Break from Fasting

On November 15th I finished a five-day fast. Five days with no food. I drank a vitamin juice mix every night, and hot water with mineral salts during the day, as well as my usual ice Americano. My doctor said that keeping coffee is fine, as does the book he recommended. Without the coffee, I can't quite imagine getting through it all.

On the other hand, I couldn't have imagined getting through a fast like that before I started on this journey, less than four months ago.

The week after, I decided to pull back to just a three-day fast. Twenty-four hours into the fast, I gave up and had a meal. It was not just hunger, though I was hungry. I felt down. I felt weak. I felt tired. 

I had an appointment at my clinic on that Wednesday, and we talked about it for a while. They told me that I had made very remarkable progress, and that it was okay to take a rest from fasting for a few weeks. Maybe even until the end of the year. I have been reflecting on this. I am not sure that I have any conclusions, but I do have thoughts on it:

It's been hard. Eating is a central part of my life, and completely eliminating it for days at a time is stressful. I am starting to understand that much of what I think of as "hunger" is mental, conditioned by culture and my own behavior. 

At the end of the five-day fast I weighed 101.7 kg (224 lbs), which is 14 kg (almost 31 lbs) less than I did last summer. That is a lot. I have gained back four kg (8.8 lbs) in the 18 days since then. This feels dangerously close to the yo-yo effect, in which weight loss is followed by gaining it back with interest. I want to figure out how to stabilize my weight at a healthy level, so today I am starting a three-day fast. 

In 2015 or 2016 I spent some time working on a juice cleansing diet. I blended fruits and vegetables, and sometimes that's all I had for food. I think that I got down into this range of weight, but I didn't take notes. I recorded weighing 123.4 kg (272 lbs) in 2019, and wrote at the time that I was up to almost 130 kg (286 lbs), but I'm not sure of that last number. 

What I am sure of is this: my legs and feet used to hurt every night. Now they are sometimes sore if I have been walking a lot, but not enough to keep me awake at night. 

I have fewer stomach issues. Of course, while fasting I have almost no issues at all. I don't get gassy, so no air biscuits. My guts do make a fair amount of noise, especially if I'm putting a lot of water through them. But that calms down in the 2nd day. I have not had any acid reflux problems in the past few months, even after the few late and large meals I've had. 

I'm going to talk about defecation in this paragraph, and you are welcome to skip it. Some people just don't want to know anything about other people's poop, but my time in the Peace Corps pretty much destroyed that taboo for me. Since Nepal, in fact, constipation has been a very rare problem for me. (Personally, I believe that I am still carrying microbiome passengers from those days. Namaste, y'all!) So here is my insight: it is weird to not "drop a deuce" every day. Of course, it's not weird in a conservation-of-matter-and-energy sense: no solids going in means no doo-doo coming out. However, it is weird in that while fasting my morning routine felt incomplete when I fail to "drop the kids off at the pool." Now I am a bit of a regular (though still a newbie) to fasting, so being irregular in this regard feels regular. And it's kind of nice to not require the time and attention on a busy morning.

My clothes are fitting looser, but I am afraid to get rid of clothes that are too big. So far it is not a huge problem. I don't feel like I'm wearing clown suits, and some of my clothes that used to be too tight fit just fine. I am down to the 2nd to last hole in my belt, and the last hole is only a little too tight. I can button a lot of my collars that I just couldn't before, though mostly I still don't. 

I need to really believe that I will not go back to being that big again, but there is a very strong force in my brain that really wants to eat irresponsibly. One podcast I listened to called it "food noise," as in, "It's hard to focus on other things in life when the food noise is constantly distracting you: When will we eat? What will we eat? How about a snack?" I recognized food noise immediately. When I am fasting, it does not quiet down right away. The first 24 hours are rough, but it helps having the same answer to every question: "No." 

As I start this paragraph, I am 48 hours into another fast. (I started writing this entry yesterday.) I am planning for three days, but open to four. The first full day with no food was the worst, but today wasn't too bad. I think it's like exercise: when you take a long break it's hard to get back into it. If fasting were strenuous, requiring great physical effort, I would probably not be good at it. But at heart, fasting is about a kind of inaction. Weaponized laziness, if you will. My wife will be the first to tell you that I am a pro at weaponizing laziness. Even as I write this, it is partly to avoid preparing to teach class tomorrow.

That said, I do need to get back to work. While I will be pleased to find that anyone finds this interesting or useful, you should know that I am writing more for myself than anyone else. This change is happening quickly, and I want to be able to look back and understand what happened. What I did. How I changed, or failed to do so.

Not Hungry Right Now

You know what's kind of funny? I'm not really hungry right now. It's almost 10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 30th, 2024. My last food was lunch on Monday.

Quinten has the week off for fall break, and Maxine's schedule didn't start until 2 p.m., so I took them both out to Hello India! (the exclamation point is in the name, though it does reflect my excitement with the establishment). We had some really good conversation, and the food was excellent. The kids went on a mission trip this summer, and told me that they were the only kids who tried eating every food that was put in front of them. Some of the adults would, but the other kids were too picky. They both agreed that we have to revisit Hello India! (once again, not expressing my surprise, but the spelling of the establishment).

Afterwards, I felt a little sad, thinking that soon these wonderful people would some day be making their own homes, and leaving ours behind. Not that there is any set plan for that. Even Maxine is on a pretty hazy schedule. We're thinking of sending her to America to seek out her fortune, assuming that the USA doesn't go full fascist in the next couple of weeks. And Quinten is only 15 years old. But time does tend to fly.

