. 3-4).

 

            When the Psalm says that God won’t let our foot be moved, it obviously doesn’t mean that literally.  Frequently throughout the day we want to move our feet, and we do.  We describe it as walking.  Further, If God kept me personally from jiggling my feet or my legs, I would probably be put into a straightjacket within two days.  I come from a long line of leg-and-foot jigglers.  My father did it, one of my brothers did it, another of my brothers does it , and I do it.  It’s a genetic quirk, of which I have more than a sufficient number. I don’t know whether technically I have restless leg syndrome, although a physician parishioner once said I do, but I certainly have shaking foot syndrome.  Surely verse 3 suggests that God won’t let our foot slip, that He will watch over us to uphold us in case calamity befalls us.  He won’t prevent calamity, but He will be with us in the midst of it, should it befall us.

 

            And why will this happen?  It is because God is the 24/7 God, the God who never slumbers nor sleeps.  He is continuously “on the job,” and eternally at His self-appointed divine post.  None of us is like that.  None of us can be like that.  We run out of steam and experience fatigue and require sleep to recover for the next day, but there are no days or nights to God, nor is there any need for physical refreshment.  God is not a physical being; He is purely a spiritual being, whatever that might mean (and no physical being can fully comprehend that).  But Psalm 121 proclaims what humans need to hear, namely, that the God of Israel and of the entire world never loses sight of any of us for even a nanosecond.  He who keeps us will not slumber.

 

            Felix Mendelssohn was a famous early 19th century German composer, conductor, and pianist.  His grandfather was Moses Mendelssohn, a renowned Jewish philosopher. 

 

            It was not easy to maintain a Jewish identity in 19th century Germany, even for someone who was a secular Jew, like Mendelssohn.  He became a Reformed Protestant early in his short life.  Like all too many composers, he died young, at age 39.  But he composed an outstanding collection of music, including the tunes for several well-known hymns, of which the best known is Hark, the herald angels sing.  But he also wrote the music for O Word of God Incarnate, and Still, still with Thee, of which Larry Mercer played an arrangement within the past few Sundays.

 

            Felix Mendelssohn’s most famous religious composition is Elijah, based on the life of the first of the great Old Testament prophets.  This powerful oratorio is a presentation of the courage of God’s often outspoken spokesman, who found himself pitted against the wicked King Ahab and his resolutely pagan wife Jezebel.  The baritone soloist in the oratorio is Elijah, and he depicts the story of the prophet who is chronicled in the Books of I and II Kings.

 

            One of the most beloved choruses in the oratorio is often sung as an anthem.  It is called He watching over Israel. Its theme is taken from Psalm 121.  The basic text is as follows, and it is repeated again and again in varying forms: “He watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps. Shouldst thou walking in grief, anguish, he will quicken thee.”  The chorus begins quietly, then soars to several crescendos in a glorious stratosphere of sharps and flats, and then it ends, again very quietly: “He slumbers not, nor sleeps.”  To hear it is to be greatly comforted, but to sing it with 50 or 75 or 100 other singers is to be transported into the very presence of God.

 

I have often told you that I used to go to Mepkin Abbey for two nights and three days two or three times a year.  Mepkin is a Cistercian or Trappist monastery near Moncks Corner, SC.  They have seven services in their daily routine, the first of which begins at 3:20 AM.  Not being one who ordinarily is stirring around at 3:20 AM, the first time I was there, something suddenly struck me I had never thought about before. Psalm 121 is verified by the fact that at every hour in every time zone in the world, monks and nuns are praying together in worship, quite apart from the rest of humanity who are engaged in their own private prayers and petitions to the God Mendelssohn praised in He watching over Israel.  There is no situation any of us must face, no joy or sorrow or hardship or hurdle, of which God is unaware.  He never misses anything that happens to any of us; never.  He is the 24/7 God.  What a comfort that is!

 

 The New York Times recently had a bizarre story about a man from Ohio.  Donald E. Miller, Jr. appeared in court in Findlay, Ohio under highly unusual circumstances.  It seems Mr. Miller disappeared several years ago.  At the time he had a wife and two children.  After a few years he was officially declared dead, which allowed his wife and daughters to receive what they assumed were legitimate Social Security benefits. 

 

A while back Donald Miller came back home with a new lady friend.  He wanted to get a new Ohio driver’s license, and he needed to reactivate his Social Security number.  It was then when he was hailed into court.  The judge, Allan H. Davis, told Donald Miller that he had been declared legally dead, and therefore he could not get a driver’s license, nor could he be reactivated for Social Security purposes.  His wife has subsequently married another man, coincidentally also named Miller.  Her attorney opposed Donald Miller’s resurrection on the grounds that his client might have to pay back the benefits she had been given for herself and her daughters.  Judge Davis said the Ohio law which decreed Donald Mller is dead should likely be revised, but there is nothing he can to do to grant him legal life again.

 

Francis Marley, Mr. Miller’s lawyer, said his client probably could not afford to appeal being dead.  When asked if he had ever had a case like this, Mr. Marley answered, “No, but I’ve only been practicing for 43 years.”

 

“Shouldst thou walking in grief, anguish, He will quicken thee.”  Nobody needs to be quickened more than Donald Miller, Jr., I guess.  It is a problem to be alive, and yet to be legally dead in court, having previously already having been declared legally dead.  “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.  The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night” (121:5-6).  Even in the most unimaginable of entanglements, God is there to provide support and relief.  Things may not work out exactly as we want, but somehow they will work out, because He watching over Israel slumbers not nor sleeps.

 

John Shepherd is an English Anglican priest.  In an article in The Times of London, he opened his essay by saying, “Have you noticed that Christianity doesn’t give us any information about the future?  Basically we have no idea what’s going to happen to us, tomorrow, next week, or next year.  Of course we act as though we do.  Assiduously we enter appointments into our electronic gadgets.  But it’s all actually one big wish list – a litany of intention.”

 

That’s true, isn’t it?  Frequently we wonder what is going to happen to us.  In so doing, do we trust that He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep?  “The fact is,” wrote John Shepherd, “we’re in the dark about how life is going to work out for us – our employment, our relationships, our health.”  And that’s true, too.  Nevertheless, if we live in the conviction that God will be with us whatever may come, we can go forward with this hope: “The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.  The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and for evermore” (121:7-8).

 

We have a God who never slumbers nor sleeps.  He watches over Israel and everyone beyond Israel every step of the way, until at the last we shall see Him face to face.  On that note let us continually ascend with singing into the presence of Almighty God.