All Saints Sunday Yr A, 5/11/2023

Ps 34:1-10, 22 

Pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

“Praise, Prayer and God’s provision”

Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday. We remember the saints who have gone before us to their eternal reward, as well as the saints among us today—whether they are famous or ordinary folk. Saints here, in this congregation. We are all saints, since the definition of a saint is a forgiven sinner. Speaking of such a sinner- saint, we focus on David and Psalm 34. 

Psalm 34 has the following superscription: “Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.” This superscription has a background story involving David in 1 Samuel 21. David is on the run, fleeing from Saul, fearing for his life. He flees to the city of Nob, which is located between Gibeah, Saul’s hometown, and Jerusalem. Nob was a city of priests, and David approaches the priest Ahimelech, who gives the holy bread to David and his men. David then continued to flee from Saul, going into enemy territory, to the Philistine King Achish of Gath—perhaps even though he was likely fearful, he was hoping he’d be safe there, and offer his services as a soldier. At any rate, fearful David, probably worried and wondered how the Philistine king would receive him. A parallel today might be Vladimir Zelenskyy walking down the same Moscow street as Vladimir Putin. Most likely Zelenskyy would Fear for his life in such a situation. So what does David do? He puts on an insanity act, scratching the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. King Achish has no time for such insane behaviour, he has too many other crazy folks to deal with, and so David continues to flee from Gath, escaping to the cave of Adullam. 

The NRSV Lutheran Study Bible, with this background story in mind, gives Psalm 34 the following title: “Praise for Deliverance from Trouble,” the deliverance from trouble being the threat of Saul and the enemy King Achish. So, David would have praised and thanked God for such a deliverance. The Good News Bible has this title: “In Praise of God’s Goodness.”

This is a psalm then of praise and thanksgiving. So verses 1-3 highlight the importance of praising God. David, after being delivered from his life-threatening situation, invites God’s faithful people to join him in praising God. The first three verses then are David’s call to worship God. 

Notice that he begins in verse 1 by saying or singing: “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praiseshall continually be in my mouth.” In today’s gospel of course Jesus speaks of blessing too in his beatitudes, he speaks of the saints as “Blessed are….” The saints, including David, were and are blessed. Even though life has its ups and downs, its troubles and challenges, God was with David, has been with all the saints throughout history, and God is still with us today. So the root, the foundation of being blessed and being able to bless God is the grace-filled, loving, covenant relationship that we have with God, thanks to what Jesus has done and continues to do for us. 

Even though David begins Psalm 34 with praise and blessing God, in verse 4 he admits that there was a time when he struggled with his fear. All saints, David, you and me, in our humanity and because we are sinners, we struggle with fears. In childhood you might remember that you were fearful of thunder and lightning, or you might have been fearful on your first day of school. As you finished school, you might have been anxious and fearful about your first day at work. When you become a senior citizen, you may be anxious and fearful about your health or a disease or death. In the larger picture, you may be fearful about the future of the church and the future of the world. Will the church survive? Will this world be safe for future generations or will a nuclear war or climate crisis destroy us all? Fears can cause illnesses—mental, physical and spiritual illnesses. Fears can prevent people from being kind, generous, loving and forgiving. 

However, as David goes on in the psalm, he turns to the LORD in his fear and speaks of another kind of fear—namely, fear of the LORD. The fear of God is such that it frees human beings from all other fears. It produces the serenity and peace of mind that enables sinner-saints to face all obstacles calmly and courageously.

As David and a host of sinner-saints have learned down through the ages and right up to the present day, by turning to God in prayer, especially in times of trouble and fear, we can come to fear God. When we come to fear God in prayer, we bow in awe and wonder at how God can and does free us from our fears. 

A humble and contrite heart know that it can merit nothing before God, and that all that is necessary is to be reconciled to one’s helplessness and let our holy and almighty God care for us, just as an infant surrenders her or himself to her or his mother’s or father’s care.

Prayer therefore consists simply in telling God day by day in what ways we feel that we are helpless. We are moved to pray every time the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of prayer, emphasizes anew to us our helplessness, and we realize how impotent we are by nature to believe, to love, to hope, to serve, to sacrifice, to suffer, to read the Bible, to pray and to struggle against our sinful desires.

Faith is a strange thing; it often conceals itself in such a way that we can neither see nor find it. Nevertheless, it is there; and it manifests itself by definite and unmistakable signs.

The essence of faith is to come to Christ.

This is the first and the last and the surest indication that faith is still alive. A sinner has nothing but sin and distress. The Spirit of God has made that clear to her or him. And faith manifests itself clearly and plainly when a sinner-saint, instead of fleeing from God and her or his own responsibility, as he or she did before, comes into the presence of Christ with all her or his sin and all her or his distress. The sinner-saint who does this believes.

This shows us clearly that true prayer is a fruit of helplessness and faith. Helplessness becomes prayer the moment that you go to Jesus and speak candidly and confidently with him about your needs. This is to believe.¹

We, like David, and countless other sinner-saints, after going to God in prayer and telling God all of our fears and troubles, then have discovered that God’s loving grace does provide for us. David was saved from the dangers of Saul as well as the enemy Philistine King, Achish. God kept David safe, and eventually God blessed David as Israel’s most popular king. God has done the same for you and me—after telling God our fears and troubles in prayer, God has provided for us. That is why we are here today. For that, thanks be to God! 

1 Ole Hallesby, Prayer (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1975), pp. 24-25, and pp. 28-29.