Back to the point.

I'm not hungry right now. It's been 45 hours since my last meal. I've had a vitamin drink both evenings, because you have to take care of nutritional requirements. When my stomach does start to gurgle and complain around noon today, I will drink a hot salt and mineral water, like I did yesterday. It totally fools me into thinking that I have eaten, which is crazy when you think about it. And when I finish my iced Americano I will keep drinking water throughout the day. I will be hungry in the evening, especially if I let myself think about it, or even smell food. But it will not be overwhelming.

I am in the middle of a three- or four-day fast. It is my third. And I have learned some interesting things:

1) The level of my hunger does not keep increasing the longer I don't eat. By dinnertime after my last lunch, I felt hungry, and again the next morning. But it was the same hunger. Now that I am writing about it, my stomach is growling, and I do feel hungry. The only thing that has really changed in the last half hour is that I am writing, and therefor thinking about it. My conclusion:

2) Hunger is mostly in my mind. I've heard this idea, and read it before, but now I am learning it in a way that I did not learn in previous fasting.

I used to fast before Easter, though not every year. No food on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, then I would go nuts on Sunday, as though I were the one who had been raised from the dead and had to get over it. The lesson I took away was, "Being hungry sucks!" It was a constant battle with myself to get through it, and I stopped doing it many years ago because it was just too hard. But guess what?

3) I do have the will power to just not eat. I didn't think that I did. I thought that my appetite was a force of nature, and honestly speaking, I love eating. (This is really gonna roil up the stomach, but here goes!) Salty, crunchy, savory, juicy, bring it on! Sweet? Come on in! Sour, why not? Bitter? I've been taking my coffee without sugar or milk for years now. I like eating. When I'm bored, when I'm worried or upset, when I just need comfort, I eat. I prefer the good stuff, but I'll eat a lousy convenience store sandwich and a bag of chips and some M&Ms and enjoy it all.

But here I am, not eating today. Didn't eat yesterday. Won't eat tomorrow. I'm not sure what the difference is. It might be that I made one big choice about food that covered three days. I don't have to make the little choices of what food to eat, or whether to go get a snack. One thing that has really helped is that...

4) Having someone to help really makes it possible. I've been going to an Oriental Medicine Clinic (feels a bit wrong to say that, but it's how everyone translates it) for the past couple of months. I am doing this fast under their direction and with their support. This current fast is the culmination of what I've done so far.

5) Monitoring my health throughout the process made me more confident, and completely eliminated worrying about the health impact of fasting. At the clinic, they hook me up to a machine with metal clamps on my wrists and ankles. (I know, I was thinking the same thing: Is this machine actually going to make quacking noises?) It measured a lot of things, including muscle mass and balance (upper/lower, left/right), fat percentage, size of fat cells, and more. They put me on it every time I visit, to track my progress. Frankly, I don't have a lot of faith in the machine, but I do have faith in the doctor who trusts it. If it's a placebo, I'm going to let it work for me. I measure my blood sugar every day, and do a home urine test every two weeks. I also do a ketone test at the end of the 72-hour fasts. I'm still learning about ketones, so I don't feel confident enough to say more than that right now.

6) Having a trustworthy plan makes a big difference. A couple of years ago I decided to try intermittent fasting. I pretty much eliminated breakfast from my routine, and I did lose some weight. But I hit a plateau, and got stuck. I didn't know what to do next, and felt like cutting more would take too much will power, and be too painful (see points 1, 2 and 3). Here is a quick summary of the steps the doctor put me on:

A)  No snacking. No sweet drinks. (Ah, snacking, I miss you so much! But without you, I could see results almost immediately.)

B) Monitor my own blood glucose (sugar) every morning. Part of this program includes a home testing kit. I can see my results getting better day by day. After a couple of weeks, and coming back in to monitor my condition and see what my baseline looks like...

C) Attempt a 24-hour fast: eat lunch one day, then nothing until lunch the next. The next couple of days, eat like normal. I did not find this too onerous, though I would hardly call it pleasant. I was really ready for lunch the next day! After three successful 24-hour fasts,

D) Three 24-hour fasts in a row (a.k.a. the 3-day 24-hour fast). If the hunger becomes unbearable, have a hard-boiled egg. Then three or four days of eating normally (which for me still did not include breakfast). I managed this one fairly easily. Again, I felt hungry for a lot of the time. I didn't realize that I was training myself to get accustomed to hunger.

E) The 72-hour partial fast. Lunch on one day, then a real dinner three days later (so more like 78 hours, but best to keep it simple). For the middle two days, they gave me a little meal-supplement drink mix to have for lunch. It tasted like a handful of low-calorie Cheerios ground up and mixed with water, and looked only slightly worse than it sounds. But wow, it hit the spot! The fast was rough, but that was when I started to see that my hunger did not actually grow over time. It was very interesting to have food related activities disappear from my schedule: the time I spend on getting and eating food adds up. And let's just say that it cuts down on my usual morning bathroom time. 

F) The 72-hour full fast. My first one was last week. I got a headache the 3rd day that came and went, but it wasn't bad. I had forgotten to pack my salt water, so that may have been part of it. But I fully succeeded in fasting for three days. 

