In the Shadow of Shaddai
7th Sunday Pentecost July 7, 2024
The texts for this sermon are Psalm 91:1-4,9-10; Ps 125:1-2 and John 14:18-21
As a society we once took having shelter or housing for granted, but now, the confidence that most everyone would, could, have a roof over their heads has been turned on its head.
Finding shelter is a challenge all too many of our fellow citizens deal with every day. And let us not be too quick to blame them, thinking they’ve brought the fate on themselves by drug use. Research is showing that drug use among the houseless is often undertaken after someone is houseless, to anesthetize the stress and pain.
Shelter is necessary, essential, if one has a hope for a grounded, healthy life.
And there’s more than one kind of shelter needed for a viable, healthy life: shelter for our soul--our sense of well-being. And there’s only one source of this particular kind of shelter.
The song writer of the Psalms and other First Testament poets knew this. They describe this soul-protecting shelter in different ways but they all name God as the only source of this kind of shelter.
In Psalm 18, the psalmist talks of God being our Rock.
I love you Yhwh, my strength
YHWH is my crag, my stronghold, and my deliverer
My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my secure height. (Ps 18:1,2)
Here the psalmist tells us that this shelter protects us, delivers us, secures us. And he makes clear that God’s shelter is one that cannot be attacked or defeated. God’s shelter is unassailable.
The psalmist of Psalm 61 uses another metaphor to describe God’s shelter: wings.
Let me abide in your tent forever
find refuge under the shelter of your wings (61:5)
The same metaphor is used in Psalms 57 and 91:
Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge
In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
until the destroying storms pass by. (57:1)
You who live in the shelter of Elyon (Most High)
who lodge in the shadow of Shaddai
Will say to YHWY, "My refuge and my fortress
my God, in whom I trust.
For God will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
from the deadly pestilence
With God’s pinions God will cover you
and under God’s wings you will find refuge
God’s faithfulness is a shield and buckler. (91:1-4)
In these verses this shelter covers us like a bird’s wings, a refuge from that which assails us. And he tell us that God’s sheltering faithfulness is like both a shield and a buckler. A shield was large and was used to hide behind when under attack. The buckler was small and often strapped to the arm to protect in hand-to-hand combat. So we see here that God’s shelter is dependable and suited to our situation.
He goes on to say to the believer:
Because you have made YHWH your refuge,
Elyon (Most High) your dwelling place,
no evil shall befall you;
no scourge come near your tent. (91:9-10)
God’s shelter is available to all who seek God, who seek to dwell in God’s presence.
The writer of Deuteronomy gives an example of this kind of relationship between the believer and God:
God sustained Jacob in a desert land,
in a howling wilderness waste;
God shielded him, cared for him,
guarded him as the apple of God’s eye.
As an eagle stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
and bears them aloft on its pinions (Deut 32:10-11)
And in Exodus God’s rescue is described as being lifted on raptors wings and flown to safety.
You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,
and how I bore you on raptors' wings and
brought you to myself (Ex 19:4)
God moves us, removes us from peril, taking us to safety and freedom. We must understand that while the Exodus was about rescuing a people from bodily danger, we are to read this as God rescuing our psyche, our thoughts or our wandering soul, lifting us to a new perspective and guiding our choices. Freeing us from coping mechanisms and habits that enchain us and threaten our well-being.
Another metaphor the psalmists use to describe God’s shelter is as a Sanctuary Presence.
In Psalm 48:
Walk around Zion, go all around it,
count its towers consider well its ramparts;
pass between its citadels,
so that you may describe it for
generations to come
For this is God, our God, eternal and everlasting. (Ps 48:12-14a)
The psalmist here is inviting his readers to picture this in their mind’s eye. He’s not talking about a literal walk around Zion. He’s telling them to visualize walking on Mt Zion, the Temple mound, to count its towers and ramparts; to see how strong, stable and fortified they are. And then he tells them to convey this picture to their next generation; to teach the succeeding generations that God is eternal, not temporal. Temple or no Temple, the reality of the Temple is eternal, the Sanctuary God provides is eternal. It is not constrained by geography or time.
This idea is repeated in Psalm 90:
O Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or you had formed the earth and the world
from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Ps 90:1-2)
God’s shelter, God’s dwelling place--our sanctuary--extends to all generations, from first to last because God is everlasting to everlasting.
And what is the gift of God’s refuge? God as Rock and Wing and Sanctuary Presence? It is Peace.
Psalm 120 tells us God gives peace for those who live among those who hate peace, and rest to those who are persecuted or in distress. God shelter is available in the most dire of circumstances. That said, God’s shelter is not to be sought only in emergencies. It is to be our permanent residence. Scripture makes clear that it isn’t to be a primary residence with a vacation home on the side. The Psalmists make clear we can’t live in two places at once. We must choose. We must choose between rummaging about in the world looking for help (like a vagrant) or we must choose to live in God’s holy habitation; in God’s fortress, sure and everlasting.
William Brown, author of Seeing the Psalms tells us that our moral character is defined by our choice of habitation. I would say, that the health of our soul, is defined by our choice of habitation.
Psalm 15 gives us a wonderful description of those who actively seek or who resolve, choose, to live in God’s holy habitation:
O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Those who do these things shall never be moved.
Psalm 62
God alone is my rock and my salvation
my secure height; I shall never be shaken
On God rests my deliverance and my honor
my mighty rock, my refuge is in God (Ps 62:6-7)
On God alone, not on this or that fix, this or that fad, not on this or that habit or diversion or this or that way of coping when under stress. But on God.
Pslam 46
God is our refuge and strength
a well-proven help amid trouble
Therefore, we will not fear,
though the earth shows flux,
though the mountains tumble
into the heart of the seas,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains totter at its swelling (Ps 46:1-3)
Psalm 125
Those who trust in YHWH are like Mt. Zion
immovable and abiding forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem
so YHWH surrounds YHWH’s people
from this time on and forevermore (Ps 125:1-2)
These proclamations should certainly rally our faith and hope.
My prayer is that this reflection on God’s desire to shelter and protect us--to put us in a place where God’s Spirit can fortify our faith, nurture our soul, and bring to light the holy, gifted person we are meant to be will encourage you.
Some of you feel besieged, I’m sure, and as a beloved congregation you may feel the ground unsteady under your collective feet. But let us take to heart this call to rely on God, or in the words of the writer of Proverbs:
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and
lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to God,
and God will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
May it be so. Yes?
L. Quanstrom