Our Legacy
Moses Sees the Promised Land, Bible Illustration 1704, public domain, courtesy of Pitts Digital Image Archive, Emory University, click the image to link.
Sermon Series “Through the Bible,” № 36, Psalm 90
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. –Psalm 90:12
Today, we return to the series “Through the Bible” with a psalm often read as an old year is ending and a new one beginning. The author focused on the brevity of life and the finality of death. He longed for his work to prosper not just for that moment, but also to count for something after he was gone.
The psalmist’s meditation reminds me of a poem written by a minister, with whom I co-officiated a wedding more than thirty years ago. He was a rather expressive pastor from a Pentecostal tradition, who had lived through some difficult experiences. He wrote a poem while waiting for heart-bypass surgery:
If today would be my last day that I could spend upon this earth,
I would evaluate my yesterdays and see what they were worth –
I would think of all the people that have walked into my life,
I would ask myself this question: Did they find joy, or was it strife?
Will they be glad they met me, or are they happy to see me go?
Am I the kind of person they were glad they got to know?
Did I set a good example of our “Christ” redeeming love,
Will they want to follow me to his mansion up above?
Or, when my name is spoken will they shrug and say, “Oh well,”
“If that man has gone to heaven, I’ll just spend my life in hell.”[1]
This pastor-poet seems to be in the same place as the psalmist, emotionally. The crisis he faced made him more sensitive to the boundary of time marking the end of his life. As he mentally accounted for his actions, his fervent wish and prayer was that his life would prove to have lasting value.
The 90th psalm, by a long tradition, is attributed to Moses. Perhaps we could best imagine the place of composition being Mount Nebo, opposite Jericho. In context, Moses has led the people on a long roundabout search for a permanent home. Now, after forty years, Moses is on the mountaintop, looking out toward the grand vista of the new land. But the painful realization dawns that Moses will not set foot in that place. He will die before his people are set to cross the river. He struggles emotionally with facing an end boundary to his journey and life. He asks God for the grace to live in light of this limitation, for eyes to recognize gifts received, and confirmation that the gifts he is leaving to others really do have some lasting value. As a pastor, I’ve noticed how many people approach the time death with no funeral plan, sometimes not even an estate plan or basic will. Christian faith can give us courage to approach these topics. But one of the first steps is to acknowledge our fears.
It’s natural to feel uncomfortable talking about death. Like Moses, we know our days are numbered. We see how one person dies earlier than we thought possible, and how another lives longer than expected, but still comes to the same end. There’s no need for us to hear a sermon to gain this basic insight.
But if we can live with discomfort for just a while, and listen just a bit more intently, then it’s possible to see that the message isn’t just “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty,” but also, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” The psalmist’s prayer may become our own. “Teach us, as you taught Moses. Give us grace to see the gifts we have received, and to understand what gifts to leave to others from whom death will separate us.”
Long ago, a woman attended a weekend retreat meant to identify life goals and set priorities. The group leader introduced an exercise by saying, “Think about what you would do on the last day of your life, if you knew when that day was going to be, and if there were no restrictions as far as your health or wealth was concerned. Let’s discuss what your perfect last day would be like.”
The woman recalled, “There are places I have wanted to go, and things I’ve wanted to do. I began to form a grand plan in my mind. Then, the first person called on to share her dream “last day” was a woman about forty years old. We already had learned about some of her difficult experiences. She said that if she could plan the last day of her life, she would get up early in the morning, and go sit on the back porch, and watch the sun rise, and listen to the birds sing, and pray. Then she would want her children to get up, not all at the same time, but each one a little bit after the other so she would have a little private time with each one. Her husband would get up, and they all would have a nice breakfast together, then go for a walk. And the woman recalling the story said, “As I listened to that, all of the big plans I was making suddenly turned rotten in my mind. And when it came my turn to talk, I said things different than I originally planned to say.” When God answers our prayer, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart,” it will make a difference in the goals and priorities that are most important to us.
In the annual workflow of your pastor, the new year always begins with several tasks like the orientation and installation of new elders and deacons. During recent years, we’ve used some officer-training materials original produced by our regional synod. One particular video sets up a dilemma faced by all church officers, pastors, elders, and deacons. It’s the dilemma addressing a seemingly unlimited demand of needs with a limited supply of human resources.
At one time or another, most of us feel the dilemma of which needs to address with few resources. Who and what will get our attention today? And who or what will wait, or have to be attended to by someone else? How do we resolve this dilemma, practically and simply?
The gospel lesson with which I’ve paired today’s psalm offers an operating principle by which the officer-training video seeks to resolve our dilemma. We don’t have enough time, energy, or finances to do everything and help everyone. Some of you may wonder if you have even enough to respond to all the e-mail requests that show up the first week of January. But we can rise each day committed to loving God. In the work we do each day, we can serve at least one neighbor. Our former Synod Executive Landon Whitsitt offers a wise and a grace-filled word, “In serving the Church … we must always realize that our first job is to love the Church the way Christ loves the Church. And we can do that, we’re going to be just fine.”[2]
Dear Lord, teach us to number our days that we may gain a wise heart. Help us to love you, and love our neighbors. And help us to rest in your gracious assurance, that we if we love you and love others, this church and its people will be just fine.
NOTES
[1] Bill Gebrosky, “Reflection,” Inspirational Poetry for Daily Living, Wichita: BGEA, 1975, p. 39
[2] Landon Whitsitt, “Ordered Ministry 1 – Ordered Ministers,” Theoacademy, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_8rxGZQ3Sk accessed 5 Jan. 2023.
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