The Present God

Psalm 121

February 17, 2008

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

“I lift up my eyes to the hills; from where will my help come?”

The hills on the journey to Jerusalem from almost anywhere were places of unpredictability and danger. They were liminal places, places where you can’t always see clearly the road ahead or what might be on it. Places of uncertainty and of fear. Places of weariness after a hard climb; places where the odds of falling or failing are higher than on the plain or in the fertile valley. Places where almost everyone needs help.

Do you know those hills? Have you experienced times of danger in your life? Unpredictability? Is the road ahead of you unclear? Is there something ahead, real or imagined, that you fear? Are you tired from the daily climb?

Certainly we as a nation know those hills. We are currently living in a time of war, with people killing and dying in the hills of Iraq, the very place where Abram began his journey to the Promised Land. And other wars threaten. Will our soldiers be traveling the hills of Iran or North Korea? Our economy, they tell us, is in recession, and that brings with it great uncertainty. The number of guns that seem to be in the hands of the young between East and West Rock ought to be enough to frighten all of us, let alone on random college campuses.

From where will help come for us when we are in the hills?

Oh, there’s lots of help out there, just as there was for our ancient travelers who first sang this Psalm. The hills were the “high places,” where religions who worshipped idols set up their shrines. Every shrine promised help of one kind or another to the needy who would offer appropriate gifts. Amulets of protection, portable idols, magic spells? You could get them all for a price.

You still can. Buy yourself one of those guns. Turn to the latest TV psychologist or pop-culture guru. Numb your fear with drink or drugs or media of multiple modes. Take that check you’re going to receive in May or June that allegedly will heal the recessive economy and do a little retail therapy. Relax because the war is not on the front page any more; just don’t turn to page 9 and avoid the pictures at all costs. Come home from a hard day and numb your mind by watching the latest celebrity crash and burn or those things they call “reality” shows, though I’ve never figured out whose reality they are presenting. Send a contribution to any political candidate and they will promise you the moon and the stars. Don’t lift your eyes to the hills at all, but stay in the safe valleys and maybe all the bad things will just go away.

Or maybe not.

I lift up my eyes to the hills, and I see something different today. I see a place of remarkable beauty created by the one who made all heaven and all earth and then did not desert any of it. I see a place where God is present, not absent, where, even in the midst of danger, fear, uncertainty, and weariness, still God is. I remember that God came to Abraham on a mountaintop and provided a ram to save Isaac’s life. I remember that God came to Moses in a burning bush in the mountains. I remember that Jesus went into the mountains to pray and was transformed. I remember that God has been present in the hills. That’s what I see today.

But sometimes I forget that God is present, and I walk through the world not expecting to encounter God in the hills or anywhere else. My operative response to life is that I am on my own and we are on our own. We make mistakes and pay the consequences. Other people make mistakes and we pay the consequences. People get sick; people break hearts and have hearts broken, politicians don’t keep promises, reality falls short of dreams on a regular basis for so many people, there is war and hunger and injustice everywhere. Hills and hills and hills. From where will our help come?

I read a story a few years ago that taught me something about God’s presence in the hills. Back in 1984, Jerry Levin was the head of CNN’s Middle East Bureau in Beirut, a famous, well-compensated media figure. By his own definition, Levin was, at best, agnostic; a man who disdained organized religion of any kind and even the concept of God. But in 1984, Levin was kidnapped in Beirut and held for ransom in a cell up in the hills outside the city. During his 343 day captivity, Levin had a lot of time to think, and he found himself pondering the value of violence and the possibility that a faith which called people to love their enemies and pray for those who persecuted them might be the only hope, not only for the Middle East, but for the whole world. This conversion experience came fairly early in his ordeal, followed by a time to begin a new relationship with God. Then, on Valentine’s Day 1985, he discovered that a young guard had been careless about the chain that held him. In the night, he slipped free, “tied three blankets together, said a prayer, and then, thoroughly frightened, forced open the shutters to a window…, slipped down the blankets and crept down a mountain side to freedom.” (online posting Feb. 14, 2005, Holy Land Today). He later discovered that his freedom had partially been engineered by his wife, working with Christian, Muslim and Jewish contacts to connect with the young guard who was so “careless.”

Following freedom, instead of going back to the jet-set life of international correspondents, both Levin and his wife, Sis, became active with the Christian Peacemaker Teams, going into all the dangerous hills and valleys of Israel, Palestine and Lebanon to seek to build the kinds of bridges that brought Levin out of his captivity. They purposefully go to the difficult places, believing not only that God is there, but that they are part of helping others see and know the presence of a healing, reconciling God all around them, all the time.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come?”

From God, the Psalmist affirms, present, in the hills, even when we do not acknowledge or remember that God exists. Because no matter the path of our life journey, sooner or later we are called to walk right into those hills. When that happens, remember that the hills are also a place where you can see more clearly. The stars are brighter in the mountains, away from the lights. You can see farther than in the valley. Jerusalem is built on a hill. And in a very old understanding of geography, the hills are where you are closer to God. In Biblical theology, all places of danger, uncertainty, fear and the unknown are also places where we are closer to God.

Martin Luther King, Jr., the day before he died, when he knew his life was in danger,

said, “I’ve been to the mountaintop!” For him, it was not a place of fear, or vulnerability,

but a place where he could see more clearly. He said, “I’ve seen the Promised Land, and I’m happy tonight. I’m not fearing anyone. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come?

My help comes from God who made heaven and earth, hills and valleys, all creatures and all people.

God watches our every step. God does not doze off or sleep.

God stands with us, in the heat of day or the dark night of the soul.

God stands with us against all evil. God stands with us no matter where we go, today and forever. Amen.