The writer of Psalm 46 uses two strong metaphors to invite us into God’s action in our lives:  The City of God (Zion) and a River.

Imagine you are a resident in the city of Jerusalem, a city without a river, at the time the Psalm was written.  Each day you walk outside the city walls to get water from the Gihon Spring. Outside the walls you are exposed to attackers…a war is raging and you are only safe within the city walls. You are very afraid. 

Model of ancient Jerusalem, Israel Museum

Then, King Hezekiah performs the engineering feat of delivering fresh water through hidden, underground aqueducts.  How glad you are!

To the Psalm writer, these were not imaginary images but a real life example of God’s action in the lives of his people…a very present help in trouble.  In praise, he writes this song:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. 

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. 

"Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth." The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. 

Hymns reflect these metaphors too:

See, the streams of living waters,

springing from eternal love,

well supply thy sons and daughters

and all fear of want remove.

Who can faint while such a river

ever flows their thirst to assuage?

Grace, which like the Lord, the Giver,

never fails from age to age.

- John Newton

Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace,

over all victorious in its bright increase:

perfect, yet still flowing fuller every day;

perfect, yet still growing deeper all the way.

Trusting in Jehovah, 

hearts are fully blest,

finding, as he promised, 

perfect peace and rest.

- Frances Ridley Havergal

In addition to these two metaphors, we find in our Psalm perhaps the most ignored words in our scriptures: 

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still.  Relax.  Let go. 

So much challenge.  So much comfort.  Sounds like intentional realationship with God, doesn’t it?

How Does God Speak to You?

 How does God speak to you?  What language do you and God use?  What energizes and excites you?

God often speaks to me in words and ideas.  I know this because words and ideas energize  me.  Another thing that energizes me is learning new things.  

How does God speak to you?  Music?  Pictures?  Nature?  Animals?  People? Something else?  What energizes and excites you?  God is there, St. Ignatius said.

We continue our series on Prayer this Sunday with Psalm 42 (below). When I prayed it one morning I was drawn immediately to Verse 8. It seemed so personal to me.  I felt comforted.  Why, I wondered?  So  I looked carefully at the words:

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.

Then I looked carefully at the words of the other verses, and noticed that Verse 8 is the only verse that contains the word “love”.  No wonder I felt comforted!

I noticed something else.  “LORD” is only used in Verse 8, and it is written with all capital letters.   The other verses use “God”, and only the first letter is capitalized.  What’s the difference, I wondered?

Many of you might know this already, but I learned something this week.  In the original Hebrew,  the text in Verse 8 of Psalm 42 shifts from the general word God (Elohim), to using God’s personal, holy name, YHWH, which many bible translations translate to LORD in English.  Wow.   That makes the love personal too!

Now I’m wondering about another thing too.  How is knowing about the difference between Elohim and YHWH going to change my reading of the Bible in the future?

Psalm 42 NRSV

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
    so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
    the face of God?

My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me continually,
    “Where is your God?”

These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng
    and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
    a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
    therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep
    at the thunder of your torrents;
all your waves and your billows
    have gone over me.

By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
    because the enemy oppresses me?”

As with a deadly wound in my body,
    my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
    “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise him,
    my help and my God.

One of the great discoveries of Ignatius is that God is in the deeper desires of your heart. This is not the superficial stuff, e.g. the desire for comfort, ease, or quick fame, but rather the long-term attraction you feel toward something that is genuinely life-giving. This means paying attention to what energises you and also what deadens you. Where do you really come alive in your life right now?   - Brendan McManus, SJ

If Prayer is a Conversation with God, How Do We Begin a Relationship?

 

This is just one of the many questions we might have about prayer.  Here are a few others we talked about on Wednesday evening in our Prayer Group meeting:

What do we pray for?  What if we can't find the words?  How do we pray for things we don't want (like things for our enemies)?  What is the difference between personal and community prayer?  Is there a right and a wrong way to pray? Who speaks first in our conversation with God?

What are your questions about prayer?

Even the apostles asked Jesus about prayer (Luke 11)!  And so we begin this Sunday to have a closer look at Praying…with the prayer book that Jesus used - the Psalms. 