Weird things happen with a fast like that. Your digestive system eventually looks around, shrugs its shoulders, and goes into hibernation. I never noticed how often my stomach was "talking" to me until it went quiet. I do not think of myself as an overly gassy person, but my fart frequency dropped way off as well. Which is kind of sad, in a way. When I returned to eating, I felt bloated and sluggish. I certainly enjoyed the eating, but not so much the feeling afterwards. I am trying to be mindful of this, because a day or two after the fast is finished, I no longer notice it. 

I believe that during the fast my mind works better as well. I can still get into a doom scroll, but I can also sit down and work on a Roblog post for two hours (with occasional breaks to stand up and move around). I have a couple of big tasks today, as well as an hour of students testing, and I feel up to the challenge.

Now I am on day three of my second 72-hour fast. It is almost noon, and I just started in on my hot salt water. My ice Americano still has some coffee flavor, but it is pretty watered down at this point. The hot salt water feels like food to me. It's less than a tablespoon of salt, and I find that if I keep adding hot water after drinking some of it, it can be satisfying for quite a while. I may make this a 4-day fast, if I do not feel dizzy, or weak as it continues.

My good friend Rick asked me if this lifestyle is sustainable. Honestly, I can imagine fasting a few days every week for the rest of my life. I can even imagine doing longer fasts. I've lost a lot of weight on this program so far, but the doctor assures me that it will not shoot back up if I stay on the program.

Honestly, there is a lot to unpack with this. I've stayed away from mentioning my weight, but it has gone down. I haven't talked about my mood, and it has been complicated. All that will have to be for another day.

Sermon, Psalm 82

This sermon is the second of three I delivered in the summer of 2024. I was happy with everything except for the title. I should have called it "Ignore the Little Gods." The video for my sermon starts at about 23 minutes. I will note that my stated goal was for the sermon to last 20 minutes, and my final time was about half an hour. But hey, on YouTube you can speed up the playback. Feel free to do so, or to not listen at all. 

As usual, the actual sermon I delivered on the day was a little different from this manuscript. Losing my place in the reading, responding to the energy of the congregation, and just plain misspeaking are the main culprits. Finding the differences between the manuscript and the video recording I leave as an exercise for you, dear reader. 

Psalm 82: The Obstacles in Front of Us

Robert Sack July 28^th, 2024

Holy Joy English Worship Service

God has taken his place in the divine council;

in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

“How long will you judge unjustly

and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;

maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

Rescue the weak and the needy;

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

They have neither knowledge nor understanding,

they walk about in darkness;

all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I said, “You are gods,

sons of the Most High, all of you;

nevertheless, like men you shall die,

and fall like any prince.”

Arise, O God, judge the earth;

for you shall inherit all the nations!        Psalm 82:1-8

Prayer

God who gives justice, Spirit who gives life, Jesus who gives salvation, bring your gifts to us your people, amen.

Introduction

When Frank and I decided to preach a series on the Psalms, Psalm 82 was not on my radar at all. It came up in one of my daily devotionals, and it immediately got my attention because of the following:

1. To modern eyes and ears, it is weird. Like, really weird. This “divine council” sounds like Greek mythology, with Zeus and Hera and Poseidon and all the other gods sitting around in togas talking about whatever gods talk about.

2. It’s also kind of cool. Like they could have snuck some of this into a Marvel movie and no one would have noticed.

3. Honestly, I didn’t understand this psalm after reading it just once. Or twice. On my own, it was just too confusing, like one of those puzzle boxes where you need to know the trick for opening it. I needed help to get through this one.

4. Since when do we believe that other gods exist? How do we deal with Our God talking to other gods when we believe that Our God is the only god?

5. How is this relevant to us today? Again, It feels old and weird and mythical, not connected to modern life at all.

To some people, these would be reasons to avoid talking about a passage of scripture. But I like unlocking a tricky door, especially if I can bring a bunch of friends through it with me. One of my goals today is to connect your life directly to this weird, old song. I’m going to start with a little direct interpretation by translation.

Translation

My first translation trick will be choosing different words. Words that are easier for us to understand. You can already find many different translations of this Psalm, online or in books. I am just taking what I like from them and trying to make the ideas clearer for us. It’s not my goal to replace the words of the Bible, but to help us to understand them better.

My second translation trick will be assigning the words to different physical characters, so it’s easier for us to see who is talking, and to whom they are speaking. Psalm 82 has three characters. The first character is a narrator who helps to explain what is happening. I will be the narrator. The second character is God. Igor has graciously agreed to help me out by reading the part of God. This was a big thing to ask, and I am very grateful to him. Thank you, Igor. The third part in Psalm 82 is the gods of the divine council. These gods never speak. You, the congregation, will play that part. Your only job is to be silent, as God speaks to you. Just like in the psalm. So, let’s begin:

Narrator: Your attention, please. The LORD has called for a trial! The LORD will be judging… the gods of the Divine Council. The LORD is about to speak!

God: [to congregation] Listen up, you “gods”: How long will you judge without justice, and do favors for the wicked?

[waits silently]

Your job is to give justice to the weak, to care for orphans, to protect the victims and the poor, to help those in need, to save them from the wicked! So do it!

God: [to Narrator] I called them gods, but like people, they shall die. Every power on Earth comes to an end. They will also come to an end.

Narrator: Do it, God! Judge them and judge the Earth! The whole world belongs to you!

It really helped me to understand Psalm 82 when I visualized it, and I hope that it helps you as well.

