7/18/65

Scripture: Psalm 121. (King James version).

Today I want to suggest the need for a look upward. We are much concerned with the look around us. Right here on this lot, some of us look daily for building progress. We are pleased or anxious or critical at what we see. We look about our community and we see some who are in sorrow or in distress; others who appear content; some who are driving to get ahead of others; some who live with vision and zest; some who just coast. And we are concerned with human limitations and frailties. We look at ourselves and are often unhappy at the lacks and perversities we see. We look around our country and we are elated at its greatness and goodness, chagrined at its poverty pockets and at its insufficient care for the rights and hopes of minorities. We look out over the world with its tensions and we wonder how the United Nations will fare now that the able US Ambassador to that great organization has fallen in death. We are concerned with making a living, and, to an extent, with building a life. We may want to forget it all in a weekend of vacation and relaxation, for the world is too much with us.

I suggest that it may be well to use these few minutes in our worship for aspiration --- a look upward. And so I have chosen to read a Scripture lesson from the 121st Psalm. It is one of those familiar passages from the Bible which begins, in the King James version, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” A lot of people get help from the hills. I once knew a man who lived in St. Louis, Missouri, who could hardly wait, each summer, to get to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. To him, that was “God’s country.” Just a good long look at the towering mountains brought a kind of healing to his soul!

Hosts of people were intrigued, this last week, with the possibility of seeing an anniversary climb of the Matterhorn by television. Four cameramen were to make the ascent while TV watchers in Europe and America followed them up with their eyes. I was not a “watcher” and I do not know whether or not weather conditions finally permitted the climb. But the very thought of it lifts the attention of all of us who walk the plains and the valleys.

Mountains have long been associated with worship. When you or I want to review our familiarity with the Ten Commandments, we look back in the Old Testament to the book of Exodus at the 20th chapter. Moses had left his people on the plains while he went up on Mt. Sinai. There he became aware of the great ethical truths which he felt God wanted his people to know and heed -- precepts which we call the Ten Commandments.

When we read the Exodus account, we note that people trembled over the thundering and lightnings upon the mountain. They were awed by it, and by the appearance of the mountain smoking. They were fearful of what they saw, and were respectful of what they feared. And Moses said to his people: “Do not fear; for God has come to prove you, and that the fear of him may be before your eyes, that you may not sin.” [Exodus 20: 20]. Because of their fear, Moses had to be a mediator between the people and God. Out of that awesome experience, people learned the ethical teaching of the commandments. Somehow it came to them partly in the lifting of their eyes to the mountain and in the feeling that, in some way, God came down to them from on high.

The Old Testament is filled with this feeling of aspiration, of looking up to God, and of finding Him looking down to his people. The book of Genesis relates a dream of Jacob in the 28th chapter. Jacob had had some trouble at home because of his trickery in getting his father’s blessing -- the blessing that should have gone to the elder son, Esau. So he was on his way to safer country to live for a while and to seek a wife. He went with the rather primitive assumption that he was leaving his family and his God behind. And so he may have felt particularly lonely when he stopped for the night in a strange place out of doors, with daylight gone. In the style of some parts of the orient, he took a certain stone the right size and put it under his head as he lay down to go to sleep. (Some of the people of the far East used to think that the steel rails of the first railways they saw made ideal pillowing for a night’s rest.)

It is little wonder that Jacob had a dream. I doubt not that I would have dreams, probably bad ones, if I had to sleep with a stone under my head. But Jacob’s dream was something like this. He dreamed that there was a ladder set upon the earth near him; and that the top of the ladder reached up to heaven. And he could see the angels of God going up and coming down that ladder. The Lord stood up at the top of that ladder and said to Jacob: “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.” And then the Lord went on to tell Jacob how He was going to give that land where he was sleeping to Jacob and to his descendants, for Jacob would be father to a great line of people.

But notice particularly that Jacob realized he had not left God behind; and he perceived God by looking up to the top of that long ladder. We are not told that it was a vision or revelation. It is frankly reported as a dream. But in looking up -- even in a dream -- Jacob perceived a relationship between God and himself that was so vivid that he wanted next morning to erect a permanent memorial of it on that spot. In fact he made a vow, saying: “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that thou givest me I will give the tenth to thee.” (There’s the tither’s standard of giving to the Lord!)

In looking up, even in a dream, Jacob perceived that God was with him, in that place which he named “Bethel”, or “House of God.” He may have learned to understand that God is with him wherever he goes; only sometimes one needs to look up, away from all the surrounding distractions, to know that He is here.

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Somehow we have a need to look up. There is a kind of healing in looking up at the evening stars and letting their distant, dependable constancy help to put us in perspective again.

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When the prophet, Isaiah, wanted his people to turn their thoughts to God, he wrote:

“To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high and see:

Who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

calling them all by name;

by the greatness of his might

and because he is strong in power not one is missing.”

[Isaiah 40: 25-26].

And a little farther on, Isaiah writes:

“They that wait for the Lord

shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.” [Isaiah 40: 31].

The Psalmist sings, in the 24th Psalm:

“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?

and who shall stand in his holy place?”

a little farther on: “Lift up you heads, O gates,

and be lifted up, O ancient doors!

that the King of glory may come in.”

And he begins the 25th Psalm by singing:

“To thee, O Lord, I lift up my soul.”

Then he goes on, “O my God, in thee I trust.”

The note of aspiration is so often expressed in the Old Testament by looking up --- it may be into what was considered the heavens; it may be unto the hills or to the mountains. But whatever it was, man’s perception of God was likely to appear in the upward look, and in the expectation that God comes down somehow to us in our darkness and need.