In 2024, I began to meet with a Spiritual Director.  He repeatedly asked me “How did that feel?”  I found that I was unable to answer that question, so he suggested that I “pray” the psalms.  “The Psalms are meant to engage the emotions,” he said.  

A few months later, Gordon Smith, an instructor at Regent college, said to our Spiritual Discernment class, “ The most important spiritual practice is to pray the psalms.  Know the psalter so well that you know which psalm is needed.”

I still don’t know the psalter at all well, so I am enthusiastic about the upcoming series, beginning with Psalm 27:

The Lord is my light and my salvation;

     whom shall I fear?

 The Lord is the stronghold of my life;

     of whom shall I be afraid?

 

When evildoers assail me

     to devour my flesh—

 my adversaries and foes—

     they shall stumble and fall.

 

Though an army encamp against me,

     my heart shall not fear;

 though war rise up against me,

     yet I will be confident.

 

One thing I asked of the Lord,

     that will I seek after:

 to live in the house of the Lord

     all the days of my life,

 to behold the beauty of the Lord,

     and to inquire in his temple.

 For he will hide me in his shelter

     in the day of trouble;

 he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;

     he will set me high on a rock.

 

Now my head is lifted up

     above my enemies all around me,

 and I will offer in his tent

     sacrifices with shouts of joy;

 I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,

     be gracious to me and answer me!

 “Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”

     Your face, Lord, do I seek.

     Do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger,

     you who have been my help.

 Do not cast me off, do not forsake me,

     O God of my salvation!

  If my father and mother forsake me,

     the Lord will take me up.

 

Teach me your way, O Lord,

     and lead me on a level path

     because of my enemies.

Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,

     for false witnesses have risen against me,

     and they are breathing out violence.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord

     in the land of the living.

 Wait for the Lord;

     be strong, and let your heart take courage;

     wait for the Lord!

Letting yourself be known in this relationship means more or less the same as it does in any relationship:  you must speak about your life, share your feelings, and reveal yourself openly. 

- Learning to Pray, James Martin, SJ

O Eternal One,
It would be easier for me to pray
      if I were clear
              and of a single mind and a pure heart;
      if I could be done hiding from myself
    and from you, even in my prayers.

• Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace 

What Does Jesus Show Us About God in This Story?

The Washing of the Feet, by Sieger Koder

Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

In his telling of the Last Supper, John writes of an act of love not found in the other three Gospels. Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, but Simon Peter stops him.  ‘No,’ said Peter, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’

In my imagination, I watch Jesus kneel at my feet. He takes one of them in his hands, looking deeply into my eyes to understand my response before he begins. I feel loved, but also a bit uncomfortable.  I see how vulnerable he is at that moment. 

I invite you to put yourself in the story (below).  

How would you feel if Jesus wanted to wash your feet?  What do you see in his eyes?   Would you be able to receive his love?  Can we take what he offers?

There is also a passage from the Old Testament, from the prophet Jeremiah.  What does the New Covenant say about God?

 Jeremiah 31. 31-34  NIVUK

‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord,

    ‘when I will make a new covenant

with the people of Israel

    and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant

    I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

    to lead them out of Egypt,

because they broke my covenant,

    though I was a husband to them,’

declares the Lord.

‘This is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel

    after that time,’ declares the Lord.

‘I will put my law in their minds

    and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

    and they will be my people.

John 13 excerpts  NIVUK

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel round his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped round him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’

Jesus replied, ‘You do not realise now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’

 ‘No,’ said Peter, ‘you shall never wash my feet.’

Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.’

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. ‘Do you understand what I have done for you?’ he asked them. ‘You call me “Teacher” and “Lord”, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 

I come with joy, a child of God,

forgiven, loved and free,

the life of Jesus to recall

in love laid down for me.

Footwashing

         Jesus poured water into a basin 

         and began to wash the disciples’ feet.

                          —John 13.5

A basin of baptismal water,

mother’s water breaking,

river of life, basin of tears.

With gentle hands he enfolds your feet,

your journey, your sorrow,

your pain.

He washes away

your fear, your betrayal,

your failure.

He rejoices to do this.

He is tender with you.

He is beneath you. Always.

__________________      

Steve Garnaas-Holmes  

Unfolding Light  

www.unfoldinglight.net