Vocabulary: “little gods”

I don’t want to go too far into the weeds on the word “God” today, so I’ll keep this short. “God” in verse one, is sometimes translated as “The LORD” in all capital letters, which means Yahweh, I AM. I will use “The LORD,” in this sermon to refer to the God who we usually talk about in church. I have decided to refer to the gods of this Divine Council as “little gods,” to distinguish them from The LORD. “Little” reflects both the spelling, which you can’t hear, and The LORD’s judgment on them.

Worship

The very idea of “little gods” brings us naturally to my biggest question: why does Psalm 82 talk about these other gods, when we believe that The LORD is the one and only true God? One answer, (and I believe there is more than one answer to this question), one answer lies in worship. Not just “worship” in the sense of a worship service, like this one, but something simpler.

By “worship,” I mean spending time and resources on things that we don’t need to survive. We consider some things more important than others. We even build our lives around some of them. The list of things that humans worship is long and varied. It includes entertainment, pleasure, family, friends, power over others, perfection, comfort, beauty, social status, and sometimes even The Lord. Nobody can worship just one thing. We divide our worship among this and that, mixing different targets.

Some things we worship as individuals, and some things we worship together, in groups. We will have to talk about individual worship some other time. Once again, my goal is to keep this under 20 minutes, and Psalm 82 is really about collective worship.

A Note on Psalms

I’ve talked about this before, but I want to remind you that a Psalm is a song, and a song is a kind of poem. Poems use imagery, which we all saw earlier. Images in a poem often stand in for other things, and invite interpretation. Which is what I am doing now.

Collective Worship

I believe that these “little gods” are some of the things that society worships collectively. In other words, a large number of people believe and focus on them. A society can collectively worship “freedom,” or “creativity,” or “loyalty,” or “control.” Or even K-Pop! Another word for this collective worship is culture! For example, Americans worship “Independence,” so much so that we have a holiday in July named after it that we celebrate with explosions!

These Little gods are not inherently bad, until they receive too much power. The little god “freedom” does not automatically make trouble. But when “freedom” has too much power, its worshipers refuse to wear face masks during a pandemic. Then “freedom” is walking around in the dark, causing chaos. I love the little god “creativity” and often give my time and resources to it. But when the worshipers of “creativity” make up stories that incite violence against a group of people, then the little god creativity is shaking the foundations of the earth.

The “foundations of the earth” in verse 5 of this poem are not the land on which we build our cities. The true foundations are The Lord’s values: Justice and Peace. In Psalm 82, The LORD is judging the little gods based on how the weakest people in society are treated.

Bad little gods

Any of the little gods can get out of control, but some of the little gods are born troublemakers. People do judge others without justice. People do give favor to the wicked. But why? What drives this kind of injustice? What makes people help a bad person and punish a good person? Why would we say that someone who hurts other people is a good person?

In Biblical (and modern) times, injustice is often driven by greed: a wicked person with money can hire the best lawyers, drag out trials, and avoid spending time in jail, while poor people can be thrown in jail for not paying a fine. In other words, we punish people for being poor. This is the behavior that The LORD is scolding in verse 2.

Let me share a more complicated, modern example. I am reading a book, called “Stolen Focus,” about why people today, like you and me, have so much trouble thinking and interacting with each other.

One reason that people have gotten worse at social interactions is because of our favorite social media companies. There is a company that hosts videos for free, on which you may be watching this sermon. When they suggest the next video for you to watch, they use algorithms. These algorithms do not think, they just notice what makes people stay on the website or in the app. Do you know what kind of videos make most people stay longer? Videos that make you angry or afraid. Fear and anger make most people want to watch more.

There are social media sites that let you share your personal news with others. If you do not search for specific news, guess what they show you? That’s right, news that makes you upset. Because when you are upset, you stay.

The owners and programmers know that these algorithms are not good for our mental health. They know that their products are tearing society apart, distracting people from positive parts of their lives, and making them believe lies. They are shaking the foundations of the world. Ask the owners and programmers if they allow their children free access to social media. They don’t. They know that they are pouring poison into the well of society.

Why do they do it? Why do we let them do it? Why do we reward them by using their apps, investing in their stocks, and not making laws to cut off the poison at its source?

The answer is simple: Because they make money. They make lots of money. Advertisers know that if they sell ads on these platforms, they will bring in piles of money. People use these platforms because they are free, so they save money. New laws are passed or shot down depending on who spends the most money. Money is the little god at the center of this, and many other problems. Money has become a powerful little god, and it is hurting everyone. Everyone except the people who have a lot of money, that is.

Of course, money is not the only bad little god in our world. Fear, prejudice, popularity, control. I’m sure you can think of others.

God’s Judgment

But there is good news: The LORD has judged these little gods, and condemned them to death. The world was founded on Wisdom, and these little gods have neither knowledge nor understanding. The world began with Light, and these little gods are walking about in darkness, shaking the foundations of the world. The LORD will not tolerate it. The trouble that humans have made for themselves will not last forever. On the other hand, God has not yet wiped them out. We are still dealing with these little gods today.

So what hope do we have for the present? What can we do right now? I believe that the answer is in the word we use to describe ourselves. What religion are we?

