Psalm 81 - Emerging

A few mornings ago, I saw a fascinating pattern in the clouds overhead. It was like there was this semi-transparent bank of clouds and then wispy clouds emerging from above those.

This same pattern was reflected in the water below:

I don’t remember seeing clouds look quite like this before. I am sure I have but it felt very unique that morning (and still does several days later). The word that was there for me from it was simply “emerging.” The wispy clouds looked like they were simply emerging out of the larger bank of other clouds. (I know that the clouds were probably at very different elevations, etc but from my vantage point, “emerging” was the word.)

The word “emerging” feels like it fits Psalm 81 as well. Most of the Psalm is written as if it is God speaking to the people, but it sounds very much like a parent sharing with a child.

There are expressions of love:

I would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you. (81:16)

Expressions of care:

I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
your hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I rescued you; (81:6-7)

Expressions of direction:

Hear, O my people, while I admonish you;
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not bow down to a foreign god. (81:8-9)

Recognitions of shared history:

I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. (81:10)

Sadness, as of a parent when a child has made not-so-good decisions:

But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me. (81:11)

Longing, as of a parent hoping a child will turn back:

O that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
Then I would quickly subdue their enemies,
and turn my hand against their foes. (81:13-14)

All of this I read at a time when we are just wrapping up our first taste of “empty-nesting” with all three of our children away at college, but now starting to return home for the summer. A year ago at this time, we were getting ready for our youngest’s high school graduation. And as I’m writing this, the graduation ceremony is taking place at the college where one of my children will graduate next year. We are at a point with our children where we need to step back some and trust in how our children are emerging into adulthood. We are no longer in a place where we control their schedules, plan their days, etc but instead trusting in who they are now and who they are continuing to become. It is a beautiful thing to see each of them emerging but it is still hard to not want to have the same place in their lives that we have had before. Echoing the Psalm, we will still be there with love, care, direction (when they ask for it), and celebrating our shared histories. As well, I am grateful that we have had very few of the “not-so-good decisions” and don’t feel that they are in a place where they are turning away, never to return (a la the longing that is shared in this Psalm). My job, as a father, is to love them as they are now, not as I hope they will be or as I think they should be but love them as they are right now and love the persons that will continue to emerge.

There’s a similarity for me in my role as a pastor. I don’t generally like giving a sense of the pastor as the “parent” of the congregation but there are some echoes here. As a pastor, I have learned that my primary job is to love the congregation I serve first and foremost as who they are right now. I feel like I do this well a lot of the time, but definitely not all of the time. As well, I have served in various ways with pastors who seem to love who they think the congregation should be not who they are at that moment. And the same goes the other way - when congregants’ love for their pastor is tied to who they think the pastor ought to be rather than who they are. As a pastor, there are things I long to see emerge in and through a congregation and I am grateful for the ways in which I have seen that emergence spring forth many times. But there are other times that I have to be ok with a reality that that emergence might not come or might not come in the way that I would like.

Eugene Peterson, often referred to as a pastor to pastors, wrote of his own growth in learning to love the congregations he served. In writing of his growth toward this, he said:

One of the unintended consequences of this (I noticed it only in retrospect) was that I was beginning to treat my congregation with far more dignity than I had been treating them. Impatience began to diminish; condescension slowly faded out. I was learning to embrace the congregation just as they were, not how I wanted them to be. They became an integral part of the sermon. Preaching became a corporate act. Common worship was the context: singing and praying, baptisms and Eucharist, silence and blessings. But I soon realized our common worship on Sundays was also developing tendrils that reached into homes and workplaces, casual conversations and chance meetings on the street.¹

I love the way that he shares of how this growth led to not simply “better preaching” or anything like that but a more real sense of their relationships and their living of faith beyond the walls of the church.

That’s one of the most beautiful things about the Jesus stories that we have in the Bible. What I see in Jesus is someone who starts with loving people as who they are in that moment of encounter. Jesus’ love wasn’t contingent on who he thought the people ought to be but instead who they were.

With our children and also the congregation I serve, I feel I am in a transition space. Our children are all moving into new stages and I am so grateful for the people they are. I am also in a transition space with the congregation I am serving. In a little over a month, I will have my last Sunday with them before I begin a new relationship with a new congregation in early July. I am so grateful for what I have seen emerge over the last 6½ years with them, even as there are aspects that I hoped to see emerge but didn’t (at least in the ways I wanted). But I feel like I can honestly say that I love them for who they are right now and I have felt a similar love from the congregation as well.

I’m curious - what do you see in the cloud images above? Do you see the same “emergence” or do you see something else? As well, how do you hear the words of the Psalm? How does it speak to you?

Here are a few other photos from recent days and recent walks.

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

PS - Scout looking fabulous as always

1. https://onbeing.org/blog/eugene-peterson-on-congruence-the-beauty-of-uniting-who-we-are-and-how-we-act/