Scripture: Psalm 62; Matthew 23: 8-12

Sermon: Unself-Assertion

Topics: self-assertion, humility, silence, lion, lamb

Preached: March 10, 2002

Rev. Mike Abma

Textual Note on Psalm 62: 1,5

Psalm 62 NRSV version as well as most other versions translate verses 1 and 5 as

“for God alone, my soul waits in silence”

NIV translates it this way: “My soul finds rest in God alone.”

Translation point: word for “finds rest” in the NIV is translated “silence” in every other usage in the Old Testament.

I think the Psalm loses something when that image of waiting in silence is not conveyed.

Thus, here is the NRSV version of Psalm 62

Psalm 62:

1. In silence, my soul waits for God alone; my salvation comes from

him.

2. He alone is my rock, and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never

be shaken.

3. How long will you assault a person?

Would all of you throw him down – this leaning wall, this tottering

fence?

4. They fully intend to topple him from his lofty place;

they take delight in lies.

With their mouths they bless but with their hearts they curse.

5. In silence, my soul waits for God alone; my hope comes from him.

6. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be

shaken.

7. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock

and refuge.

8. Trust in him at all times, O people;

pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

9. Those of low estate are but a breath,

those of high estate are but a lie;

if weighed on a balance, they are nothing;

together they are only a breath.

10. Do not trust in extortion or take pride in stolen goods;

though your riches increase, do not set your heart on them.

11. One thing God has spoken, two things I have heard:

that you, O God, are strong,

and that you, O Lord, are loving.

12. Surely you will reward each person according to what they have done.

Matthew 23: 8-12

8. But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all students.

9. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father’ for you have one Father and he is in heaven.

10. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ.

11. The greatest among you will be your servant.

12. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

According to the PsyberSquare Website, the month of March is Self-Assertion Month. Apparently this has something to do with the weather. March’s weather is often described this way: it comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb – and it certainly came in like a lion this year. March is self-assertion month because we are to behave neither as lions nor lambs:

not lions – aggressive bullies who run right over people,

demanding our way;

nor lambs – passive doormats who allow ourselves to be taken

advantage of again and again.

According to the promoters of March as Self-Assertion month, we must be neither aggressive lions nor passive lambs. Rather we need to be self-assertive.

Well, what does it mean to be self-assertive?

Again, I will use the words that the Psyber-Square website uses:

“To be self-assertive means knowing what you want and what you need.

Being self-assertive means knowing how to insist on having your needs met.

It means knowing how to pursue you own dreams and goals.

It means knowing your right to change and end relationships if they no longer meet your needs.

It means knowing your right to change or develop your life in any way you determine.

It means not allowing the needs, the opinions, or the judgements of anyone else to become more important than your own.”

In a way, this sounds all well and good.

But there is a problem, or at least a potential problem.

Is it healthy, spiritually healthy, that the only voice we listen to is our own voice, and that the only needs we focus on are our own needs?

Is it healthy, spiritually healthy, that the only person we trust is ourselves?

And can we even be trusted to know what we really need in this life and what we should really want in this life?

There is a multi-billion dollar industry out there that spends all its time devising ways of convincing us we need things that we don’t really need; it spends all its energy convincing us to want things that we should not want.

Do we really want a nation of 250 million self-assertive people clamoring for whatever they think they want, or need? And isn’t that already part of the problem in the world we live in today?

PSALM 62

Psalm 62 is about assertiveness.

But the assertiveness is God’s assertiveness, not ours.

Psalm 62 is all about turning the volume down on that inner impulsive voice that we all have, and listening intently to what God has to say to us.

The key verses of this psalm are verse 1 and verse 5. They are virtually identical. Each of these verses begin with the words: in silence my soul waits for the Lord. The repetition helps us recognize that these words lie close to the heartbeat of this psalm.

IN SILENCE

Both verse 1 and verse 5 remind us that the way to turn our attention toward God is by becoming silent. Becoming silent sounds easier than it is. For many, silence is threatening, unnerving, embarrassing. For many, silence is simply something to be filled.

Eugene Laubach tells the story of a young man who was invited to have supper at the home of a Quaker family. Now the Quakers have a tradition of praying silently before meals. When this young man returned home, he told his parents how the supper went. He said to his parents, “You know, there was this long, embarrassing silence when we first sat down at the table. Nobody seemed to know what to say and everybody was looking down. So I told a funny story and that seemed to break the ice.”

We live in a noisy world. At times I think we become almost immune, or at least insensitive to the noise. As a pastor, there are few things that are as unnerving than visiting people who simply leave their television on during your visit. It is clear that for these people, the television is simply background noise. But it is tough, really tough, to have a meaningful prayer with Judge Judy or Jerry Springer hollering in the background.

The poet, T.S. Elliot, once wrote,

“Where shall the world be found

where shall the word resound.

Not here, there is not enough silence.”

When the prophet Elijah fled to Mt. Horeb and waited for the Lord, he did not hear the Lord in the wind, or in the earthquake, or in the fire. No, we are told that he heard God in a sound of sheer silence (1 Kings 19:12 NRSV). It is important to find silences in our life. Silence is the natural context in which we listen. Silence is the natural context from which we speak. That is why silence is so important for prayer. In prayer we listen for the voice of God. In prayer we also speak to God. During the Lenten season there is a reason why we have a time of silence during the prayer of confession. That silence is not simply supposed to be empty. In that silence we are encouraged to hear the pain of the world. In that silence we are invited to hear the pain of our own heart.

MY SOUL WAITS FOR GOD ALONE

In silence my soul waits for God alone.

