THIS IS THE DAY ... (the one God made)

Psalm 118:1-6, 24-29 (redacted)
A Song of Victory:
Thank God because he’s good,
   because his love never quits.
Tell the world, Israel,
   “His love never quits.”
And you, clan of Aaron, tell the world,
   “His love never quits.”
And you who fear God, join in,
   “His love never quits.”
Pushed to the wall, I called to God;
   from the wide open spaces, he answered me.
God’s now at my side and I’m not afraid;
   who would dare lay a hand on me?
This is the very day God acted--
   the day God made for us!
   let’s celebrate and be festive!
Salvation, God. Salvation now!
   Oh yes, God—a free and full life!
Blessed are you who enter in God’s name--
   from God’s house we bless you!
God is God,
   he has bathed us in light.
Festoon the shrine with garlands,
   hang colored banners above the altar!
You are my God, and I thank you.
   O my God, I lift high your praise.
Thank God—he’s so good.
   His love never quits!

Every week at the offering along with our monetary gifts, we offer our gifts of gratitude.  Every week we hear many of the same things - gratitude for this gathering, gratitude for the beauty that surrounds us here where we live.  Now, these are good things, nothing at all wrong with them, but last week Craig said something that got me thinking.  He said something to the effect that it is pretty easy to see beauty where we are – could we still see beauty as easily in some of the terrible places of the world?  How do we do at finding beauty in the midst of the grief and horror we see all too often in this world?

That’s not a new thought, certainly, but it was one that stuck in my head and I’ve been tossing it around all week.  And all this tossing about coincided with something I read this week, which was a short essay/sermon by Rob Bell which he begins thusly:

"this is the day that God has made." [psalm 118]

really-this day? the one with wars and poverty and divorce and addiction and betrayal? this one?
yes, this one.

We sing, “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!” and yet, for many of us – for many of our brothers and sisters out there – there can seem to be precious little to rejoice about.  Some of us right here live much the time with pain and worry.  Look farther than these four walls and there are children in cancer wards, families just now receiving the news that someone they love was involved in a fatal car accident, people getting laid off from their jobs, babies being shot through gang violence, 50 million people in refugee camps around the world!  There are people without enough access to food - hopefully we will help some of them today with the lunches we just made.  It would be very easy to be hugely cynical about the whole idea of rejoicing through all this.

And yet – this is the day the Lord has made.....  Psalm 118 was most likely written as a hymn of celebration and thanksgiving.  The part we read is just a small part of it because it’s a fairly long Psalm - I redacted it a lot.  The parts I left out today are mostly thanksgiving to God for killing off the psalmist’s enemies – the Old Testament is often a very blood-thirsty document.  We today might pray to get our enemies off our backs, but rarely, I hope, ask God to wipe them out entirely.

Anyway – the part I choose to read today is the part that rejoices because God has delivered the Psalmist from bad times and places – in fact, God has saved his life – so for the Psalmist, any day now is a day that God has made.  Any day we wake and greet the day is, for us, a day that God has made.  As Rob Bell put it: this day may be rough and bloody and heartbreaking but it is here and it is now and it is bursting with untold potential and possibility and our response to it is of utmost, urgent importance.....  Just because God made the day does not mean we get to demand roses and rainbows everywhere.  We get the day we get – what matters is what we do with it.  Some days are good, some are terrible.  God doesn’t choose to make a good day for some people and a bad day for others – this is just the world we have to live in.  There will be goodness and beauty and peace ..... and there will be war and sickness and fear.  But whatever lot falls our way this day, God will be with us.  Grieving or laughing with us. Never leaving us to face this day alone.  Let us rejoice and be glad in this.

This is the day God gives us – now it’s up to us to make something of it – in spite of worries and griefs and fears – in spite of violence and pain and soul-sickness all around us.  It is apparently God’s job to make the day.  It is apparently our job to rejoice and be glad for the day and to see the beauty of the day (even if it’s hard to find sometimes – even if it takes a strong act of courage and will to see it).  And it’s our job to continue to love all God’s people and it’s our job to hope and to trust in God and to build God’s reign  – right here, right now – and rejoice!