The Witness of Jesus

What does the word “Christian” mean to you? The dictionary says a Christian is someone who believes the teachings of Jesus. Which is okay, I guess. But the original Greek word, Christianos, means someone who follows the messiah. Not just someone who believes that Jesus was really cool and awesome, but someone who follows Jesus, trying to do what Jesus did, the way that Jesus did it.

Jesus is The LORD’s demonstration of how a god walks the earth properly. Jesus did not stumble around blindly, leaving a trail of broken people behind him. Jesus followed the trail of broken people left by the little gods. His eyes were open to the pain and suffering of humans, and he was moved by it. When Jesus saw pain, he brought healing. When Jesus saw hunger, he gave bread. And when Jesus saw people who were being crushed by the weight of their sins, he forgave them.

You know, Jesus actually quotes Psalm 82 when the Pharisees accuse him of blasphemy, for claiming to be the son of God. I believe that Jesus is taking his place as a proper role model, showing what it means to walk the earth in peace.

Don’t forget what Jesus said from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” We don’t realize that we are creating and maintaining these little gods. Little gods that can, and do, crush us.

Our Choices

The little gods are doomed. The LORD will surely prevail. In the meantime, we are caught in the middle, between the chaos that we have created, and a savior that we don’t deserve. We do have a choice, though: to side with The LORD, or to embrace the little gods that we have created.

My family has tried to live without worshiping this little god, money. It is hard. It has caused us problems. It is causing us problems now.

As a society, we rarely stop to ask some very important questions: Why is money more important than happiness, health, and safety? Why does our society believe that money is more important? Why do so many people agree to push our children so hard to get into the best schools, so that they can get the best jobs, so that they can have the best lives; even though most people agree that justice and mercy, kindness and humility, are worth more than money?

Standing with The LORD in opposition to the little gods will cost you. It may cost you friends, money, or reputation. Just remember that The LORD has already declared victory over the little gods.

Conclusion

At first glance, Psalm 82 looks like nothing more than an irrelevant, old, mythical play. It is old, and it is mythical, but it is anything but irrelevant to us today. It gives us the language and framework to better understand the struggle for the world that we are living in.

You may have noticed that Psalm 82 is written in the present tense, as though the action were happening right now. Right now as in when the Psalmist wrote it, but also right now as in July of 2024! The kingdom of Heaven is at hand! The psalmist saw it and proclaimed it, and we also see it and proclaim it!

The little gods of ancient Israel are not that different from our little gods today. We make, give power, and bow down to these little gods by agreeing together that we will not examine them too closely. We all get behind Aaron and his story about the golden calf walking out of the fire on its own. We collectively buy into the lie that the way things are is just the way they have to be.

The little gods will not prevail, because Our God, The LORD, the great I AM, has told us that they will fall. The question for you is, will you cling to the little gods as they are being destroyed? Or will you live as though they were already gone?

Prayer

Lord, the victory is yours. We can neither help you nor stop you. Give us the wisdom and strength to turn away from the little gods. Open our eyes to see the beauty in you. Open our hearts to feel the pleasure of your love. Open our hands to share your love with those around us. Amen.

Sermon, Psalm 126

This is the last of three sermons I prepared and delivered in the summer of 2024.

It was a pleasure to preach on the Psalms, and I liked the way the three that I chose fit together loosely, almost like there was a plan I was not aware of.

The video is here. It starts with a short prayer, then a longer prayer, then a reading of the scripture, If you enjoy hearing me talk and be awkward in front of other people, tune in for all of it. The scripture reading starts at minute 31, the sermon a couple of minutes after that.

Psalm 126: God’s Future

August 11^th, 2024 Ttangeut Church, Holy Joy English Service

1 When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

we were like those who dream.

2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter

and our tongue with shouts of joy;

then it was said among the nations,

“The Lord has done great things for them.”

3 The Lord has done great things for us,

and we rejoiced.

4 Restore our fortunes, O Lord,

like the watercourses in the Negeb.

5 May those who sow in tears

reap with shouts of joy.

6 Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves.

Introduction

Welcome to my last sermon of the summer. Back when Frank and I decided to do a series on Psalms, number 126 was not on my radar. Like Psalm 82, it appeared in my daily devotionals, and caught my attention, but not quite the same way: I didn’t see a puzzle that I wanted to help us solve together. Instead, I saw a beautiful little gem of a poem that just needed to be appreciated. Not just the fantastic imagery, but the deeper beauty of Truth. Psalm 126 is a reflection of the nature of God’s universe, reminding us of the path we are on.

Okay, it does have a little puzzle, and a bit of weird cultural stuff.

As an added bonus, by the time I had all three of my psalm choices next to each other, I noticed that they also made a clever pattern of past, present and future. I also had some personal connections with this psalm, which I will share with you later.

Truth

Let’s start with the Truth. On my first reading of Psalm 126, I noticed immediately that verse 1 talks about how The LORD restored the fortunes of Zion, or Israel. But then halfway through, in verse 4, the psalmist is asking The LORD to restore their fortunes again. The first half has laughter, the second half has tears. Tears, but also that request, to bring back joy. There is a deep truth in Psalm 126. It is so important to see it, and to recognize it: the Truth is that we will not always be happy. The Way to the Kingdom of Heaven has sadness, weeping, anger and loss, as well as rejoicing and laughter, peace and comfort. Just look at the story of the Exodus:

When God’s people were slaves in Egypt, God heard their cries and led them out! They messed up bad in the desert, but God did not destroy them! God led them to the promised land! They were afraid to go in and take it, and they suffered for that, but God delivered them into Canaan! We saw in Psalm 78 that God never gave up on Israel, no matter how many times they turned away, and we see that in our past as well!

