A reflection on the first Sunday in Lent

Psalm 25:1-10

To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 

² O my God, in you I trust; 

     do not let me be put to shame; 

     do not let my enemies exult over me. 

³ Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; 

     let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 

⁴ Make me to know your ways, O LORD;

     teach me your paths. 

⁵ Lead me in your truth, and teach me, 

     for you are the God of my salvation; 

     for you I wait all day long. 

⁶ Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, 

     and of your steadfast love, 

     for they have been from of old. 

⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; 

     according to your steadfast love remember me, 

     for your goodness' sake, O LORD! 

⁸ Good and upright is the LORD; 

     therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 

⁹ He leads the humble in what is right, 

     and teaches the humble his way. 

¹⁰ All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, 

     for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

It was an early morning during staff training at Bethel Horizons.  I woke up nearly two hours early and went for a sunrise hike.  I needed some time to be alone, to pray, and ponder and just be with God.  I walked down a fairly familiar trail that I had been on a few times before, the one that we would hike many, many times over the course of the summer.  As I came around the corner that opened into the valley, a deer stood in the middle of the path, maybe fifty feed ahead of me.  As the sun rose over the hills and fog rolled over the valley, we stood and watched one another.  Silent.  Still.  I have no idea we stood watching one another, two creatures mysterious to one another, but the image is burned into my memory.  After a minute or two or ten, I really couldn’t say, she sniffed loudly and ran into the tall grass of the valley.  I continued on my way, crossing over the place where she had stood, newly aware of the diversity of life around me.  It was a beautiful morning and I remember it fondly, all of these years later.

I think every camp counselor has a number of “path” stories to share.  Funny stories about silly things that campers said or memorable experiences on hikes.  Night hikes and hikes on hot days.  After three summers at two different camps, I am no different.  But for some reason, that foggy early morning was the memory that has been dancing around in my head this week as I’ve been pondering Psalm 25.  Make me know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.

One of the commentaries I read this week pointed out that this is a psalm about teaching.  In fact, written in Hebrew, it is an “alphabetic acrostic,” that is, the first letter of each line is the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  It’s something we miss in the English translations.  I pulled my Hebrew Bible off the shelf, and brushed a thin layer of dust off of it, and sure enough, there it was, down the page in alphabetical order.  As long as it was out, I figured I might as well take the time to translate, with a lot of help from a handy dandy program called Bibleworks.  I slow down and digest when I translate.  I notice patterns and repetitions that I almost always miss when I read in English.  As I came to verse 6, two words--translated as mercy and steadfast love--gave me pause.  The dictionary on the program gave me a number of translating options, but what exactly did the psalmist mean?

Another commentary came to the rescue here, suggesting that these two words could be translated as “womb-love” and “covenant-love.”  Womb love (mercy) is the kind of love a mother feels for unborn child, the deep, powerful, protective love.  Motherly love.  What a beautiful image.  Doesn’t that open it up and make you think in a different way than hearing mercy?  Not that mercy is a bad translation, but it’s a word we hear a lot.  But womb-love, that’s just a different image for me.  Not yet having the opportunity to experience that kind of love for my own children, I do know how much I have loved the unborn children of my friends and of my niece or nephew due in April.  I know how I have listened to these expectant mothers talk about the love they feel and the amazement at feeling the movements of life from within them.  I’ve listened to their wonder and watched as they have lovingly placed hands on swollen bellies.  Remember your womb love, oh Lord.

And then “covenant-love,” calling to mind the covenants God makes with God’s people throughout Scripture.  Despite our uncanny ability to mess up and rebel and turn away from God’s promises, God is right there, promising to stand with us, to stick with us, to bring us around, once again.  This is the way of God, patience and love that is deep and powerful and everlasting.  

Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths, the psalmist writes.  And how many times has this been prayed by God’s people over time.  Millions?  Billions?  More numerous than the stars?  And then we begin to think about the many paths that we journey in our own lives of faith.  Each story is different.  Each story has its unique joys and challenges.  Each person has his or her moments when God seemed so intimately close, and moments when God seemed so unbelievably absent.  Our paths wonder and cross over one another and fork and branch and come to dead ends where we have to turn around and retrace painful steps.  And yet, somehow, in the midst of all of that, our God is with us, with “womb-love” and “covenant-love” abounding.  

As we stand at the beginning of our Lenten journeys, we stand in a place both familiar and unknown.  Those of us who have been Christians our whole lives carry memories of Lent, of disciplines, some successfully practiced, others miserably failed.  I think there is a sense of newness at the beginning of Lent, a sense of opportunity to try something or attempt to return or slow down or give up.  But, as is true on every single day of our lives, we also stand at a place not knowing where the paths will lead.  We don’t know what tomorrow will bring.  We don’t know what joys will come or what sorrows.  So what are we left with, but a need, a longing, to know the truth of a God whose love is as profound as a mother’s for her unborn child, as uncompromising as the one who keeps making promises to us in spite of our inability to keep them.  That is the love we can count on in this Lenten journey and in the walk of life.

With the psalmist, we pray to know the ways of our Lord.  We long to know the love of God, we yearn for experiences that show us the way and lead us down the right paths.  And yet, we wander, restless, wanting clearer paths, surer ways.  St. Augustine said that the heart is restless, until it rests in God.  So rest, restless wanderers, today in God’s love.  Rest in the mercy and steadfast love.  Rest in God’s compassion and grace.  Rest in womb-love and covenant-love.  Rest in the faith that no matter where you find yourself on the path of life, God knows exactly where you are.  And loves you beyond measure right there, in that very place.

A prayer for today:

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.