Sermon – August 9, 2009
Sermon for Sunday, August 9 , 2009 First Baptist Church of Lewisburg
Out of the Depths
Psalm 130; Ephesians 4: 25- 5: 2; John 6: 35, 41-51
When you drive toward town past RiverWoods you can see the steeples of the
neighboring Methodist church and this church side-by-side. From there, and from other long
views, this one clearly is taller. It isn’t hard to see that this is higher, but it requires a little effort,
and an open mind, because there are places you can stand from which the Methodist steeple
may seem to top this one. That, plus a desire, perhaps, to see it that way, have led my
counterparts at Beaver to ask me which is taller.
What does that prove? It reminds us that the view you get depends on where you’re
coming from. Your perspective has to do with outer things, like whether you’re across the river
at Mays looking toward town or whether you’re sizing things up from next to Graham
Showalter’s office. Your view also has to do with inner things, with spiritual elements like pride
or fear or prejudice. Those are the types of static which interfere with our impressions of reality,
and can undermine our efforts to establish the way things really are.
Of the three points of view represented in today’s scriptures I want to emphasize that
of being on the bottom, being down, being depressed, being reduced to your most
fundamental resources, however you want to understand the psalm which begins, “Out of the
depths I cry to you, O Lord.” The depths give a characteristic quality to one’s impression of
reality. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed from that vantage point. I want to spend most of the
sermon talking about being in a low place, especially spiritually, and how God looks from
there, and how God helps.
The other two perspectives in the scriptures are those of the communities responsible
for the gospel of John and for the letter to the Ephesians. John’s gospel is addressed to
people in particular circumstances, and that gives the gospel its emphases. The same is true
for the letter to the Ephesians. Again, because I want to spend some time on calling to God
out of the depths, I’ll oversimplify dealing with the other scriptures, but I think we can see that
the theme of where people are coming from is illustrated in each of them, too.
John’s gospel is written at a time when the Jewish establishment, after having initially
incorporated and tolerated those who recognized Jesus as Messiah, has decided to put such
people out of the synagogues. Traditional Jews feel it’s all a mistake, and one which will
mislead a Judaism rebuilding itself on a new basis following the destruction of the Temple
during the Jewish revolts against Rome. The Christ-affirming community, of course, feels like
they are the ones who are right.
The gospel of John makes its case for the convictions of its community. One result is
that it is anti-Semitic, it singles out Jews as mistaken, hostile, and more concerned with
expediency than the truth. Believers, on the other hand, see Jesus for who he is, and that is
the One Sent by God. Jesus’ role as emissary and as embodiment of God is underlined by
a series of statements he makes throughout the gospel which begin with the words “I am.”
In the Old Testament when Moses asks God’s name God answers with “I am,” so a Jewish
hearer of the gospel understands the “I am” statements as divine claims. The circumstances of
the gospel community mean that a lot in the gospel has to do with Jewish theological notions
and their being used to defend Christian claims. This morning’s “I am the Bread of Life,” and
the resulting contrast or continuity–depending on which side you’re on–of Moses and Jesus is
intended to portray the gulf between established Judaism and John’s community as tragic
misunderstanding on the part of those critical of Jesus’ followers.
Even though John’s gospel gives us Jesus’ commandment to love one another, it is
much less interested in Christian behaviors than in Christian claims. It is about recognition,
seeing Jesus for who he is. It is about accepting Jesus, with the expectation that everything
else about Christianity results from that acceptance.
The church at Ephesus gets its letter from a different perspective. This is a group of
people who have accepted that Jesus is Lord, and the apostle wants them to turn that
acknowledgment of Christ into appropriate actions. The point here is not reinforcing how right
believers have been and how wrong their opponents have been. The point in the Ephesus
church is, now that you are Christians, how do you live? Let the thief no longer steal, but get
an honest job– and why? for self-respect, or the respect of others? No; in order to be able to
share with the needy. Christianity is a not-about-me way of living, and the reason for the thief
to work honestly is a good reminder of that.
