Being the Beloved - A Monthly Blog from CFDM Northwest
By Rev. Terry Tripp, CFDM Co-Director
Psalm 61:1-3
“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I; for you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy.”
We are crying out to God who is for us and not against us. To God who hears every whisper upon your lips and the ones that are not. To God who is for all humanity. How then do we respond to God who is a refuge?
Just to be clear, this Psalm was probably written by David when his own son, Absalom, was hunting him down in the desert. Do not we all feel like we are the hunted and the hunter? Whether we have suffered in this pandemic, can own racism or not, trust or mistrust leadership, wail with the immigrant or not; we have a lens we are looking through and a refuge we are seeking.
But here is the thing: I resonated with the call to see, hear, and speak from a “higher rock”. My own stunted imagination causes me to equate my lens on life and the world with God’s. I forget that God’s ways are not my ways. That, in fact, I do not fully understand and that at most I need a reorientation to the way of Jesus.
That is freedom to love, rather than judge. The enemy here, mostly, is us in opposition to love. It may be that we have all the best intentions to follow God into battle against seen and unseen enemies, but our best intentions fall short. We do not know what it is like to look out onto the world through the eyes of another race, religion, gender, or ethnic divide. The most we can do is say, “I don’t know. Help me understand. Show me where and when I have hurt you or abused you. And, God ‘lead me to the rock that is higher than I’; to a lens that is Yours.”
The lens from that rock—the rock that is higher—is certainly love. Love for God, for self, and for the world. Jesus main message in the Gospels is captured in the “Sermon on the Mount”. Jesus basically calls us to do what we don’t want to do, which is to empty ourselves of our perspective and take on God’s; be poverty stricken spiritually, be in grief, be humble, be hungry for God, be merciful, be innocent of judgement, make peace with all humanity, and the emptying out goes on so that God can fill in, bringing us to a higher place.
My friends, as we stay socially distanced, may it be that we are spiritually and emotionally closer because we find that in this place of desert, we are learning about love. Cry out to God to see through God’s lens on the world, from a higher place than yourself.
CFDM is offering their Formation Program, a community rooted in being the beloved of God, on-line this year. Check it out at www.cfdmnorthwest.org.
What books, media, activities are nurturing your heart, soul, mind, strength in this season as we are loving God and our neighbor as ourselves? Post in the comments below or hop on over to our Facebook page and share with one another.