10/13/63

Scriptures: Psalm 19.

All of these lovely October days in Wisconsin are like special gifts to each one of us. It is sheer joy to step outside; to walk down the street; to drive through the countryside; perhaps to tramp in the woods. Someone on a market square remarks: “O, how good it is to be alive!”

John Steinbeck, in his popular “Travels with Charley,” gives his impressions of Wisconsin. He came into Wisconsin for the first time in his life in October. And he has this to say concerning that autumn experience: “It is possible, even probable, to be told a truth about a place, to accept it, to know it, and at the same time not to know anything about. ... Why ..... was I unprepared for the beauty of this region, for its variety of field and hill, forest, lake? -- I never saw a country that changed so rapidly, and, because I had not expected it, everything I saw brought a delight. ... When I saw it for the first and only time in early October, the air was rich with butter-colored sunlight, not fuzzy but crisp and clear so that every frost-gay tree was set off. ---- There was a penetration of the light into solid substance so that I seemed to see into things deep in. --- I had been told Wisconsin is a lovely state, but the telling had not prepared me. It was a magic day.”

Others of us have been feeling the magic of these days. A hospital patient, on whom I called, sat on the edge of her bed and looked through the window at the still waters of a quiet river. The beautiful colors of autumn (green, red, yellow, brown) were mirrored in the water so that one saw the trees twice. The world appeared at peace, and this was reflected in the face of the patient as she gazed at the beauty of God’s world.

Sometime ago, travelers through the wooded ways of northern Wisconsin found the colors of the birch and aspen too brilliant to describe. The rich yellow was punctuated by the occasional red of maple leaves. Nature held its breath in an ecstasy that could not be forgotten. [The Saddle Road].

The world of nature around us is filled with loveliness at any season of the year. But these fall days, in this kind of October, have an appeal all their own. They are a reflection of the glory of God!

There are many of us who find the Creator particularly real to us as we are aware of Him in the creation of nature. Many whose lives get twisted, tangled or just tightened in man’s cities get straightened, relaxed and renewed by going to the open country or the woods.

It may be that a farmer’s and rancher’s awareness of God is somewhat different from that of the city bus drivers or the stock exchange operators. At any rate, there is much in nature to inspire reverence --- the delicate petals of a wild rose [orchid], the unexpected busyness of a humming bird, the stately waving of a grain field, the majesty of a great tree.

It is Steinbeck, again, who has some pointed comment on the giant redwood trees of California. “The redwoods, once seen,” he writes, “leave a mark, or create a vision, that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe.” It isn’t just their ponderous size, says Steinbeck, nor their great age, nor their color. “They carry their own light and shade. The vainest, most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the presence of the redwoods, goes under the spell of wonder and respect. Respect - that’s the word.” And that kind of respect for the wonders in the creation seems closely akin to reverence for the Creator.

This truth is skillfully unfolded in the little village church in Cable, Wisconsin, where I like to worship while on summer vacation. The pastor of that church, the Rev. Joseph Jenkins, has a poet’s sense about the beauty of nature. He refers to it frequently; calls attention to the loveliness of flowers; to the rest and inspiration that can be found beside the lake, on a hill top, beside a stream, in the woods. And worship comes alive, as he leads us to the cause, the creator of life in nature and of our own lives. At least once a year he asks his congregation to sing that great hymn, “The Spacious Firmament on High.” And by the time he has prepared us for it, was are ready to sing it with a glad will.

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I chose to read for our Scripture lesson this morning a great and much beloved Psalm, the nineteenth, which begins: “The heavens are telling the glory of God.” Not only the tiny buds of the woodland, not only the stateliness of trees, not alone the majesty of mountains, but the very vastness of the universe speak, in poetic truth, of the glory of God. “The firmament proclaims his handiwork.”

Like so many of the Psalms, this one is essentially a hymn. Often a hymn begins with a summons to raise a song of praise. But, with this psalm, the hymn has already begun! It is as though the first notes had been sounded ages ago in the beginning of creation. And the song has been sung continually, ever since, with all the firmament, the heavens, telling the glory of God. The creation is the “work of His hands.” Day to day pours forth speech; night to night declares knowledge; planets, moons, and constellations, as well as creatures of the earth, are witness to the mysteries of creation and to wonder at the Creator.

“The heavens are telling the glory of God.” What is it to glorify God? How can the creature “declare the glory” of the Creator? You remember the answer given to the first question of the Shorter Catechism? “Man’s chief end,” that is, his chief purpose or aim, “is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” Well, the creature can glorify his Creator by being a credit to Him. He can make it his purpose to be such that he is an honor to his maker, as a building of beauty honors its architect.

The psalmist selects the very heavens as the first of the voices of glory. They speak of vastness, or order, of steadfast dependability. It was a man from northern islands who said, “The stars brought me to God.” And he demonstrated it by the quality of his life.

One commentator remarks that there is a permissible hint in the English version of the phrase “the firmament proclaims his handiwork” --- as if the arrangement of the stars were but the hobby of the Creator, while the full power of his creativeness may be found elsewhere --- perhaps in that which He made “in His own image.” One may ponder many such possibilities as he contemplates the greatness to be understood in nature.

“Day pours forth the story unto day.” This is poetry which illustrates the Hebrew habit of personifying the impersonal. Each day has a life of its own, and is pictured as coming forth from its dwelling to play its part at the appointed time. And it has a primary duty to declare to its successor that God is glorious.