Why does suffering always come? Whenever we become comfortable, humans set up little gods, as we saw in Psalm 82. It is part of our sinful nature. Those little gods stumble around in the dark, shaking the foundations of the world. That’s when we realize that we need The Real God, The LORD. That’s when we call on The LORD, just like the psalmist, “Restore our fortunes, Oh LORD! Arise and take your place! We will not forget the lessons of our ancestors!”

Psalm 126 is so beautiful because it is both a cry for the gospel, and an affirmation that the gospel is real. The first half says that God made it all good, and the second half asks God to come and make it all good again. “The LORD restored our fortunes! Restore our fortunes again, O LORD!”

I want to be clear: this cycle of fortunes lost and restored is not creation being stuck in one place! Every restoration in the Old Testament pointed toward Jesus, and Jesus told us that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand! Our little gods want us to look down and believe that the world is going to hell. They don’t want us to see that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, that The LORD will restore our fortunes and more!

That is the beautiful truth of Psalm 126. The Psalmist can call on God, because God is near. God hears. God cares. God will respond.

And of course, there will be an ultimate bringing in of sheaves, when there are no more tears of sadness, but only tears of joy. When there is laughter and shouts of joy, as well as content silence, but no more pain.

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Both near and far. Sometimes right in our midst.

Sentiment

I will be honest with you. The main reason that I chose Psalm 126 was the last line, about bringing in sheaves with shouts of joy. My mind immediately went back to my childhood, singing, “We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!” It took me back to First Christian Church of Leavenworth, KS, when I was a child. The memories are mostly happy, but tinged with sadness. I grew up with so many church grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. People who taught me about the love and grace of Jesus by loving me and accepting me. Many of them are still there, but many are gone. I have missed funerals, weddings, and children growing up. When I visit my home church, it is mostly happy, but sad, because it is no longer my home.

The song we sang earlier, “Bringing in the Sheaves,” was comforting for me then, and it still is:

Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,

Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;

When our weeping’s over, He will bid us welcome,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

I used to think that my sadness came from living so far from home, in a foreign country. I considered my sadness to be mostly the result of my choices. Then I moved back to America in 2007, and lived there with my family for four years. The sadness followed me there. I found that even if you stay in the same town your whole life, you are still constantly moving: into the future, leaving people and things behind. “Bringing in the Sheaves” reminds us that sadness will come, but then the chorus reminds us of the truth:

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves;

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Rejoicing, I understood. Sheaves, not so much.

Culture

So here are the puzzling parts of Psalm 126: First, vocabulary. “Sheaves” was kind of a strange word that did not connect with me when I was young, even after learning what they were: bundles of grain, usually wheat, sometimes corn or barley. A sheaf is a normal farming tool. Of course bringing them in would be a happy time, because that meant that you had food. But why would sowing seeds be a sad thing?

One reason could be that when a farmer is sowing their fields, they are literally throwing away grain. Grain is food. When we decide to plant a seed, that is grain that we cannot eat. Or feed to our family. It is an immediate loss. The very action of sowing looks a lot like throwing something away. Trusting it to the earth, that the earth will return more than it has taken. When we love, when we give, it feels like the same kind of risk: throwing away something that may never come back.

Now, if we read this poem with Old Testament eyes, we imagine these rich, beautiful, precious seeds. Scattered. Thrown out in all directions. Maybe we think of Babylon, or Syria, scattering the people and resources of Israel. Or maybe we think of Babel, the people scattered to the ends of the Earth. It is a poem, after all, and images can mean many things.

Personal Connection

In the past few weeks I have been blessed by an even more personal connection to this psalm. Frankly, it is the kind of blessing that I would rather avoid. This coming Wednesday my family is moving to a new home. Sometimes moving is an exciting, fresh start, but it’s always a lot of work. We have had our share of those moves, but this time is different. We are moving in with my wife’s parents because we can’t afford to stay where we live now. To an American, such as myself, moving in with parents feels like failure. Defeat. As our moving date has gotten closer, I have been praying to God, “Restore our fortunes, O LORD! Do great things for us! Now please!” I have been unwilling to accept this change. Psalm 126 came along at the right time to remind me that God has restored the fortune of my family before, so many times, in so many ways. But I’ve had trouble remembering.

As our family has decided which things to keep and which to give or throw away, my wife has led the way to rejoicing. She has found people who need so many of our things, and we have made people happy by giving our stuff away. Sometimes reaping with joy is more about your attitude in giving than actually receiving something. We must choose to ignore the little god, who tells you that the more stuff you have, the better you are.

Thank you to my wife, for leading by example, and teaching me an important lesson about Psalm 126. I had been studying it for weeks, but I needed her story to remind me that God’s reality is THE reality!

Application

The stories we tell ourselves matter. We come here to share stories like Psalm 126 because when God’s stories are on our mind, we see the world, and other people, the way that God sees them: with love and compassion. That includes compassion for ourselves! I am not quite ready to rejoice at this family move, but I am closer. Psalm 126 reminds me that the weeping is natural, but that rejoicing will come. So I take hope. And I am confident that the story of the Sack Family moving in with their grandparents will become a story of God’s goodness and love for all of us. We will be bringing in the sheaves before we know it.

