Have you ever listened to a sermon that was way too long? Wait, don’t answer that.
Actually, this is the question that first came to mind when I began reflecting on our psalm for this week, Psalm 105. It’s not just that this Psalm is one of the longer psalms we have. There are forty-five verses. We just read a small portion of those verses which I’ll get to later.
It’s not only long with the number of verses, but it goes over things that many of us already know or have heard at some point in our lives. It tells story after story of Israel’s early history. You have to have a lot of patience to work through this whole Psalm since you already know about these stories.
Psalm 105 would be like if I started my sermon by saying, “Let me begin by telling you about the day I was born.” And then I would tell the story of when our family went to Niagara Falls when I was two years old and I cried the entire trip. True story by the way. And I don’t know why I wouldn’t have liked going to Niagara Falls, but I didn’t.
And from there, I tell you a story about my kindergarten graduation. My favorite childhood birthday party. And I would continue to tell you a string of these stories of my life.
Penny likes to remind me of the watermelon approach to public speaking. When you give a talk you don’t have to tell people about the whole watermelon. Maybe focus on just one seed so your message doesn’t skip and jump from one thing to the other.
But the Psalmist of Psalm 105 wants to tell us about a lot of stories in just one psalm. We get the whole watermelon with this psalmist. In this psalm, he recounts earlier biblical stories about Abraham, the person who God called to be the father of a great nation. Then he moves to the next story about Isaac and then he references Jacob.
Which then leads to a story about how God formed Israel and that leads to a story about Joseph in the land of Egypt, and from there, we hear about how the Israelites became slaves in Egypt which leads to a story about Moses confronting Pharoah who finally let God’s people go. This leads to a story of how God guided Israel through the wilderness to get to the Promised Land.
Every time the psalmist seems like he’s going to say, “And in conclusion” or “To make a long story short,” we get another story and another story.
Normally, I would say that if that was a sermon, it would be considered “below average” because it doesn’t follow the watermelon seed approach. Too many stories.
But actually, that’s the whole point this Psalmist is making. All of these stories of how God has helped his people to overcome all of these challenges and adversities over all those years remind us of how faithful God really is. The Psalmist even gives us a little warning that this is going to be a long prayer at the very beginning of the psalm when he says, “Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wonderful works.”
“Tell of all his wonderful works.” Really? All his wonderful works? We’ll never make it to the closing hymn and the benediction if we take that literally.
But I love that line because the psalmist is reminding us that God has done many wonderful works. And he wants us to tell others about those wonderful works.
And this is probably the most important reason our discipleship strategy here at Athens First is for each person to have a loving faith, a learning faith, and a living faith. If you think about it, all of these areas are about helping us to do what this psalmist is saying, “to tell of all his wonderful works.”
Our loving faith ministries include small groups that are designed for each person to share in the group the wonderful things that God is doing in their lives. I also thing about our Thirst covered dish gatherings where different people share how God has been present in their lives.
Our learning faith ministries help us to learn about the wonderful things that God has done throughout the scriptures. So we have bible studies, confirmation classes, and other learning groups where we can study together.
And our living faith ministries encourage us to share with others through word and deed about the wonderful things that God has done and is doing.
The good news of our faith is that we don’t have a shortage of the wonderful things that God has done and is doing. Those stories are plentiful.
So this is what the Psalmist is doing. He is reminding us of all the things that God has done in the past. And we get this brief summary of stories of the biblical patriarchs. But it’s more than a history lesson where we need to take notes or we might fail the exam.
This psalmist wants us to not just remember the details of these past wonderful deeds that God has done. He wants us to see how God has been faithful to his covenant. This is probably one of the reasons why this psalm is read on the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover each year. It’s a great Psalm to reflect on the past history of our faith.
We do something similar every time we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion which is the Christian adaptation of the Passover meal. We have that long responsive prayer called “The Great Thanksgiving.”
In that one prayer, we recite God’s mighty acts of salvation beginning with the creation story, then we hear about how God delivered the Israelites from slavery and led them into the promised land, how God formed a covenant with them, which then leads to the telling of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This “Great Thanksgiving” prayer is celebrating God’s wonderful works like this Psalmist is doing.
I love the name for our communion prayer, “The Great Thanksgiving.” What a great name for a prayer. And we share in this prayer every time we gather to receive the Sacrament.