There is something majestic in the concept or idea that each day hands a trumpet to its successor to blow the same triumphant note. And the stars and the night do likewise. We gaze at the society of mankind with a mixture of inspiration and confusion. God can be glorified in this part of His creation. But man can also do the opposite. And when we see the follies and sin of mankind, and sense our own sharing in it, we become confused, and our minds darkened. But when we turn to the day and to the night, and to the wonders in nature, we may hear a song of assurance: “The hand that made us is divine.”

It is here that we see how the countryman who lives close to nature, and who often sees both day and night more intimately, may sometimes be wiser and more reverent than the city dweller. And it may be that the most foolish of men are those who, in the pursuit of pleasure, turn day into night, and confuse their voices.

Of course, it is poetic license to refer to the voices of day or night. The psalmist recognizes this when he says that “there is no speech, nor are there words;” their voice is not heard as one hears the neighing of a horse or the cry of a hoot-owl. And “yet,” says the psalmist, “their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.”

No man is without a witness to God in this world, just because he is in this world of which the heavens and the firmament, the day and the night, the mountains and the leaves are a part. God speaks to mankind in various ways. And of these various ways, nature is one. Only listen!

In the heavens, “God has set a tent for the sun,” writes the psalmist, “which comes forth like a bridegroom from his chamber, and like a strong man, runs its course with joy.” (Remember, this is not scientific perception; it is poetic truth. For there is power in a good picture.)

It is natural that an Oriental, or anyone else for that matter, should give a place of honor to the sun. For it is the source of much that sustains life. Our world orbits around the sun; may have had its origin in the sun. We are dependent on it. If completely deprived of it, we should be obliterated in a matter of moments or minutes. No wonder there have been sun worshippers.

The sun’s rising is at one end of the heavens, and his circuit is to the other end of them. Of course the psalmist wrote of a time when the earth was doubtless believe to be the fixed central point of everything. One may wonder how he would have phrased his writing if he had known of the evidence that the earth is a little speck, orbiting around the sun, and the solar system is but one of uncounted such systems in the universe. But even if he had known this, one may doubt that he could have written better poetry, to convey more adequately his central theme of glorifying God. Even if the poet had known, then, what we think we know today, he would only have spoken with deeper awe and more fervent reverence. And so he reminds his readers that all nature, the heavens and the firmament, glorify God in the sight of man.

Then the psalmist turns to something else. It is almost as if he started discussing a different subject. Some scholars may even speculate that these two parts of the 19th psalm were written by different authors. However, it is not difficult to understand that the same author put the two compositions together for a central purpose. In the first part of Psalm the writer speaks of God’s handiwork in nature; in the second part, he speaks of God’s handiwork in law. Psychologically, the two are related. A man who is awed by the majesty of God’s handiwork can easily turn to the solemnity of His ordinances. The philosopher, Kant, linked “the starry heavens above --- and the moral law within.” And if he could, why not the psalmist-poet. At any rate, whoever joined together the two parts of this Psalm was inspired to something worthy.

At this point, beginning with the seventh verse, the writer turns sharply to a contemplation of the law of God. He fits his style to his subject. There is a difference of rhythm, even in the English translation of the Hebrew. Scholars say that the original becomes a precise polished, built-up structure in its swing. And the writer praises the law first for its own qualities, and second for its results. The psalmist gives us varying names for the law of God: “testimony;” “statutes” or “precepts;” “commandments;” “judgments” or “ordinances.” At one place the phrase “fear of the Lord” is used as a synonym -- the religious awe which the law produces, and the religious service which the law demands. It is a reminder that church-going, worship, prayer, attention to the Scripture, are duties to be assumed regularly, willingly -- not options to be exercised upon occasional whim when one is in the mood.

The writer speaks of the law as perfect -- that is, sufficient to live by. It is sure -- that is, not a variable thing to be changed according to circumstances, but a part of the established order. There is much talk about the variability of morality. It is true that there is much twisting of God’s demands, and lesser things are seen out of proportion. But there are “testimonies,” based on the love of God and of our neighbor, that are as fixed as the movement of sun and stars. Murder, adultery, theft, false witness, irreverence toward the holy are plain wrong. The statutes of the Lord are right. The path of morality can be seen ahead. The fear of the Lord is clean; and because it is undefiled, it lasts when those systems that find an excuse for anything collapse.

The judgments of the Lord are true, says the psalmist -- altogether right. It enables him to say, “I do not care about being clever or modern, or pseudo-enlightened; this course is wrong, and that course is right.” When a man is teachable enough to say this before God, he has his feet upon solid rock.

Further, the psalmist points out the results of proper honoring of the law. It refreshes or restores the soul. A man’s inner soul is invigorated by being in touch with reality. And if he can find it anywhere, he finds it is God’s law as that law touches his conscience. The testimony makes wise the simple. Humble folk become sure-footed in it, while others flounder. An old woman with her Bible at her elbow used to say that “what is wrong with clever folks is that they are clever” --- that is, they can, and often may, misuse their cleverness.

The results of the fear of the Lord and his ordinances are more to be prized than gold or honey. Both of these represent satisfactions that delight the body and are not to be denied. But they are to be controlled. Moral rectitude and achievement come first. It is important to cultivate a conscience that approves, or condemns, or counsels watchfulness -- “by them is thy servant warned.” The paths of life are strewn with moral jay-walkers who did not stop-look-listen at points of moral danger.

The psalmist ends his song with a prayer for inner righteousness. “Clear thou me from hidden faults.” “Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins” -- that is, the wrongs of complacency. And the closing verse is a permanent possession of Christian worship. “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Happy -- blessed -- be all those souls who see the goodness and dependability of God in nature and, being reminded of God, seek to perform his righteous will.

Amen.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, October 13, 1963.

Imiola Church, October 12, 1969.

Waioli Hui’ia Church (first 5 pages), January 30, 1972.