THROUGH A DRY AND WEARY LAND
Celtic Worship - March 11, 2007

TEXT:
Psalm 63:1-8

O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

A Roman Catholic priest whose parish was located in a Protestant-dominated section of Belfast was once asked, “Is it true that in this neighborhood, if you carry a cross, you never have to worry?” The priest said, “Yes. But it all depends on how fast you carry it!”
           
Where you are makes a difference of what and how you see. A Catholic in Protestant Ulster has a different point of view from his counterpart in Ireland or in America. One’s environment can determine one’s perspective on life. Landscapes can shape the culture, mores, and spiritual perspective of its inhabitants.
           
The wilderness of Judaea is a stark and lonely landscape, a fierce  and desolate area in which there is little to sustain life. The psalmist calls it a “dry and weary land where there is no water.” It becomes a metaphor for the desolation of the human heart that seeks to find God, whose soul thirsts for a God that is apparently absent. Because it is often difficult to express that spiritual dimension of our lives, that hungering after God, we tend to ignore it and try to fill our lives with other things that we say are important to us, and yet we know that in the end they really aren’t.
           
In the Academy Award-winning film Amadeus there is a scene where the lesser Viennese composer, Salieri, reflected on why Mozart's music was so powerful. He said, with a combination of jealousy and wistfulness, that what characterized Mozart's music was such a sense of longing and yearning, such an unfulfilled desire that cried out through his music. It seemed as if Mozart was hearing the very voice of God and was striving with every fiber of his phenomenal genius to express musically what he had heard from God. He was a man who longed for another world, and his music was a result of that yearning.
           
Like David we have a sense of the presence of God, but an there is an uncertainty as to how we to discern God’s voice speaking to us. We are created with an emptiness, a yearning, a longing deep inside us. "My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water," the psalmist wrote. It is a common thread that runs through the Psalms—"My soul thirsts for the living God," the human heart pines for God, yearns for God, longs for God.
           
The philosopher Pascal concluded that there is a God-shaped empty space in every human heart. In his recent biography of Saint Augustine, Garry Wills observes that the brilliant thinker was a tireless seeker who was never satisfied, that he paced about as he dictated to his copyists and stenographers, that there was an intellectual restlessness about him and an attraction to mystery. "Thou hast created us restless, O God," he wrote, "until we find our rest in thee." How do we make it through this dry and weary land to find the fulfillment of our heart’s yearning.
           
The Celtic spiritual tradition can teach us something of finding our way. Ancient Israel often emphasized the transcendence of God, the God who was beyond us, out there is the cosmos, remote and not having much of an understanding of the human condition. The Celts saw in Jesus of Nazareth the immanence of God, the God who comes to us and who walks beside us on life’s journey, who is closer to us than we are to ourselves.
           
The Introit this morning is called a “Lorica.” In zoology “lorica” is an external, protective shell, but the word comes from the Latin meaning a breastplate, armor used by the Roman soldier. It came to be an incantation recited for protection. In addition to being recited by monks, loricas could also be found inscribed on the shields or armorial trappings of a knight, who might recite them before going into battle. You will notice that each line says, “The Lord is with us.” In the same way, the Celtic affirmation of faith expresses a belief in God above us, beside us, and with us. To the Celtic mind, God is everywhere present and especially in the natural world, where the spirit of God is infused in God’s Creation. To be aware of God’s presence in the world puts all of life in perspective, that we are not alone, that even in times of dryness and weariness we will make it through because our God is with us.
           
Harry Emerson Fosdick, the founding minister of Riverside Church in New York City, one of our UCC congregations, was a profound speaker and writer. He said in one of his sermons that when he was a young man, he became extremely depressed and had a critical emotional breakdown. He describes it as the most terrifying wilderness that he had ever traveled through. He said,
            I dreadfully wanted to commit suicide. But instead I made some of the most discoveries of my life. My little book, The Meaning of Prayer could not have been written without that breakdown. I found God in the desert. Why is it that some of life's most revealing insights come not from loveliness but from life's difficulties? A small boy once said, "Why are all the vitamins in spinach and not in ice cream where they ought to be?" I don't know. You must ask God that. But vitamins are in spinach and God is in every wilderness.
           
It doesn't mean that we have to have such a breakdown to find God. What it does mean is that whatever our situation, even the most darkest of times, God has not abandoned us. We live much of our lives in quiet desperation; we often find ourselves trying to make it through that dry and weary land. If we didn't experience God there, God would have a very little place in our lives. It is not just Winston Churchill who says, “When you are going through hell, keep going.” It is the word of a loving God who also says, "Seek the Lord while he may be found, Call upon him while he is near and “I am with you always, even to the close of the age.”
           
Most often God is found in other people. Jean Paul Sartre said in his play, No Exit,” that “hell is other people.” Quite to the contrary, God does have an exit strategy, and often we find God in our neighbor. The mission of this congregation is to be the Christ to our neighbor, to be those in who presence of God is evident.
           
Let me give you an example from a non-Christian tradition. Sadhu Sundar Singh and a companion were traveling through a pass high in the Himalayan Mountains when they came across a body lying in the snow. They checked for vital signs and discovered the man was still alive, but barely. Sundar Singh prepared to stop and help this unfortunate traveler, but his companion objected, saying, “We shall lose our lives if we burden ourselves with him.” Sundar Singh, however, could not think of leaving the man to die in the snow without an attempted rescue. His companion quickly bade him farewell and walked on.
           
Sundar lifted the poor traveler on his back. With great exertion on his part he carried the man and moved ahead. The task was challenging because of the high altitudes and snowy conditions. As he walked, the heat from his body began to warm the frozen man. He revived, and soon both were walking together side by side, each holding the other up, and in turn, each giving body heat to the other. Before long they came upon yet another traveler’s body lying in the snow. Upon closer inspection, they discovered him to be dead, frozen by the cold. He was Sundar Singh’s original traveling companion.
           
The Irish speak of the anam cara, the “soul friend,” the spiritual pilgrim that accompanies us on our life’s journey. The anam cara is really the one who helps us see the presence of God in each other, the one who helps us make it through the dry and weary land.

Dr. Harry L. Serio