“God Our Dwelling Place”

Psalm 90:1-8, 12

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
You turn us back to dust,
and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.
You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.
For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.

For today’s scripture reading, I chose the psalm from the lectionary. I don’t preach on the psalms as often as I do the New and Old Testament readings but there is so much we can gain from the psalm. The psalter–another name for the book for the book of Psalms– has always been the church’s first hymnal, as it has been for the Jews for centuries before that. This psalm is the only psalm attributed to Moses. It doesn’t say when in Moses' life that he composed this psalm, but I like to think its toward the end of his life, when he is a bit more tender than in his younger years but not fully hardened by the fact that he would never enter the Promised Land. 

The psalms teach us how to worship God and how to pray. People often feel nervous praying in group settings and wonder what the heck they are supposed to do in private prayer. How often am I supposed to pray? And what am I supposed to say when I do…? It’s got to be about more than just praying for an open parking spot when I really need one, right??

So we turn the psalms and we see how Moses prays. We see four different things that Moses does in prayer–Moses honors God, Moses names truths about God, Moses wrestles with the parts of God he finds uncomfortable, and Moses asks for God’s help. 

First, Moses honors God by calling God– “our dwelling place in all generations.” What a beautiful image to use. I love the tenderness of the metaphor– God is our home; the place where we feel safe; the place where we belong; the place that our families call home. I think of the most tender moments in the middle of the night when Jack just wants to be held and rocked back to sleep because I am his safe place and home. God is far better than any of us could ever hope to be and so God is our dwelling place. And so we learn that prayer begins with praise. Praise doesn’t have to be “God you’re so great” all the time, because the truth is, that doesn’t always feel true to us even when we might intellectually know it to be true. Sometimes, praising God just means telling the truth about who God is and here, Moses does that by naming who God has always been to Moses’ people. 

Next, Moses names the truth about God’s awesome power and majesty. “You turn us back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past.” Naming the truth about God is not just an attempt to stoke the ego of the divine, as if such a thing were to exist. We name the things we know to be true about God because in naming them, it changes our thoughts. I strongly believe that that language we consciously use, even just in our own minds, changes how we subconsciously think. When we are in a rut in our faith, naming things we know to be true about God– who God is, what God has done, what God is capable of– can slowly transform our minds. We speak the truth so that we can remember and believe that it is true. 

Then, Moses does something that many of us are probably reluctant to do– he talks about the parts of God that make us uncomfortable. “We are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance.” God’s wrath isn’t something we talk about in church very much, is it? It is comforting to talk about the God of grace, but less so the God of justice that demands that things be made right because God demands that we make things right. We are not just recipients of grace, we are ones whom God calls to be accountable for our sins– what we have done and what we have left undone. 

Being able to hold seemingly contradictory truths about God at the same time is an essential part of our faith. It’s called a paradox and I believe it’s one of the most important things we can do as Christians. We don’t try to make God, or our faith, fit into a neat and tidy box where everything is supposedly all good and perfect or where it is all bad and must be thrown out wholesale. Naming discomfort and ambiguity is an important part of our prayer life. We don’t have to work through every last detail or figure it all out. The first step is just to name the discomfort and it include it in our prayers. 

Finally, we skip ahead a bit to Moses’ ask of God, “Teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” It’s not a traditional ask like “God please help me…” but Moses wants something from God. Moses knows that his God is not just far off and away but present with us and wants to have a relationship with us and so we can ask for things! Moses’ humility leads him to a beautiful kind of request– that we might number our days. We all know that life is precariously fleeting– some days we feel it more acutely than others– and so I think it’s wise to ask God to help us understand the finite time we have left on this earth. Understanding our time is finite helps us to be more present each day; it helps us find joy and gratitude for what we do have; it helps us be more generous.

Friends, if you struggle with how to pray, turn to the psalms. Your prayers don’t have to be original to be real and genuine. I hope that each of us can leave today with the opening image from Moses’ prayer– God our dwelling place. When all other hope feels lost, may you know that God is your dwelling place, now and forever. In God’s presence, you are always wanted, welcomed, and cherished. Thanks be to god.