Being depressed is an about-me life situation. I’m not saying it’s an unChristian
circumstance, because it afflicts Christians along with all sorts of people. It may be especially
difficult for Christians whose self-understanding includes their compassionate engagement in
other people’s lives, because depression is an illness which enervates and isolates, which
robs people of the will to get up and get out, and stands in the way of constructive sociability
and productivity.
It’s possible that a psalm which begins “out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord,” may
not be meant as an expression of the terrible experience of depression, but that’s my take on
it for us today. There are few afflictions so widespread, and so it’s good to have the
opportunity to talk about being down and to be reminded that though it is a very difficult place
to be coming from, it remains a place from which to call upon God.
It is not so that a well person always will be cheerful, or that being blue is always
inappropriate. Life contains some great difficulties, and some people’s lot is harder than
others’. Lack of motivation, resistance to social interaction, avoidance of exercise and light, all
are symptoms of depression which we can have when we are sad for good reasons.
People, after expressing concern and offering help, may need to let us stew a little when we
are miserable, because there are some things one simply must go through. Repressed or
avoided emotion has a way of asserting itself sooner or later, so it may be healthy for us to
weep, to mourn, to suffer as comes naturally to us, provided it’s a matter of getting something
out of our system. People who have known real loss need to be allowed to have it hurt them.
People may differ about what they consider adequate grounds for such unhappiness,
and it may be easier to feel terrible at seventeen than at thirty-seven, since perspective
changes from within as well as circumstances varying from without. My point is that there is a
kind of depression which is a problem the same way a skinned knee is a problem–something
painful and touchy which will heal. That’s different from the kind of depression which is like a
chronic disease. Just as some people have stiff joints or troublesome digestion, and have to
approach life a little differently for those reasons, there are people who find it impossible
not sometimes to sink into despair, and find it difficult to recover.
It is an especially difficult condition because, just as if it were a virus battling antibodies in
order to preserve its own life in the diseased host, the condition of depression is selfperpetuating.
The things which would weaken its hold on a person, such as vigorous exercise
or sunlight or having to pay attention to someone else, it makes its victims avoid. They’ll find it
hard to leave their beds. They’ll move slowly and reluctantly. They may avoid other people.
This is very dangerous, too, because by withdrawing from the rest of life they focus all
the more on the unhappy self at the center of everything. They may try to numb their
experience of themselves with alcohol or other drugs, or prescribe themselves other
desperate efforts, including doing away with themselves altogether.
It is not that some people only get depressed when they should, and others only
when they shouldn’t. Mental illness is like physical illness, in that everybody gets brief bouts
with it, including psychologically-based depression. Those prone to melancholy, on the other
hand, also have heartbreaking things happen.
It is better for the depressed than it once was. The condition is recognized as part of
human experience and doesn’t have the same stigma it once did. That partly is the result of
the other thing which is true, and that is that there are better remedies than our grandparents
knew. The self-contentment which frees people to focus on other people and other things,
and encourages achievement and comfortable rest, can be assisted pharmaceutically, and
that’s a good thing. The person who takes an aspirin daily to make heart disease less
destructive of his or her well being is accepted, and so is the person who takes medicine on a
regular basis to keep constitutional melancholy at bay.
A philosopher once suggested that this condition of listless surrender to miserable
feelings is a “sickness unto death.” A self who has given up is a challenge to help, and anyone
who has been depressed or cared about someone who has been depressed knows this.
This is where the psalm offers help. God may seem especially distant, God may
seem even more deaf than otherwise, when a person is low. Yet God is still there, and still
cares, and God’s power to bring something out of nothing remains potent. Prayers from the
bottom can operate very powerfully. A self stripped of every resource can learn to know
God more directly than otherwise, so that prayers such as the one in today’s psalm, though oft
repeated with no evident answer, sometimes are answered with that plenteous redemption
the psalmist seeks. The beginning of a cure always may be in a prayer, as it reaches beyond
circumstances which are confining and controlling. Especially when one suffers from low spirits,
God’s spirit is both promise and power, to raise up and restore.