When Will Restoration Come?

This morning’s scripture reading is Psalm 80, and can be found on page 419 of your pew Bibles.
I invite you to listen for the word of God.
Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel. You who led Joseph like a flock; who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine forth before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.
Awaken us to your might; come and save us.
Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.
O Lord God Almighty, how long will your anger smolder against the prayers of your people?
You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have made them drink tears by the bowlful.
You have made us a source of contention to our neighbors, and our enemies mock us.
Restore us, O God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.
You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.
You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches.
It sent out its boughs to the sea, its shoots as far as the river.
Why have you broken down its walls so that all who pass by pick its grapes?
Boars from the forest ravage it and the creatures of the field feed on it.
Return to us O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand has planted, the son you have raised up for yourself.
Your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire; at your rebuke your people perish.
Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up for yourself. Then we will not turn away from you; revive us, and we will call on your name.
Restore us, O Lord God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Sermon
Coming back to my office after the busy Christmas season that began with a trip to Haiti has not been the most pleasant of things. When I walked into my office I added another stack of papers to my desk, moved another stack of papers away from the computer key board so I could type a little bit – at some point I am going to have to organize all this chaos that has invaded my office, but I haven’t quite gotten to it yet. Maybe this week I’ll categorize my paper, put them away into files, and then, maybe in a week or so, actually deal with them.
Scholarship often deals with the psalms in a similar way – organizing the psalms into categories before dealing with what they actually mean for the community of believers.
This morning’s psalm is categorized as a lament psalm. Not a psalm of praise surely, as the words “you have fed them with the bread of tears, you have made us a source of contention to our neighbors,” are not those of thanksgiving, but of sadness and complaint.
We hear the psalmist cry out to God, voice her predicament, finding words to describe her situation – to put words to a human calamity that cannot be filed away, but must be faced and dealt with.
What makes the words of this psalm so powerful is that the words of the psalmist are in fact timeless – for humanity’s need to lament and question God has not gone away.
And so, as we look out at the world – as we look at ourselves, or as we hear testimony like that of our guests the Allenbaugh family and those of other families still suffering from a hurricane that swept through two years ago, and to use the words of journalist Brandy Wilson, “is still a flood of suffering,” we have to ask God “Why?”Why have you “fed them with the bread of tears?” For in light of such a reality the words of the psalmist make sense again, her words speak to the seemingly timeless experience of human suffering – and the need to ask God “why”. The need to ask, “When will we be restored,” “when will restoration come?”
The psalmist speaks of Israel, a nation like a vine, plucked up and liberated from the slavery of Egypt, then planted in the Promised Land after God made a place for it through Joshua’s military conquest. This vine was able to prosper by the grace of God, “the mountains were covered by its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out its boughs to the sea, its shoots to the river.”
But then God seemingly abandoned the people, the walls were broken down, and all who pass picked its grapes.
The psalmist calls for God to return, “Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Watch over this vine, the root your right hand planted, the son you raised yourself.”
And like the psalmist, we call God to restore us, asking, when will you return, when will our restoration come?
Our cities and homes were prosperous, but then the winds and rain came and would not stop. Homes were flooded, lives were lost and others put at risk, and we called out to you for help.
But did help come? We still have faith, remembering the deeds of the past, how you liberated the people from Egypt, how you led them like a flock through the sea, how you created a place for them in the Promised Land and enabled them to prosper. But today, the government seems to have given up, leaving people to fend for themselves. Providing trailers or nothing at all, while the insurance companies do little more than find loopholes. So why will you look in the other direction while your people suffer?
The psalmist voices such concerns to God – attempting to make God aware of this situation. Knowing that if God only knew how the people suffered then God would once again provide: “Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see!”
And the psalmist hopes for when God will see, providing a savior for the people. The psalmist looks to “the man at your right hand, the son of man you have raised up yourself.” The psalmist expects this man to provide redemption, liberation from the situation of want; the psalmist looks to this promised one for salvation.
And as Christians, we know this savior by name.
This savior who did not only look down from heaven on our situation, but was born in a manger and lived on earth as one of us. Who has not only observed our situation, but came to know it as his own. Who joined in our suffering – to the point of being crucified on the cross.
And the title given this King – in today’s psalm it is “the son of man.” In a sermon on John, the great United Methodist preacher, Grace Imathiu analyzes this title, saying:
“Jesus is human, he loves being human. Time and time again he calls himself human: Son of Man. And he came to teach us how to be human: Son of Man. You see, Jesus is the new beginning. Jesus is the new Adam. Jesus came to show us how God intended for us to be.”[1]
The Son of Man – the very title used by the psalmist, is the title that Jesus uses to refer to himself – the title that reflects, not Christ’s divinity or royalty, but that God chooses to be like us.
God does not choose to be like the government – fumbling through paper work or looking the other way, hoping for a scandal or celebrity romance to distract us from the failures that surround Katrina and the failure in honoring its charge to provide for those still without homes.
God does not choose to be like the insurance companies – seeking to preserve profits over care, finagling between what is flood damage and what is hurricane damage.
God choose to become one of us – knowing our pain, knowing our reality, and knowing what will truly bring restoration.
By living as one of us, God has broken the divide between the divine and the human – and broken down all hierarchy with it.
Rather than hear the psalmist’s cry to “Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see!” God walked in our shoes, and gave up his life to save us, suffering on the cross, quoting the words of another lament psalm saying, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”
And so we know that we worship a God who does not simply know our struggles, has not simply read about them or looked down on us from a heavenly throne, but who has born our struggle on God’s very body, becoming one of us.
And by becoming one of us, God affirms our humanity, and calls us to see each other as sister and brother.
By serving us, even washing the feet of those who followed him during his earthly ministry – God calls us to model such servant-hood by serving each other.
And by sacrificing God’s life for us – God calls us to sacrifice ourselves for the good of our fellow woman and man.
Only then will we become whole – by following the example of this new Adam – and we know that it is in following his example that we will know what it means to be truly human.
In doing – we model the life of Christ, and will no doubt find the restoration of a hurricane torn region too long left broken, and the restoration of our souls, too long left longing for something more.
-Amen.


[1] R. Grace Imathiu, Words of Fire, Spirit of Grace: Twelve sermons from on of the world’s best preachers