Seek my Face

From this morning’s psalm: "You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face, Lord, will I seek." Seek my face, the Lord speaks into our hearts. We hear this psalm on this last Sunday after the Epiphany, this last Sunday before we begin the journey of Lent. And yet this invitation has been before us throughout Epiphany season. The particular focus of Epiphany is to seek the face of the Lord in the world around us, to see God’s face, God’s glory revealed to us in the many facets of the incarnation… God made flesh in Jesus Christ; God made real in the flesh and blood of our lives today; God’s face looking upon us. This morning’s gospel story of the Transfiguration is the ultimate of all Epiphany stories. Peter, James and John coming face to face with God’s glory revealed in Jesus on the mountaintop. Whether or not they climbed to that mountaintop seeking God’s face, they found and saw it there. And the memory of that vision surely bore them in good stead during the horrors they were very soon to see on a hill outside Jerusalem.

The words of the psalm are ours, addressed to God: "You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face, Lord, will I seek." The words seem to sum up our Epiphany task, but they also serve very appropriately to propel us forward towards Lent. "One thing have I asked of the Lord: one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." These, too, are words from this morning’s psalm. And they outline our Lenten journey. Lent is all about drawing closer to God. On Ash Wednesday, the church will summon you to the observance of a holy Lent… To observe Lent as a holy time, as a time especially dedicated, especially belonging to God. According to the Book of Common Prayer, a holy Lent is characterized by: "self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word." But the point of all this is not just self-discipline. The point is to bring us closer to God, so that we may (as the psalmist says) see the Lord’s face, so that we may dwell in the house of the Lord, so that through intimacy with Christ in his death, we may also share in his resurrection. The rigors of Lent are a gift to us. They are the means, the tools by which we may draw closer to God.

This morning’s psalm nudges us towards the beginning of this journey. And the psalms themselves can be an important part of keeping a holy Lent. The Psalms have a unique place in the Bible, and for thousands of years they have had a unique place in the lives and prayers of God’s people. I want to talk a bit about the psalms, and much of what I’m going to say is drawn from a book by Ellen Davis, entitled Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament. Getting involved with God… sounds like Lent.

Writing about the Psalms, Davis quotes the fourth century bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius. "All Scripture is ours," Athanasius says, "inspired by God and profitable for teaching, as it is written [in 2 Timothy 3:16]. But the Book of Psalms possesses a certain winning exactitude for those who are prayerful."

Davis continues, "The phrase ‘winning exactitude’ implies that there is something to aim at in prayer, a target to which we can hope to come close, maybe even hit dead on. But the other side of that implication is the reality that it is possible to pray and hit nothing at all; sheer expenditure of energy does not count. The Psalms may help us to improve our aim when we pray." The Psalms may help us to improve our aim when we pray, help us draw closer to God, help us to become more closely connected to God in prayer. The Psalms may help us to improve our aim when we pray.

The Psalms do have a unique place in the Bible. All the rest of Holy Scripture is God’s word speaking to us. The Psalms are our words to God, formulated as human prayer offered God-wards. Yet, as we remember that these words do come as part of the Bible, maybe it is best to think of them as God’s words in us… God helping us speak our prayers in a way that brings us closer to God. Jesus’ followers said to him, "Teach us how to pray." And he taught them the Lord’s Prayer. But long before Jesus’ walked the earth, God had taught people how to pray; God had provided words for people to pray. The Psalms… God’s words in us, teaching us how to pray.

Professor Davis highlights several particular ways the psalms help us improve our aim in prayer… help us, in prayer, to draw closer to God.

The honesty and breadth of human feeling articulated in the psalms provide the foundation upon which a true and deep relationship with God may be built. In our contemporary, psychologically savvy culture, we are glib to describe what has always been true: that honest, unguarded, trusting speaking is essential to the health of relationships… in family life or close friendship. This truism applies also in our relationship with God. And the psalms are all about speaking our mind fully and honestly before God. They both provide and force complete freedom of speech with respect to God.