Conclusion

Once again we have a beautiful song poem from thousands of years ago that still sheds light on our path today, just as it has for all those years. The Psalmist reminds us that here on earth we will not always be happy, because that is not how God created the universe. Fortunes will always be lost and restored.

We can take comfort in times of misfortune, knowing that God has given and that God will continue to give. But more importantly, in times of fortune, we know that it will not last forever. The world tells us that our current fortune is a reflection of who we are: the rich deserve to be rich, and the poor deserve to be poor. But Jesus tells us, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

The little gods, the ones we created, are wrong. We know that our value is not based on our possessions or power. Our value comes from God, from being created in the image of God. So we tell each other and ourselves the story of how God will turn weeping to laughter.

Rather than seeing ourselves as a reflection of our circumstances, we see ourselves as images of God. And like God, we can be willing to sow, to give up part of ourselves. To die to ourselves, because we know that water will come to the desert again. Life will bloom and flourish and explode into a space that seems to be dead.

Let us pray: Lord, give us the wisdom to truly hear your stories. Restore our fortunes, as you always have, as you always will. Amen.

Bringing in the Sheaves

Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,

Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve;

Waiting for the harvest, and the time of reaping,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Refrain:

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves;

Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,

Fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze;

By and by the harvest, and the labor ended,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Going forth with weeping, sowing for the Master,

Though the loss sustained our spirit often grieves;

When our weeping’s over, He will bid us welcome,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.

Sermon, Psalm 78

Here is my latest project, the first of three sermons I will be delivering this summer.

The sermon itself is about 30 minutes long, and starts only a minute or so into the video. In the church service, I played my euphonium with the praise team, and there were prayers and other stuff. I enjoy playing my horn during church, but I think it's just a bit too much to do it on Sundays when I am preaching. It wasn't too stressful, but it did not leave time for me to talk to people before the service.

Here is my manuscript. There's a little adlibbing in the recording, but the main ideas stick pretty closely to the script.

The Path Behind Us: Psalm 78

July 14th, 2024

Ttangkkeut Church Holy Joy English Service

Introduction

When Frank and I decided to do a series on Psalms, I already had this one in mind: Psalm 78. The first two verses were memory verses at my previous church, and I took delight in memorizing them:

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;

incline your ears to the words of my mouth!

I will open my mouth in a parable;

I will utter dark sayings from of old…

I love words in general. Nothing makes me quite as happy as expressing an idea as perfectly as possible, introducing my thoughts into your mind using nothing more than these clumsy sounds that come out of my mouth, or a combination of letters on a page.

I also love it when someone else does the same thing. I love reading, and can easily be taken to far places and times by words on the page. And these words from our scripture today, words about words, about ”dark sayings from of old,” and inclining your ears… I found them almost magical. An invitation to visit a world very different from our own.

So I have had Psalm 78 in mind for a long time. I even set out to memorize the whole thing. I got a little more than halfway through before giving it up in favor of just being able to read it on my phone whenever I want to. This is an enormous privilege, which all of us share. However, for most of history, people have not had easy, immediate access to the words of the Bible. Which leads us to the purpose of Psalm 78.

On the Path

The first commentary I looked at told me what I already knew: this is a history Psalm. (The second commentary basically said, “No, it isn’t!” but I’m trying to keep this sermon under 20 minutes. Maybe next time.) In a time when most people were not literate, stories and songs were the best way to share history and identity. For people to know who they were. You couldn’t take home a history book, much less look up things on the internet. What you could do was sing along with everyone, the way we sing together here. In fact, our singing today also helps us to know who we are:

“In His Time,” a reminder of God’s patience.

“Here is Love,” a reminder of God’s love.

“Here I Am, Lord,” a reminder that we are called to action, and

“I Love to Tell the Story,” a reminder that stories like Psalm 78 are at the heart of who we are: God’s People.

Sometimes all we need is a small reminder, a sign, but in the long run, we need to hear stories about how other people connect with God.

To be clear, if you are sitting here in church today, or watching on YouTube, or reading my words, there is a path that brought you here. That path is a testament to the faith of God, just as Psalm 78 is. In fact, to some people, your path will mean more than this path from 3000 years ago. For someone who does not already trust the Bible, your path will be a believable testimony, because you are standing right there, talking about what you have experienced. And of course, part of your experience will be with the Bible itself, and learning to trust it. Learning to see that you and I are on the same path that Israel was on so many, many years ago.

The Meaning of Parable

So Psalm 78 is a “History” Psalm, a partial map of how God literally traveled with Israel. It is important to remember that history is never just a list of facts or events. The point of history, especially in pre-modern times, was to form identity. To send a message. Maybe more than one. Therefore we know that the Psalmist has chosen the events of this song carefully. 

I want to draw your attention to the words “parable” and “dark sayings.” There is some disagreement as to what exactly these words mean, but most scholars agree that it has something to do with wisdom, and parables often hide wisdom in stories. The wisdom of Psalm 78 is not spelled out for us, but we can be sure that something is there. We are forced to work to find meaning in this story. 

Or maybe one of us works for it, then shares his ideas with everyone. Maybe standing in front of a group of people on a Sunday afternoon. In other words, if you read Psalm 78 as I asked you to do, and saw little more than a short version of Exodus and a hint of Joshua and Samuel, you are not alone. But in boiling all this history down to a handful of scenes, the Psalmist calls our attention to some important lessons.