Stories are what help form us into a community of faith. I think this is why the Psalmist is calling on us to tell our stories of how God has been faithful.
On one hand, we all share the same story of faith which comes to us from the scriptures. We all can share how God created us and formed us into his image. We can all share how God rescued the people of Israel and led them to the Promised Land. We can all share the highs and the lows of how God’s people sought to live out their covenant with God. And we can share the story of how God sent Jesus into the world to be our Lord and Savior. These are all of our shared stories of faith. What a great, great story of faith we have. The Bible is our family album, too!
And then we also have our unique stories of faith that are born out of these shared biblical stories. God’s wonderful works didn’t end with these biblical stories. God continues to do wonderful works through each of us. We call these “thin place” moments, or as our psalmist likes to call them, “wonderful works” moments.
Where do you see God at work in your life offering guidance, direction, comfort, assurance, encouragement, hope, new life? These are the wonderful works that continue to happen in our every day lives.
I’d like to share one of these “wonderful works” moments that happened to me this past March. We had just made the decision to not hold our worship services at the church because of the coronavirus pandemic. And if you remember, these decisions needed to be made on a day to day basis because of new information we were receiving from the State of Ohio. Even before the “stay at home” order issued by the governors of Ohio, we decided to discontinue our Growing Tree preschool and our Monday Lunch ministry for safety reasons.
Even though our worship services were now online and groups weren’t using our church building, our staff was continuing to work in the building. At that time, people could still come in and out of the building for church business.
I remember struggling with the decision to just lock down the building 24/7. It wasn’t an easy decision because on one hand, we needed to care for the basic administrative needs of the church, but I was also worried about the safety of our staff with people still coming in and out of the building.
You know how when you are facing a difficult decision, you just pray to God to show you a sign? That was basically my prayer for those couple of days.
As that decision was weighing on me of what was best to do, I needed to go to Kroger one day and purchase something we needed for the church. I remember thinking how I just wanted to get in and out of the store because of how contagious the virus is.
After I left Kroger, I decided to get on Highway 50 to come back to the church instead of going through town. Remember when I said that I prayed that God would given me a sign? When I was driving back to the church, I saw the flashing state highway sign that read, “STAY HOME. WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER.”
Friends, sometimes God’s signs to us are that obvious! When I got back to the church, I told the staff that beginning the next day, we were shutting down the church. I encouraged the staff to find ways to do as much of their work as possible in their own homes.
When I went home that day, I remember feeling so relieved! It ended up being the right decision.
This is just one example among many of God’s wonderful works that happen all around us in big and small ways. Psalm 105 encourages us to share these “thin place” moments with each other and tell of God’s wonderful works.
When you have a bunch of people telling each other and the people we see of how God is at work in our lives, in our community, and in our world, it always leads us to praise God even more. That’s why this psalm is known as a praise psalm.
No wonder this Psalmist prayer is so long. He wants us to remember all of these stories of how God has been faithful. He’s describing the whole watermelon and not just one seed.
Story after story of how God is at work in the world. So many stories that lead us to say again and again and again, “Praise the Lord!”
A Psummer of Psalms: Psalm 105
Sermon Discussion Questions
Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b & Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
August 9, 2020
Psalm 105 is one of the longer psalms (45 verses!) The reason that it is long is because the psalmist is reviewing the history of Israel. One of the reasons biblical writers do this is to remind us of God’s faithfulness over the years. It also reminds us that the Bible is our family album even though we did not live during that time period.
Do you think it’s important to pass along family stories to other family members? Share an example of a helpful story about your family that has been passed down to you and other family members. How do these kinds of stories help us to be more connected as a family?
The psalmist from Psalm 105 includes stories (Genesis through Exodus) about Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. These are some of the most important patriarchs of the biblical faith.
What stories do you know about the patriarchs mentioned in Psalm 105? Who shared these stories with you? In what ways can we share these stories with others?
The psalmist encourages us to sing praises to the Lord and to “tell of all his wonderful works.” Our church refers to “wonderful works” as “thin place moments” where we experience God’s presence in our everyday lives.
Share a “thin place moment” that you have experienced where God has been present in your life or in how God has guided you through a situation you were facing. In what ways do you offer praise to God in response to God’s “wonderful works” in your life?
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