Some folk are not content just to look up; they have to climb; to fly; to rise to the heights. While most of us are content to watch, in imagination or by means of television, some men are lifted by huge rockets into outer space to survey the world from a new height and to look about its surroundings from a new vantage point.

Our attentive thought is lifted up from the world to an intricate piece of machinery traveling swiftly past the planet, Mars, on its way to long orbit around the sun. We in American are not the only ones to look up in this way. The Soviets do also, and others wish they might.

Of course the Soviets do not admit of any religious aspiration in their efforts to go up into outer space. In fact it is said that one or more of them have remarked that if God were up there they should have seen him. But they have not seen Him up there yet. This is, of course, meant as a kind of taunt. But it misses the point of Christian aspiration altogether. The Christian’s aspiring search for God up above is symbolic, is it not?

There may have been a time in human history when many men supposed that heaven was, quite literally, a place -- perhaps a good long ladder’s length above the earth; and that God was quite literally in His heaven up there. Man has quite surely outgrown that notion, with his understanding of the solar system and the position of the earth in it; and with his understanding that God is the creative force everywhere and in all time. In our present understanding, God is far greater than the monarch of a place, or of a time in history. Still, symbolically, our thoughts turn upward in our search for awareness of God.

There is a significant difference between the King James version translation and Revised Standard version translation of the 121st Psalm. Partly it is punctuation. The King James translation reads: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” The RSV translations reads: “I will lift my eyes to the hills.” Then there is a period. Then comes the question: “From whence does my help come?” Then there follows the expression of a great and trusting faith: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

“The Lord is your keeper;

the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

---he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep

your going out and your coming in

from this time forth and for evermore.”

The Psalm begins with the look up toward the hills. But the perception is that it is God from whom help comes.

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Now, with this understanding of Christian, religious aspiration in mind, let us give a bit of attention to one part of our new church building which can possibly, (if we will let it) suggest to us worshippers the upward look. I refer to the long, slender art window, which we have asked our architect to have installed in the wall toward the river, back of the pulpit area, in the sanctuary.

An artist designer, who is also a liturgical consultant, has been asked to suggest a design for the window. No one design need be the final, or only, solution for the project; but there are certain considerations that are strongly suggestive, as we contemplate the final choice of art glass to be installed.

1) The design must be in keeping with the architecture of the room and of the whole building. Windows throughout the church plant are strongly vertical. This is especially characteristic of the space assigned to the art window. This strongly vertical line may suggest to the contemplative worshipper the up-and-down relationship of which we think theologically. The very length and height of the window suggests that we look up. The design suggested by the artist is an abstract. It is not an image of anyone -- not of any prophet, or apostle, or historical church father or even of the face of our Lord. In one sense, this is in harmony with the strong adherence of Protestant theology to the commandment: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image --- Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them.” [Exodus 20: 4, 5]. There were no images in the windows of our former church sanctuary -- only color and the suggestion of a form of plant life.

In the abstract design suggested by the artist, many symbols are allowed to introduce themselves. There is the thought of God as He comes to man, and of man’s aspiring reach toward God --- his vertical response to God in actions of worship, of praise, of prayer. One of the traditional calls to prayer is what is called the “Sursum Corda” in the words of the leader: “Lift up your hearts,” and the response of the people: “We lift them up unto the Lord.”

Perhaps, in contemplating this window, one might think, now and then, of Jacob’s ladder; of the pillar of fire by night and the column of smoke by day that led the children of Israel in their flight from slavery in Egypt. One could be reminded of God coming down to earth in the person of Jesus Christ; of the Son of Man being lifted up on the cross. One might think of the ascension into heaven; of the coming down of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is picture language used in theology and the Bible to suggest the reality of mankind’s relationship to God, the creator of our lives and Father of our spirits.

The abstract design suggested by the artist is made of pieces of glass that would be square (there is an ethical suggestion); triangular (symbol of the trinity or the triune relationship of God with man and fellow man); of circles (eternity with no beginning and no ending); and so on. There is a slight curve in the design which could suggest to the contemplative worshipper that his relationship to God is not mechanical, but is acting and moving.

There is the use of darker colors, purple and gray, at the bottom, becoming lighter and lighter as the eye follows them upward to the more brilliant yellow hues. (Man’s darkness illuminated by the divine light and understanding.)

These, and perhaps many other symbolic interpretations of our faith, might occur to us as we contemplate such a window. Perhaps you would like to take a few minutes to look again at the artist’s suggested design as it is displayed over the literature table in the back of the room today.

The upward look about which we have talked today is not only an Old Testament aspiration. It is in the New Testament as well. Paul speaks, in his letter to the Philippians, of pressing on the goal for prize of “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” [Philippians 3: 14]. His picture language is that of the contestant in life’s race, his whole effort pressing for victory, his attention not upon the earth over which his feet run, but his eye focused up toward God’s approval as the prize.

We are not made to be content with everything that we find in our world, much less to grovel in the inferiorities of man’s devising and neglect. We are made to look up; to aspire; to attain to what is higher. And our worship is a frequent reminder that we were created to be only a little less than the Creator. We fall far short of it. But we can not be content with falling short.

Winfred Ernest Garrison has written some verse in a poem called “For an Hour” with which I close:

“I may not keep the heights I gain

In those rare hours of ecstasy

When, in scorning ease, despising pain,

Forgetting self, and winning free

From all that most entangles me,

I leave the low miasmic plain

Of sloth and doubt and greed to be

Companion of the heavenly train

Who tread the loftier ways; who keep

A tryst with stars, nor shrink nor cower

In craven fear of sluggish sleep,

Nor seek the ease of blossomed bower.

My earth-bound soul lacks breath and power

To hold a path so nobly steep,

Yet God be praised that for an hour

I gained the heights I could not keep.”

[Prayer at closing]

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, July 18, 1965.