Pasadena Presbyterian Church Sermon Text
January 18, 2004

"Righteousness Like a Mountain: Comfort or Curse?"

Preached by The Rev. Dr. Barbara Anderson

Scripture:  Psalm 36:5-10

Scripture is packed with images and metaphors for God, ways of speaking about that which is beyond human language and construct.  Much as a deaf person may use touch to understand sound, we use images to understand that which the mind cannot contain. 

This morning's psalm is filled with such images.  In just five verses, we hear that: 

• God's love is so great it reaches the heavens,

• God's faithfulness so great it goes all the way to the clouds.

• God's righteousness is like the mighty mountains,

• God's judgements like the depths of the ocean.

• God is like a mother bird under whose wings we may take shelter.

• God has a house filled with abundance where we may feast.

• God has a river of delights from which we drink, and a fountain of life.

• In God's light we see light.

As you go through the week, you might take time to consider one of these images each day in your daily devotions or even as you drive the freeway.  Imagine what the psalmist wanted to communicate about God, and open your heart to what truth God may disclose through that image in our own day.

This morning, I want to jump right into the middle of the images and focus on righteousness.  What would it mean for God's righteousness to be like the mighty mountains?

Many of us, myself included, think first of God's righteousness as something from which we want to run away.  After all, righteousness seems to deal with the Ten Commandments, of which most people would do well to name seven, if asked, let alone to keep all 10.  Righteousness seems to deal with all those laws in Leviticus, all the rules that the Apostle Paul handed down for Christian living, and all Jesus' teachings about humility, compassion, giving away what we have, and loving our enemies.  Those are pretty hard teachings and I'd rather hide behind a tree as Adam and Eve did, or run away like Jonah, or pretend I'm as dense as Jesus' disciples.  On the other hand ... maybe I am.

I keep hoping that if I ignore the righteousness of God, it will go away and leave me alone to live my own life.  God's righteousness feels as imposing as a range of mighty mountains, and I'd rather look the other way, pretending it doesn't exist.  I hate feeling judged.  If I'm going to stack myself up against God's righteousness, I'm sure my grade card would be an F. 

Besides, I don't want to do a bunch of those things the Bible says I should be doing.  Living willy-nilly, blissfully unaware of the consequences of my actions feels much better in the short term.  I don't want a big parental God looking over my shoulder, and you probably don't want one either. 

Like a parable that bothers us enough to make us go deeper into its meanings, however, the psalmist's image of God's righteousness being like mighty mountains has gotten under my skin.  Certainly when you're trying to get from point A to point B, a mountain range in your path is a problem.  It is like that big Mommy or Daddy God saying, "No, you can't go there, you can't do what you want to do."  For the person of faith, an awareness of God's righteous will and purpose sure can feel inconvenient.  It pricks our conscience and gets in the way of our selfishness, no less than the Sierra Nevada Mountains slowed down western migration.

The psalmist's image bothers me because while I don't want to like God's righteousness, I do like mountains.  At times, they can be as mesmerizing as the ocean. 

When you first see them as a whole, they appear massive and overwhelming.  But the longer you study them, the more nuanced they become, with variations in color and texture, and shading that change in the light.  God's righteousness is like that, too: more nuanced and intriguing the longer we study it.  There's more to like and be grateful for in God's righteousness than we might at first have thought.

Like the people of his time, the psalmist believed that mountains held back the chaos of the waters and propped up the heavens, making life possible on the land in between.  For the psalmist, if God's righteousness is like the mighty mountains, then it holds the world together in its proper place and makes life possible. 

We don't have to agree with that cosmology in order to recognize the truth in what it conveys.  God's righteousness, you see, is not primarily a list of do's and don'ts, rights and wrongs.  God's righteousness is a way of life and being and order in the world that makes life possible.  The values and principles necessary to sustain life and foster human community are truly as rock-solid and unchanging as the mountains. "You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, mind, soul and strength, and your neighbor as yourself." 

We can't get to the other side by going around God's righteousness, but only by entering into it, as if passing through a mountain range.  By encountering the challenge of God's values and principles, by resting in their shade, by noticing the vistas we reach as we climb higher and higher onto the mountain of God's righteousness, and by helping one another up the path, we experience the wisdom and truth of God's righteousness that holds the world together.  We give thanks for God's righteousness that is like the mighty mountains. 

God's vision, says the Bible, is a world where justice flows down like water and righteousness like an everflowing stream, like a waterfall from a mountain.  That is God's righteousness too:  Peace and security for all; justice and equality in all relations; work to do and rest from our labors; love given and love received; the creation valued and cared for, Good triumphing over Evil. 

These are not rules to live by or laws to follow.  They are not the words of a judgmental parental god looking over our shoulder and eagerly punishing us when we go astray.  These are rather, the foundation of the world, the righteous purposes of God that make life possible, the Ground of Being towards which we turn for a life that has meaning and purpose, a life that is worth living, a life that gives true joy because it has walked through the valley of the shadow of death and knows it need not fear evil, a life that has grit and purpose because it has faced the challenge of climbing to the high road and knows the satisfaction of meeting ethical dilemmas with courage. 

This is a life worth living because it has discovered the surety of a God who does not blow away like sand in the night but stays faintly outlined against even the darkest sky. This is the righteousness of God that is sure and strong like the mighty mountains.

God's righteousness is not a list of laws against which we can never measure up.  It is an assurance that victims shall be vindicated, that justice shall prevail, that peace and goodness shall triumph. 

Our mountains have been hidden from sight this morning, but we know they are only behind the clouds and soon we shall see them again.  So too, even when the mountains of God's righteousness are hidden by the thick fog of human sin, they are no less present, unmoving, and solid.  The light will shine through again and make them visible. 

What good news this is, when the clouds of despair or sin or suffering are so thick around us that we lose our hope and our bearings.  Like the mighty mountains of old, God's righteousness still holds the world together and the chaos at bay. 

"I look to the hills, from where will my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." (Psalm 121)  Thanks be to God, for righteousness that is like the mighty mountains.  Amen.

(c) Copyright 2004 by Barbara A. Anderson.  All rights reserved.  Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.