Psalm 90

In the last three weeks, I have visited homes and churches that we would consider too simple to use. The Methodist Church at Bek Chan has a dirt floor. The Methodist Church at Talom has a tin roof and walls and dirt floor. We met under a house next to the church as a heavy monsoon rain poured down inches away. A pig was tied about three feet away. The church at Phum Chek cannot be reached by car and four motorcycles took our group in – one person at a time.

 And the presence of nurses from our Spanish congregation brought forward people with needs I had never seen before. I emailed you about Meas Sam Om, the 9 year old child gored by a water buffalo, where we anointed her with oil and prayed for her healing. We had a little medicine and our sincere prayers and we could only pray for a miracle. And I emailed a week ago about the young woman Yuen, who burned her hand in a cooking fire beyond saving, and yet she delayed the amputation because she is scared. By the time we saw her, her hand was literally falling off and an infection was threatening her life. Even our nurse Virginia lost her composure and called it an emergency. Like in Bible times, people on the fringe of the church meeting came forward with the hope that Jesus might touch their lives with healing and the gift of life itself.

 So much of the world quietly waits for a word of its salvation. The shock of hurricane Katrina is more that we are unaware that salvation was needed here. In the Bible, the Jews were sure that sick people were sinners and that sickness was a symptom that the suffering person had sinned or perhaps their parents had sinned. Americans have that same feeling about poverty. We are inwardly convinced that poor people just aren’t responsible.

 But in this disaster, homes and stores of poor and wealthy alike were swept aside. Somehow, there is a special shock to see Saks Fifth Avenue burning as it is this morning. Since we were here last Sunday, one leader stated that our nation has suffered two disasters, a natural disaster that lasted for a day and a moral disaster that followed from elected leaders and policies that are indifferent to the last, the least, and the lost.

 Our scripture this morning will be a word of hope for such times and a guide for how the Lord can get us through. It is a message for us and then also a message that we give to America. I want us to each prepare our hearts now to receive a word from God in this service and may the Holy Spirit be in this service guiding this morning.

 Psalm 90 is unique – the only Psalm written by Moses. Moses was the man who took the remnants of a nation trapped in slavery and lead them thru a wilderness to rebirth as the country of Israel. He knows both the agony of human suffering and the glory of God’s care. This scripture is the summary of Moses’ response to life. This is Moses Psalm.

 Another translation starts the Psalm by saying, Lord, Thou hast been our home. This is written by the original man without a country. He started in a basket and grew up in a palace that he did not own and where he was no longer welcome.

 Americans Christians have long regarded this land of America in two ways, our dwelling place and a spiritually blessed place. We hold our political opinions as strongly as our religious beliefs. Yet Moses did not call Canaan his home even though his life was a quest to reach Canaan. Moses knew that true safety is not where we are, but whether our hand is in God’s hand. A Methodist missionary had to travel 100 years ago in an area that was unsafe for health. She writes, I know that if I am where God wants me to be, no other place could offer more safety.

 Moses does not write from some comfortable villa. He writes that humans are like grass because he has seen how harsh the desert can be. He writes that humans are from dust and will return to dust. Someone said that every cemetery is filled with indispensable people. Our time on earth is limited. Do you remember the story of the little girl who learned in Sunday school that people came from the dust and eventually returns to the dust. She looked under her bed one morning and said, "Mother, mother, come! There's someone under my bed, but I don't know whether he's coming or going!"
         For all of us, for all of life, our safety is in God. Our response for the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast and for the United Methodists starts with our prayers for deliverance.
 It continues with our love. Moses prays to God, ‘Satisfy us with your steadfast love.’ If that steadfast love is God’s response to human disaster, then we must join with God in a self giving act of sacrificial love. The offering box will be here for a special communion offering this morning. In this nation and in this generation, we have not seen a worse need. This disaster combines natural tragedy with murder and rape, and indifference at the highest levels of government that could not even drop bags of water and sandwiches four days later to those dying. Is this the vision of America that we want? Do we want lower taxes even if others die in response? This is not our Christian dream of what this nation can be. We cannot do President Bush’s job for him, but we can give to the United Methodist Committee on Relief and the leaders are going to count this money and send it online this afternoon. Your act of love will be in spent hours from now if you give now. We all wish we could do something and a great benefit of being United Methodist is that we have a 60 year old agency and their only job is responding to tragedy. I hope that no one comes for communion this morning without some gift of love. We have seen a major American city simply disappear. Do you not feel the Spirit of God asking you personally to join the heart of God in response? Do not leave this house today without responding in faith.
           The verses unread this morning also speak of the anger of God. Our nation has had its secret sins revealed as said in verse 8. Sometimes we get into sin without thinking about is consciously. There is a belief in America that if we intend no harm, then no sin has occurred. If I intend to rob you, that is wrong. But if I simply find that my tax rate is lower and the smaller government cannot then protect you, that somehow is not stealing from you.

If we had solved the problem of race in America, the minority community of New Orleans would not have been singled out for suffering. If we had solved the problem of poverty in America, the governor would have advisors to know that evacuation orders have to come with buses for those who don’t have cars. If we were working on the problem of race in America, the pictures of the minority community at the Superdome would have engaged the President for a fast response.

And dear God, how did we get a nation where we cannot drop sandwiches and water after four days?

 The protecting gaze of God in verse 4 is also the revealing gaze as God sees what we have wrought in this generation. And some religious leaders betray us because they regard messages about taxation, poverty, human rights, and racism as mixing the Bible with politics. In their speech, the real sins of the nation are homosexuality, abortion, and support of Hugo Chavez. But the word of God says that the sin that turned Moses world upside down was not the salacious sin and spectacular sin, it was the secret sin.

 We have got to start living as Biblical Christians. We have got to grab the Bible back from preachers who mix the gospel of Me and the Gospel of Christ Jesus. And we have to demand of all leaders from District to City to Presidential that they represent and care for the least, the last, and the lost.

 We do not know what lies ahead for the hurricane season. We are only one third into it. Our prayers of today must be repeated tomorrow. It is not that God forgets, but that we pray again to remember again. I hope that you will use the Prayer Labyrinth this week. We will make gifts of love to be part of God’s steadfast love for the Gulf Coast. And we must communicate our beliefs and hopes for America to those who would lead to keep them from secret sin.

 The text ends with two sentences [Psa 90:15] Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil. [Psa 90:17] Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands-- O prosper the work of our hands! Amen.