It is important to understand that the silence must be internal as well as external. For our soul to be stilled, to wait for God, we need to quiet all the raging wants and needs and demands and assertions that are churning inside of us. In other words, we can’t truly wait for God if our hearts and souls and minds are filled with noisy demands of God. We can’t simply be silent, all the while thinking, “Okay, God, you better come through for me now!”

This external and internal silent waiting Psalm 62 talks about is all about finding a posture of readiness for God, readiness to hear God.

This is all about a posture that allows us to be absorbent of what God has to say, or what God doesn’t have to say.

Verses 1 and 5 of Psalm 62 are about learning not to assert ourselves but rather allowing God to assert himself. The posture is one that says, “I am not master, but you, O Lord, are my master. I am not king, but you, O God, am my king.”

But do not get the idea that this is simply a posture of silent sweet serenity.

The person who comes in silence to wait for God in Psalm 62 is a person in trouble. This is a person who is besieged, hemmed in, attacked. She feels like she is going to collapse, like a leaning fence or a tottering wall. All the people around her are pretending to bolster her ego and prop up her pride. But really, these people are only out for themselves. On the outside they flatter. On the inside they curse. In the end, all their talk is lies and fabrications.

Instead of putting our hope in lies,

and our faith in fabrications,

Psalm 62 tells us again and again:

God alone is our rock-solid foundation.

He alone is our fortress-strong defense.

He alone is our sure-source of salvation.

Our strength, then, isn’t from inside of us but from outside of us.

Modern peddlers of self-esteem, and self-assertion, and self-fulfillment tell us “to assert who you are! Whether you are rich or poor – demand your rights, trust your desires, believe in your inner strength.”

But psalm 62 says, quiet all that clamor about what you want, what you desire, even what you deserve. Let God be your strength, your rock, your refuge.

Trust in God – pour out your heart to him.

HUMILITY & ASSERTION

The old word for this unself-assertion is humility.

There was a time when humility was one of the most admired virtues.

Pride, which can be seen as a form of inward self-assertion, was seen as the cardinal sin. Humility was seen as pride’s primary antidote.

The Desert Fathers wrote more on humility than perhaps any other single virtue. One story concerned the abbot Arsenius. Arsenius was well-educated, proficient in Greek and Latin. He was also well-respected. One day, one of the monks saw Arsenius in a conversation with a peasant. The peasant seemed to be doing most of the talking and Arsenius most of the listening. Later, the monk asked Arsenius the abbot, “How is it, Arsenius, that you, who know both Greek and Latin, need to listen to a peasant about his thoughts?” Arsenius answered, “I do, indeed, know Greek and Latin, which contain much wisdom of this world, but I have not yet succeeded in acquiring even the alphabet of what that peasant knows. His wisdom is of another world.”

So much of humility involves a willingness to listen for that wisdom which is of another world.

But humility does not mean passivity. To be humble does not mean being someone’s doormat. Two of the most humble people in the Bible are Moses and Jesus.

Moses is described in Numbers 12:3 as more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.

We know that Jesus was humble – in fact, he became a servant, he washed his disciples feet, and became humble to the point of death – death on a cross.

But two of the most assertive people in the Bible are also Moses and Jesus.

Moses is the one who smashed the Ten Commandments into pieces, then made the Israelites grind up the Golden Calf into powder, mix it with water and drink it.

And Jesus is the one who cleared out the Temple, who went toe-to-toe with the Pharisees and later with Caiaphas, the high-priest, then with Pilate, and lastly, with death itself.

Again, Psalm 62 is not about whether to be assertive or not. We are to be assertive. It is our Christian responsibility to be assertive. But the real question is “are we asserting ourselves, or are we participating in the assertiveness of God. Are we participating in the salvation that God has been made known through Christ?

Well what does that mean?

* Participating in the assertiveness of God means listening for what God wants of us and what God needs of us, not simply listening what we think we want and need.

* Participating in the assertiveness of God means pursuing the dreams and goals of his Kingdom, not simply pursuing our own personal dreams and goals.

* Participating in the assertiveness of God means trusting in God even when things get tough, even when we want to walk away from it all, even when we think we’re getting a lot less than we are putting in and we want to say, “Who needs this?” It means listening to God, because God may still have work for us to do in tiring marriage, or in that draining friendship, or in a frustrating job, or in a stifling church.

* Participating in the assertiveness of God means allowing the commands and judgements of someone else, namely our Master, our Rabbi, our Teacher, to become more important than your own.

* Participating in the assertiveness of God means that we are assertive but we are so in a humble, Christ-like way.

CHRIST: Lion and Lamb, Assertive and Humble

Psalm 62 ends with what is called a numerical saying:

One thing God has spoken

Two things have I heard.

In a very real sense, the One Thing God has spoken is

the Word made flesh.

The One word God has spoken is

his Son, Jesus the Christ.

And two things we learn from listening to that Word are that Jesus is strong and that Jesus is loving.

Jesus is assertive and Jesus is humble,

he is assertive, but he doesn’t assert his own will.

He asserts the will of the Father who sent him,

and he is humble, humble to the point of death, death on a humiliating cross.

Jesus is the lion of Judah and Jesus is the lamb of God:

He is the lion, triumphant and powerful;

And yet he is the lamb, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of

the world.

In this Lenten season, may we become silent so that we may hear the Word of God, so that we may hear this lion and this lamb

– who is strong and loving, assertive and humble.

And may we go into the world asserting not our own will, but the will of our Master, our Teacher, our King. Amen