October 17th
Psalm 50

Simple Truths

‘I recommend to you, holy simplicity.’   (Francis de Sales)

‘Christianity is a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.’  (T.S. Eliot)

 

It can be complicated being a church.  You write constitutions and handbooks of practice.  You draft vision statements and compile committees and responsibilities.  You take good care of the building and grounds.  You decide who gets the keys: the master key, an ordinary key, and who gets no key!  Oh, and don’t forget the junk mail (and promotional calls and faxes) Gwen has to sort through each week along with her other work.

None of these are without merit, however Psalm 50 wants to focus on some simple truths that lie at the heart of being God’s community.  The psalmist declares that there are just two or three things that really matter.  We take our cue from the last verse of the psalm, verse 23:

        23 The one who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving is the one who honors me.
    And it is to the one who charts the correct path that I will show the salvation/deliverance of God.”       

First, we focus on God the deliverer. Time and time again we realize how little control we really have: illness, conflict, family relations, all come along without our planning or ability to control.  The good news is that God’s deliverance is more reliable than our having complete control. 

Second, our psalmist tells us that we can fully trust God’s salvation if we are people who ‘chart the correct path.’  Unlike New Year resolutions which we routinely make and expect to break, God expects us to put in some hard work to follow God’s way.   

        He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?  (Micah 6.8).

It’s not complicated but it can be hard.  The psalmist pictures people treating God’s word cavalierly:   ‘You hate discipline, and
you toss my words behind your back.’ (v.17).  Only if there is moral direction to your life can you expect God’s salvation.

Third, when you experience God’s salvation, you offer a sacrifice of praise or thanksgiving.  Words are cheap.  In the OT true thanksgiving required a sacrifice, that is, it cost something too!

Like all good sermons, Psalm 50 challenges its hearers to make a decision.  God’s will is to save.  God will show ‘salvation’ to those who can forget themselves long enough to understand their neediness and who will ‘fulfill their promises to the Most High.’  It’s not complicated but it may be hard.

14 Offer God a sacrifice of thanksgiving!
    Fulfill the promises you made to the Most High!
15 Cry out to me whenever you are in trouble;
    I will deliver you, then you will honor me.”

 

Richard Foster, a Quaker, has written an entire book on the practice of ‘simplicity.’  In one essay he says this:

‘Simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle. Both are necessary. The inward reality of simplicity is beautifully encapsulated in Matthew chapter 6, especially Jesus’s concluding words that we are to ​“seek first the kingdom of God” and the righteousness of this kingdom, and all that is needed for life will be added to us. This laser-beam focus on a ​“with-God life” in God’s kingdom is the inward reality of simplicity. As Jesus reminds us, when our eye is single, our whole body will be full of light.’ 

 

https://youtu.be/sR4QvqXoLVA - Simple gifts