We often have a tendency to edit our prayers before we send them God-wards. We think, for example, that God does not have any use for our anger with others, with the world. Until we have already forgiven our enemies and come to peace, we think, God will turn a deaf ear to our prayers. And surely it is wrong to be angry with God. To express anger towards God is to risk complete alienation at worst, or a thunderbolt at best. So we edit our fears, our despair, our anger out of our prayers, thinking that those feelings are not what God expects of us. They cannot conform to God’s will for us.

The psalms are unedited. The psalms express the full, open and honest range of human feeling and experience about life and a world that are full of dangers and problems. They expose our human faults, our feet of clay; they honestly express human feeling. They open us up before God. And that is a good thing.

The psalms force us, in prayer, to quit worrying about God, about what God wants, about what God expects, about what God is like… the psalms force us simply to talk to God. And talking to God, unedited, will bring us closer to God.

The psalms also improve our aim in prayer, help connect us better with God in prayer, because the psalms are common prayer. Episcopalians, Anglicans, know something about common prayer, about its power and blessings. Our Book of Common Prayer unites us as a people of prayer. It makes us more than we could ever be on our own. The Psalter is ancient Israel’s book of common prayer. To pray these words is to self-consciously take our place among generations and generations of faithful Israelites, Jews and Christians.

Yes, the psalms give us words to express all of our individual feelings with God, feelings of adoration and gratitude, rage and fear. And in that open expression, we build our individual relationships with God. And yet, Professor Davis reminds us, as we pray these words, we are transformed by them from a collection of individuals into a people, into a community. We begin with the cries deep in our own hearts, but we are not allowed to remain mired in the idiosyncrasies of our personal experience, but we are drawn into communion with all of the faithful voices who, in common prayer, pray the psalms. We become the people of God.

One more thing about the psalms. The only result they promise is to bring us to the point of praise. In the words of the psalms themselves you will not find any evidence that the psalmist’s enemies were, indeed, crushed or destroyed (despite the psalmist’s request), or that the people’s herds became miraculously prolific, or that all of our despair and brokenness will disappear like smoke in the wind. What we can say is that, in a sense, all of the psalms end in praise, either an explicit joyful expression of praise, or (in the case of the laments) a longing that sorrow, fear or despair may be transformed to praise. All of the psalms end in praise.

Praise is the acknowledgement of God’s presence… God’s presence with us, God’s presence with the world in the midst of all human conditions. Praying the psalms brings us into God’s presence, to the point of praise. "One thing have I asked of the Lord: one thing I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." "You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’ Your face, Lord will I seek." The psalmist expresses our yearning to be in the presence of God. Praying the psalms will go a long ways towards fulfilling that yearning. Praying the psalms will bring us into God’s presence, where we may raise our voices in praise.

I commend the psalms, all of the psalms, to you as a part of your Lenten discipline. They are best read slowly and out loud. There are several ways you can work your way through them if you wish. You could, of course, take the 150 psalms and divide by the 40 days of Lent (not counting Sundays). That would give you 3¾ psalms per day. As you probably know, however, the psalms vary considerably in length, so that may not be the most practical approach.

Praying the psalms is best done within the context of your personal, daily prayers. If you do not already have that habit, the Book of Common Prayer provides several options. The traditional services of Morning and Evening Prayer are at the very beginning of the book. On page 136 you’ll find much briefer outlines for "Daily Devotions for Individuals and Families". A larger portion of the psalter could certainly be included in those devotions. The Daily Office Lectionary provides for the entire psalter to be recited every seven weeks. That’s pretty close to the span of Lent. Right now we’re on page 951, the week of Last Epiphany, Year 2.

Or look at the Psalms themselves, beginning on page 585. When Thomas Cranmer put together the very first English Book of Common Prayer in 1549, he intended for the entire psalter to be read every thirty days in the course of daily morning and evening prayer. That traditional Anglican division is still maintained in our current prayer book. You’ll see the subheadings: First Day, Morning Prayer. That will get you through all of the psalms before the end of Lent.

"Your face O Lord will I seek." Whatever your personal Lenten discipline may be, I pray for you a holy Lent, a time when you may seek, and find, the face of the Lord.