53A*
A Call to Worship
Pentecost 11A [Ordinary 21A] or [Proper 16A] 2014
Psalm 124

Faithful God, today we give you thanks that our hope in you clarifies our anxieties.
The Lord is our help! “Blessed be the Lord…The trap is broken, and we are free!”

Watching God, today we praise you for your tender and attentive care over us all.
“...We escaped...Our help is from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth”

Ever-present God, today we come to confess our failure to believe in your abiding
presence with us, and instead, we relive our childish dreams and wildest fantasies.
Trustworthy God, instead of trusting in our God of steadfast love, we often frighten
ourselves with our imagination, or with our repressed fears that challenge our faith.
Forgive us for our lack of trust in you, and teach us more about your constant care. Amen.

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Psalm 124
A song for the ascent to Jerusalem. A psalm of David.

1 If the LORD had not been on our side - let Israel now say –
2 if the LORD had not been on our side when people rose up against us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive
because of their burning anger against us.
4 The waters would have engulfed us;
a torrent would have overwhelmed us.
5 Yes, the raging waters of their fury
would have overwhelmed our very lives.

6 Blessed be the LORD, who did not let their teeth tear us apart!
7 We escaped like a bird from a hunter's trap.
The trap is broken, and we are free!

8 Our help is from the LORD, who made the heavens and the earth.

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Prayers of Trust and Thanksgiving
Pentecost 11A [Ordinary 21A] or [Proper 16A] 2014
Psalm 124

Faithful God, in deep humility we come to worship and praise you this day!
We are so blessed to be led and guided by our Watching God, who has so
attentively supported us when difficulties arise; and when we have struggled
to be your faithful people. Every day, we are surrounded by forces that test
our faith and trust in God, and that often challenge our belief in the God who
is not seen or heard, but to those faithful people God is very present to them.
Just as those ancient people praised and thanked God for being beside them
in their own struggles, when surrounding hordes threatened to overrun them;
we too can say: if it were not for God’s presence and blessings, we would be
overwhelmed by evil and its ugly powers and forces all present in the world.
The Lord is our help! “Blessed be the Lord…The trap is broken, and we are free!”

Ever-present God, forgive us for our lack of trust in you, and teach us more about
your constant care, and especially your steadfast love, that never changes and
is totally reliable. The imagery in the psalm of wild uncontrolled waters and hordes
of people intent on ravaging our land and bodies, are in stark contrast to the trust
and confidence we have in our God of deliverance and security. May we always
cling to that belief and hope, and celebrate our spiritual freedom to worship God.
“We escaped...Our help is from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth.”

Trustworthy God, you are our Helper and Keeper in times of stress and trouble—
especially when our anxieties get the better of us, and we frighten ourselves as
we relive our childish dreams and wildest fantasies, that usually never evolve.
Today, we give thanks for God’s abiding presence, and that our hope in you as
our Liberating God has calmed and clarified our anxieties and reordered our priorities.
We declare: that if God had not been with us, we would certainly have been lost
to our own imagination and repressed fears; and drowned in the flood of anxiety
that threatens to challenge our faith in our Loving God when we lose touch of God.
“If the Lord had not been on our side …” we would have been utterly “overwhelmed.” Amen.

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A Personal Meditation
Pentecost 11A [Ordinary 21A] or [Proper 16A] 2014
Psalm 124

“What if?” is a question we often frighten ourselves with! “What if I had
not done that or said that; I am sure my life and relationship would be
better than they now are!” The people of Israel were playing “What if?”
as they huddled together in their imaginations and paranoia. Experts
suggest that the Psalms were written somewhere from 1200 BC to the
post-Exilic period, and in that period, the people of Israel experienced
many times the violent threat of invasion and subjugation to foreign and
godless powers. After they had scared themselves with their “What if?”
games, they remembered again God’s faithfulness and of God’s promises.



Those “What if?” games included being abandoned by God and left to their
own devises as a nation. Those fears were expressed through the imagery
of fierce animals attacking and devouring them even as they hid from them;
and secondly, of violent and destructive floods, which swept all before it in
its fury. The “deep water” and the sea creatures that supposedly inhabited
them, included “leviathan” - that mystical huge sea creature that was thought
to inhabit the deeper reaches of the sea/lakes - and traditionally, were one
of their most feared under-water enemies. Sailors of that time always refused
to learn swim, so they could quickly drown before being viciously attacked.



Thankfully, the people of Israel came to their senses, and remembered God’s
faithfulness, and all God’s promises to them as Covenantal partners with God,
even if they often forgot that liberating fact! Obviously, they had had several
“close encounters”, otherwise why did the Psalmist sing: “...We escaped like
a bird from a hunter's trap. The trap is broken, and we are free…!” However,
there can be no doubt about their fervor as they also all sang: “…Our help is
from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth.” Despite their “What if”
games, they knew that their Faithful God of enduring love had always blessed
their days, and could be relied upon to liberate them from their own foolishness.

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Acknowledgements:
Unless stated otherwise, all Bible readings and extracts used in these weekly Prayers and
Meditations are from the ‘New Living Translation’, © 1996. Copyright. All rights reserved.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189 USA.

*Revised Indexing Scheme from 'Consultation on Church Union' (COCU).

I acknowledge and give heartfelt thanks for the theological inspiration available from the writings of Professor
Walter Brueggemann; and through the resources from the internet and “The Text this Week” (Textweek).

If the Prayers and/or Meditations are used in shared worship, please provide this acknowledgement:
© 2014 Joan Stott – ‘The Timeless Psalms’ RCL Psalms Year A. Used with permission.

jstott@netspace.net.au
www.thetimelesspsalms.net

Download/view a pdf file of this document here: pentecost11[21]a_2014.pdf

© 2014 Joan Stott - " The Timeless Psalms" RCL Psalm Year A