Psalm 90:1-2, 12-17
God, it seems you’ve been our home forever;
long before the mountains were born,
Long before you brought earth itself to birth,
from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”—you are God.
Oh! Teach us to live well!
Teach us to live wisely and well!
Let us see what you’re best at--
the ways you rule and bless your children.
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,
confirming the work that we do.
Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!
The reading for today is Psalm 90. I’ve chosen just a few of the verses to focus on for now. You can read the whole Psalm for yourself—it’s not very long. I’m using The Message version.
These first two verses I’ve cited above speak to us of God’s constant and universal presence in our lives. More traditional versions put it like this: Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Our dwelling place, our home. As I was writing this last, my mind added another line – one long familiar to me, as to many who read this: ...our dwelling place, our home – the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
These last words puzzled me for a moment, but then I remembered they are from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles – specifically from the part of the story in which St. Paul was in Athens, seeking to introduce the Athenians to the God of Jesus, referring to him as “the one in whom we live and move and have our being.”
I’ve always loved that line — “the one in whom we live and move and have our being” — but did you know that Paul was quoting there? I knew it was a quote but didn’t know right off who was being quoted. After a little research I discovered that the line originally comes from a Macedonian poet named Aratus whose poetry, written 300 years before Paul, most likely reached Paul by way of a translation done a couple of hundred years later by the famous Roman statesman-scholar, Cicero.
Poets in Aratus’ day would begin every poem with a dedication of the work to the poet’s patron God – in this case, the Greek God Zeus – referred to in this dedication as, of course, the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
So we have here in this story in Acts is Paul, a Jew of Tarsus, speaking in Athens, and using words by a Macedonian poet that he knows by way of a Roman translator. All to describe the God who has by one name or another been home, has been a dwelling place, for people widely scattered not only across much of the known world of its time, but also across several centuries of human time.
Paul recognized what many apparently still do not — that there is only God. He used quoted words that would have been familiar to many of those present that day to suggest without hammering the point home, that their god and his God were one and the same. Regardless of the name we choose to use, there is only God. One God who is home for each one of us. Since long before earth was brought to birth—from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”—there is God.
We humans, therefore, around the globe, share one home. We may live in different places and speak separate languages; some of us are poor and some wealthy; some conservative and some liberal; some happy and some miserable—but at the core of our beings we share one home.
Whenever we come together we Jesus followers tend to share a meal together – a meal that first happened 2000 years ago and has happened every day since, in every corner of this globe – and it is always and still the same meal, happening now. I often remind my congregants that our God is not bound by our human notion of time and space. Out human minds are too limited to grasp that all space is here to God and all time is now.
The closing verses of Psalm 90 implore God to show us what God does best—which is love us and teach us—so that we can learn to do this, too. It then asks God to affirm the work we do—whenever, wherever we do it. Holy One, let us do it in your image. In you and with you forever.
These first two verses I’ve cited above speak to us of God’s constant and universal presence in our lives. More traditional versions put it like this: Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Our dwelling place, our home. As I was writing this last, my mind added another line – one long familiar to me, as to many who read this: ...our dwelling place, our home – the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
These last words puzzled me for a moment, but then I remembered they are from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles – specifically from the part of the story in which St. Paul was in Athens, seeking to introduce the Athenians to the God of Jesus, referring to him as “the one in whom we live and move and have our being.”
I’ve always loved that line — “the one in whom we live and move and have our being” — but did you know that Paul was quoting there? I knew it was a quote but didn’t know right off who was being quoted. After a little research I discovered that the line originally comes from a Macedonian poet named Aratus whose poetry, written 300 years before Paul, most likely reached Paul by way of a translation done a couple of hundred years later by the famous Roman statesman-scholar, Cicero.
Poets in Aratus’ day would begin every poem with a dedication of the work to the poet’s patron God – in this case, the Greek God Zeus – referred to in this dedication as, of course, the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
So we have here in this story in Acts is Paul, a Jew of Tarsus, speaking in Athens, and using words by a Macedonian poet that he knows by way of a Roman translator. All to describe the God who has by one name or another been home, has been a dwelling place, for people widely scattered not only across much of the known world of its time, but also across several centuries of human time.
Paul recognized what many apparently still do not — that there is only God. He used quoted words that would have been familiar to many of those present that day to suggest without hammering the point home, that their god and his God were one and the same. Regardless of the name we choose to use, there is only God. One God who is home for each one of us. Since long before earth was brought to birth—from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”—there is God.
We humans, therefore, around the globe, share one home. We may live in different places and speak separate languages; some of us are poor and some wealthy; some conservative and some liberal; some happy and some miserable—but at the core of our beings we share one home.
Whenever we come together we Jesus followers tend to share a meal together – a meal that first happened 2000 years ago and has happened every day since, in every corner of this globe – and it is always and still the same meal, happening now. I often remind my congregants that our God is not bound by our human notion of time and space. Out human minds are too limited to grasp that all space is here to God and all time is now.
The closing verses of Psalm 90 implore God to show us what God does best—which is love us and teach us—so that we can learn to do this, too. It then asks God to affirm the work we do—whenever, wherever we do it. Holy One, let us do it in your image. In you and with you forever.
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