Dr. J. Lawrence Cuthill

February 21, 2010

Winter Park Presbyterian Church

You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the sahdow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. . .

Psalm 91: 9-16

Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent,

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot. Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.

When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honour them.

With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

~ ~ ~ ~

From time to time, the newspaper or other periodicals report surveys of American cities that are labeled “The best of …” or “The worst of…” Personally, I don’t put a great deal of stock in such reports. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln who said, “Most of us are about as happy as we make up our minds to be . . . ” with some exceptions, of course. Our happiness may be affected by our surroundings; joy is an inside job. But I do find it interesting to look at what these survey takers base their findings upon. It makes a lot of difference how you ask a question.

An example: One of these surveys names Houston as the hardest city in the country to find one’s way around in, one scale they used to judge the “livability” of a place. Houston also ranks high on the obesity scale, pollution index, bad weather, nastiness and one survey said that Houstonians, the survey finds, are particularly lax in cleaning up after their dogs! Back to Houston as a navigational nightmare: 54% of its residents reported they “sometimes or often” get lost in their own city. In the age of MapQuest™ and GPS systems, that is increasingly curious, especially since Houston’s Space Center is charged with getting our astronauts back to earth: “Houston, we have a problem!”

Maybe the navigational problem is because Houston, which is relatively new, has grown rapidly, with a proliferation of planned communities that have winding roads and streets that change names. The point is not to pick on Houston; Orlando, Winter Park and their and environs have similar problems. Incidentally, Forbes Magazing reported recently that in early 2010 Stockton CA relingquished the title as “most miserable city to Cleveland, OH .

Not long ago, some survey named Orlando the third “Meanest” city behind L. A. and St. Pete, ostensibly because of the way the homeless are treated. A tourist city must minimize their visibility of the homeless, as you know!

Just in case you’re interested, where do these surveyr find the best place to call home? One survey says that New Hampshire is the “Most livable state in the country, with low unemployment, higher income and education and good weather.”

Good weather?! Don’t they have winter up there? It must have been a survey commissioned by the local Chamber of Commerce.

Where is the best place to dwell? That depends. Dorothy expressed it for us all in The Wizard of Oz, when she clicked her heels together and intoned, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Kansas? Home is such a powerful image, stored in the part of the brain (or should we say heart?) reserved for precious memories. Home is that place where we feel safe, accepted, and nurtured. Even if we grew up in a torn, dysfunctional home, there usually resides in us -- if not a memory – then at least a hope for the warmth, security and love associated with home.

That’s the segue, the connection with our Psalm this morning. The synonym for home here is “dwelling place,” the place one can safely lay his head along with kin. Implied in this is the protection and care of God. Those are the criteria that a survey is not likely to address. More important than economic forecasts, climates and amenities is the place we call our spiritual home.

For the next six Sundays in this season of Lent, we will be spending time in the Psalms. In the spirit of Lent, there is much there to contemplate. The Psalms include intense imagery, metaphor, evocative symbols and hyperbole. They touch the heights and depths of the human experience; they serve as models for how to pray; they comfort us in our sorrow; they contain boiling words to help us express anger and unrivaled words of praise and exaltation of God, who is providentially there through it all. . . providing a home, our dwelling place.

Psalm 91 includes a classic statement in the sure providence of God, our Dwelling Place, our Refuge. Ultimately our security, our safety -- concerns we all have -- are not something guaranteed by gated communities, guards or expensive security systems. It’s human nature to want to play it safe, knowing we live in a cultural milieu of fear, anxiety and caution. The Psalmist does not counsel us to be foolish. In his day and in ours, there were real threats to one’s health and security.

What the Psalmist knew, however, (and what we all know at some level), is that the fear of external threat is matched, and even surpassed, by the fears we have internalized, the insecurity that takes up residence in our minds. No wall, no weapon, no armor can protect or secure us because it is in our heads. Taken to an extreme, this fear becomes mental illness, paranoia, uncontrolled anxiety when there is no actual threat to the individual’s well being. Mark Twain observed “I have worried about a great many things in my life, most of which never happened.”

We all need a dwelling place, a refuge, and the Psalmist finds these in relationship. Relationship. In a simple way that truth was illustrated for me last Tuesday when I spent the night at the Manse, where Winter Park Presbyterian was hosting our IHN families.

Four single parents, with their children, were housed and fed for a week by our church. When I walked in the door for my shift, a four or five year old child was standing in the living room, her mother not more than eight to ten feet away. When the child saw me, she immediately went to her mother and wrapped herself around one of her legs.

There, in that relationship, was her dwelling place, her security. You’ve seen it many times. I am happy to report that within 30 minutes that same child was sitting in my lap looking at the pictures in an old National Geographic, because, in the case of a child, relationships of trust can often be formed rapidly.

As adults, having had “life experience”, we are more guarded. We have developed defenses and they’ve served us well. Problem is that in many cases they often also shut out the friend as well as the foe, the needed as well as the threatening. Still there is that longing for the dwelling place, the relationship where one is safe, accepted, nurtured and loved. We never outgrow it.

The question then, is “What will we trust and whom?” Some have been so deeply hurt, so profoundly wounded in the very place where they would have expected safety – marriage dissolved, home broken, betrayal by friends – that being asked or invited to trust is a very difficult step.

The Psalmist speaks to that distress, reminding us of a God who is especially close; in the case of one who – having been hurt – declares “I’ll never love another; it hurts too deeply.” The Psalmist reminds us that there is a God who is no stranger to suffering, or to the one who has suffered.

Jesus himself was not immune or absolutely protected from evil schemes and tactics. In Matthew Satan employs the words of verses 11 and 12 in order to tempt Jesus: “For he will give his angels charge concerning you… They will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone”. The tactic of this temptation was to take the promised protection of God, and put it to the test. To do so would be to impose a test on God rather than trust God.

Psalm 91 does not offer not a guarantee that we will not face danger, threat, or difficulty. It is the affirmation that nothing can succeed in foreclosing us or evicting us from our dwelling place, that is, to use New Testament language “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus…” not even death… For the Christian, death became the introduction to resurrection, and our ultimate dwelling place.

I’m told that Jews and early Christians would write portions of this psalm and wear it on their person like an amulet to ward off danger magically. Others have composed special prayers that will hasten the presence of angels to protect. I do believe God sometimes intervenes and provides an extraordinary rescue.

I’ve heard stories from reliable sources of angel figures (often disguised as humans) who guarded and guided. There is, however, a fine line between superstition and the Christian spirituality, between magic and God’s providence. The key may be when people begin to try to to test God, to manipulate God to their self-generated ends.

I suppose that, at the end of the day, two questions remain for us to contemplate and finally answer. First, “Where is your dwelling place?” and similarly, “Whom do you trust?” With these questions answered, everything else ceases to be a bother, falls into its place.

AMEN