God’s Mercy at Work

When I say a handful of scenes, I mean about 15, not including the introduction. I divided Psalm 78 into scenes so that almost every scene has just one action. And there are really only two actors in this drama: God, and God’s People, Israel. King David and Egypt are mentioned, but Egypt is just a memory, and David is more of a promise at the end. 

So 15 scenes. As I summarized each scene, it struck me that each could be put into one of three categories, with only slight variation in detail.

1. The People Rebel against God. They disobey God (9-11), they test God by doubting out loud that God will give them what they need (17-20), they do not seek God (32-37), they grieve and provoke God (40-41), and they turn away from God, worshiping idols (56-58). Five scenes in total.

2. God gets angry. First, he is full of wrath and a fire is kindled, but God does not act on this anger. (21-22) The second time, he kills “the strongest of them.” His anger goes out, but not to all of the people. The third time is a memory of the plagues that God delivered on Egypt, which the people had forgotten. I did not count the forgetting as one of their rebellions, but I could have. The last anger of God in Psalm 78 is in response to their idols, when God abandoned his dwelling place at Shiloh and his people. This is the messy time before Saul becomes King. (59-64) Altogether God’s anger is expressed in four scenes.

3. God shows mercy and gives grace in seven scenes. God establishes the nation of Israel (5-7). God leads the people out of Egypt, parts the Red Sea, manifests as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and gives them water in the desert (12-16). God gave them food abundantly (23-29). God atoned for them, and restrained his anger (38+39). God redeemed Israel from Egypt (42-51). God led the people to the Promised Land (52-55). God kicked out the invaders (65-66) and chose David to shepherd God’s flock (70-72).

Your count for God’s Grace may be different from mine, and that’s fine. Remember, I have a message as well. But it is clear to me that the psalmist is drawing our attention to the grace and mercy of God above all else. In this Psalm, the people never do right by God. They certainly do not earn God’s Grace and Mercy. The only thing that they do right is following God out of Egypt, but the emphasis in Psalm 78 is on God leading them out of Egypt.

The Affect on God

I believe that the Psalmist included God’s anger here in part to show the depth and breadth of God’s Grace. We all understand that it is much harder to be kind to someone you are angry at. The psalmist is showing that Israel was really getting on God’s nerves, which makes God’s patience all the more amazing. But the most moving part for me was verse 40.

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert!

They grieved God, as we so often do. Yes, it’s time to put ourselves where we belong in this story: grieving God in the wilderness.

God is Always Faithful

In my youth, I found the story of Israel’s behavior during and after the Exodus to be puzzling: How could they see God’s hand at work and still doubt? Let’s read together (verses 12-16):

In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders

    in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.

He divided the sea and let them pass through it,

    and made the waters stand like a heap.

In the daytime he led them with a cloud,

    and all the night with a fiery light.

He split rocks in the wilderness

    and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.

He made streams come out of the rock

    and caused waters to flow down like rivers.

Walking across the bottom of the Red Sea! Water in the desert, enough for thousands of people and their animals to drink! Remember, they came out of Egypt, where water was the center of life! The Egyptians worshiped the Nile and structured their lives around its seasons. But now Israel is following a God who simply pushes the sea out of the way, and pulls life from rocks!

On top of that, God literally led them as a column of smoke by day and fire by night! Think about that: for most of the Bible, God is invisible. But for weeks God was directly in front of these people, leading them out of captivity by completely humiliating the most powerful nation of their time! But what is their response? (verses 17-20)

Yet they sinned still more against him,

    rebelling against the Most High in the desert.

They tested God in their heart

    by demanding the food they craved.

They spoke against God, saying,

    “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?

He struck the rock so that water gushed out

    and streams overflowed.

Can he also give bread

    or provide meat for his people?”

As a child, I did not understand this cynical attitude. Children easily believe that their parents can do anything, because their parents have already done everything for them. But as we get older, we see that our parents can’t do everything. We may even doubt that they can actually do anything.

We do this with God. Instead of focusing on what God has done for us, we list all the things that God has not done for us: a bigger apartment, a nicer car, a better job, children that behave perfectly. We forget that God has given us a place to live, the means to move around, work that sustains us, and a family to love.

I have not just seen this over and over, I have lived it. I have felt God’s love, grace and peace in my life, and later doubted. I have seen wonders in the desert, yet asked, “Can God make a way for me?” When there was sand in my shoes, and I had nothing to drink but water from a rock, and nothing to eat but the bread of heaven, I dared to look around and say, “If there really is a God, can’t he do better than this?”

And what is God’s response? (verses 38-39) Please read with me:

Yet he, being compassionate,

    atoned for their iniquity

    and did not destroy them;

he restrained his anger often

    and did not stir up all his wrath.

He remembered that they were but flesh,

    a wind that passes and comes not again.

Conclusion

Psalm 78 is an amazing poem, a window with a broad view of the story of God and humans. It reminds us that most stories involving God are anything but straightforward. Walter Brueggeman writes that, “In recital of memory there is hope for the future.” Psalm 78 reminds us of that hope. 

Though we can never fully appreciate the artistry and beauty of this song, we can appreciate, and take heart in, the themes: Whatever our failings, God is faithful. However often we turn away, God turns towards us. Even when we forget the works that God has done in our lives, God has not forgotten us. God remembers that we are but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.

 Remember your past. Remember the past of God’s people. Take hope. Amen.