On Psalm 121 for Lent: From Disorientation to Reorientation

May the meditation of my heart and the words of my mouth be acceptable to you, my Lord and my God. In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Did you know that Psalm 121 was sung for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee, in 1977 and also during her funeral this past September? “I lift my eyes to the hills; from where is my help to come? The Lord shall watch your going out and your coming in from this time forevermore.” Psalm 121 is known as a psalm of ascent or a psalm of re-orientation. I have heard it referred to as a psalm for sojourners, which I would like to believe we all are. I’m curious as to why Queen Elizabeth chose Psalm 121 for her silver jubilee. She did not know that she would live another 45 years beyond that. But, it might be that as a person of faith, she considered her strength to serve to come from God Godself. I’m curious as to why she wanted it for her funeral? Maybe she considered the symbolism of what it means. The Lord will watch your going out and your coming in—after 96 years on earth, 70 years of the throne, the Lord had seen her from her very first breath through to the very last breath. Throughout all of life’s tribulations and chaos and moments of sheer beauty and accomplishment, where else should one turn? I cannot think of anything or anyone but God. And yes, but God!

There are three types of journeying psalms in the Bible—orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. We understand this, thanks to Walter Brueggemann. Psalms of orientation are the psalms that affirm God is in control and life is well ordered. Psalms of disorientation are ones of lament, questioning God and God’s existence. Psalms of reorientation are ones of looking back on things past and offering thanks to God for deliverance. This particular psalm could only have been written by someone who had experienced disorientation and found themselves on the side of reorientation. Scholars have come to the consensus that it was composed on the children of Israel’s way back to Jerusalem. What is particularly curious about it is that this is actually a conversation between two separate people. The first two verses are that of the weary child or sojourner looking toward better days after experiencing the most dire of tribulations, and the third through eighth verses are the response—they are the parent or the authority figure promising better days… just believe! This is a declaration. It is a declaration of both the importance of faith and God’s continuity. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night… God’s unfailing protection carries us. For Israel coming home, Jerusalem was the promise.

We are at the very. beginning of our Lenten season. In our call to join Christ in his fasting and prayer, we know that there is a Jerusalem on the other side of this willfully obligatory fasting. We are called to join Christ for forty days, in the same way he spent his forty days in the desert, in the same way Moses spent forty days receiving the law, in the same way Noah spent those forty days on the ark during the flood, in the same way the Israelites spent forty years wandering to get back to Jerusalem. To find oneself on the other side of the wilderness is to find oneself back at Jerusalem, but only by the grace of God. That’s why I say, dear friends, that giving up chocolate or soda does not quite do it for a Lenten sacrifice… unless that chocolate or soda is drawing you away from God. If so, maybe let’s talk and have a come to Jesus.

The Israelites find their way wandering to get back to Jerusalem after years and years of turning away from God in their humanness and frailty, God accepting them back, breaking God’s heart again, and God taking them back. We are called to observe a holy Lent to come face to face with our humanness and our own frailty, to remember that without God we can do nothing. Without drawing on God, from whence our help cometh, we do not get to our Jerusalem. The onus is on us to trust.

A third of my twenty-seven-year-old life has been spent in the Episcopal Church, which God gifted me during a season of unprecedented trial as I lost one of my best friends to suicide. The following Lent, I fasted and gave up saying certain things and gave up my anger. I went to Mass every weekday at 7a and took on a devotion to prayerfulness. I acknowledged my own frailty and my own unrelenting dependence on God—and I found myself far on the other side of a wilderness, being in a pulpit addressing you in this alb in the throes of becoming a priest. This was the promise of my Jerusalem.

So as I close, I would like to orient us toward our Gospel reading. Jesus tells Nicodemus that there is a promise of something greater waiting for us on the other side of this place. We have to continue to trust and sojourn here to get there. But we have to trust that journey. Jesus tells him that he has to believe—to just believe. Our epistle reminds us of God’s promise to Abraham and his descendants. Sojourn through a wilderness and you will see the many fruit on the other side. As we walk through Lent, let us remember that God is on each side of not letting our feet be moved, serving as the shade at our right hand, preserving us.

Lent is our moment to disorient and reorient. My prayer for you as you walk through this ascent, is that you are fasting from something difficult that you might fail at, remembering that there is only one place to go to for help.