Finish what was started

 

Psalm 138
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
June 6, 2021

As author and composer of many of the psalms, King David poured out his whole heart when he prayed. There was nothing David hid from God in his prayers. Right or wrong, everything was on the table: request for God’s help in battle and defeat of his enemies, forgiveness for his flaws and wrongdoing, his transgressions against God’s Law, praise for God’s mercy and justice, thanksgiving for rescue, comfort, God’s greatness and power. With his prayers, David revealed his utmost trust in God, like a tree planted beside the water. Even in the midst of danger or sorrow, David knew that wherever the path led, God would always be with him. Centuries before the apostle Paul wrote that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, David lived it in his bones.



Even so, most of the prayers we have from David are from his time as king. Though his prayers can be quite personal and intimate, they are still written from a position of power, patriarchy, hierarchy, and privilege. Today we are celebrating graduates in our extended church family. As the old joke goes, as long as there are final exams, there will always be prayer in schools. What if this psalm was written by a student?



Thank you, God, thank you, thank you, thank you!

Before the SAT, AP exam, GRE, my thesis committee, 

I’m stressing, I’m strutting my stuff, I’m singing my heart out!

I put my head down in the library 

and give thanks for coffee and study groups,
For the love of faithful friends and my therapist on speed dial.

On the day I called
you answered and strengthened my soul.


Those who hold my future in their hands
May they know the sound of your voice when they hear it.

You pay more attention to the humble
Than those who exaggerate and brag about their achievements.


Every time I think I’m going to flunk,
When I can’t remember the answer,
I haven’t gotten enough sleep,
When I worry I’m letting people down,
And I haven’t seen my family or friends 

in days or weeks or months,
You save me from my worst self, my self-defeating thoughts.
You’re in the hands that reach out and pull me up.
You’re in the nap, the night out, the dance party.


I’ve finished my work for now.
A door is closing and hopefully another one is opening.
Help me finish what I’ve started.
Help me become the dream begun in me.

It’s also helpful to remember this isn’t a prayer to a teacher or a dean or department chair on high, that prayer isn’t to a God over and above and away from us. God is the voice, the embodiment of the disenfranchised, the exile, those kicked out of their homes, those with a knee on their necks. God is trans and queer, asexual and bisexual, pansexual and gay, God is polyamorous. God is Black and brown and indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander. God is non-binary and femme. God is neurodivergent. God is immunocompromised and disabled. God is a refugee and an immigrant and a child. God is creative. And because this God is not deeply loved and fully accepted, God is poor and addicted, bullied and abused and killed. God is incarcerated and trafficked and enslaved and evicted.

From the very beginning the big story has been about liberation, everyone’s liberation: humanity set free from self-interest, from empire and its lust for power, the earth set free from overconsumption. The good news is the story is not over yet. John Lennon said, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” The way I see it, the path forward is to center, to listen and learn from the voices of those who have been silenced and demonized for too long.

When we gather around this Table, everything is on this Table too. We not only put these marginalized voices front and center but also the injustices they suffer, too often at the hands of the Church. Rev. Derrick Porter formerly of the Newark Methodist Church said, “The beginning of justice is when we make their problems our problems.” Which is hard work not yet finished. Each time we approach this Table we renew our commitment to finish what was started in Jesus, the dream begun in him, now embodied in us.

The world is in God’s hands
Which are our hands
Which are God’s hands. (2x)


And justice will come
When it is embodied in us. (2x)



Amen.







Benediction – enfleshed.com


We are born, not of brokenness but of belonging.
The image of God, woven into our bodies and being,
binds us together with all of creation.
Turning from supremacies in all their forms,
refusing to participate in cycles of shame,
practicing love that transforms and protects,
the Spirit sends us to embrace the belovedness of all life.