Apostles Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

Psalm 86: HELP, THANKS, WOW
(Ezekiel 10, Psalm 86, Luke 19:29-end)

Collect
O God, the protector of all those who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy, that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal; grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;*
O knit my heart to you, that I may fear your Name.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Anne Lamott is a New York Times bestselling author of novels, nonfiction works, and reflections on faith. She is off-beat, sometimes off-putting, at least to me, and sometimes insightful. Here’s how she describes her faith:

“I’m a passionate, devout Christian. It’s just that I’m not a fundamentalist” (https://baptistnews.com/article/inside-the-spiritual-life-of-anne-lamott/).

That last part about fundamentalism is probably an understatement. On the long pew of Christianity, Lamott sits far to my left, past the point where orthodoxy is assumed. I am certain I would find much of her theology suspect, but not her genuine faith; I have no reason to doubt that she is, indeed, a passionate, devout Christian.

In 2015 her book on prayer was released. I’m certain I’ve spoken of it before, but it bears repeating. In this book she proposes three essential prayers; in fact, they form the title of the book: Help, Thanks, Wow. This is from the introduction:

My three prayers are variations on Help, Thanks, Wow. That’s all I ever need, beside the silence, the pain, and the pause sufficient for me to stop, close my eyes, and turn inward (Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow, Gardners VI Books (2015), Kindle location 125).

Three prayers seems pretty minimal to me. There are others I might want to add to her list like Sorry, Hallelujah, Woe or even just an inarticulate Groan. That’s just quibbling. It’s hard to argue with the power of the three she lists, a power emphasized by their heartfelt brevity. I suspect we’ve all found ourselves using them or some version of them when other words wouldn’t come.

The test results come back and they were not as hoped. The unpaid bills are piling up and we have no money. Family relations are strained to the point of breaking. The flood waters are rising toward our home as the wind howls around us. Help may be all we can manage, and it will do.

At the end of the season, the farmer brings in a bumper crop after a couple of lean years. You arrive safely home at the end of a white-knuckled drive through pounding rain and dense fog. Extended family and friends who have not seen each other for years are finally able to get together for a feast. Someone you love comes home from the hospital. Thanks is what rises up in your heart.

You witness an example of beauty — a sunset or a baby’s first smile — see an act of generosity and self-sacrifice or become momentarily aware of the nearness and goodness and glory of God. Wow: you have no other words, just Wow.

Thomas Cranmer was a literary genius, and his prayers are eloquent, rich, and memorable — and, yes, sometimes wordy. Yet, at the heart of many of his liturgies lies the simplicity of Help, Thanks, Wow. Take Morning and Evening Prayer as an example. The Invitatory at the beginning of each service contains these words:

O God, make speed to save us;
O Lord, make haste to help us (BCP 2019, p. 43).

Help.

Both services end with The General Thanksgiving:

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made (BCP 2019, p. 51).

Thanks.

And between Help and Thanks there is plenty of occasion for Wow:

For the LORD is a great God
and a great King above all gods.
In his hand are all the depths of the earth
and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands prepared the dry land.
O come, let us worship and fall down,
and kneel before the LORD our Maker (BCP 2019, p. 14).

This is our God, the creator, the great king, the mighty God: Wow.

If we wanted to be fancier and sound holier, we might translate Help, Thanks, Wow as Supplication, Thanksgiving, Praise.

I mention all this because during the summer our preaching, at least at the Sunday Eucharist, will be centered on the Psalms. And, it seems to me that we could subtitle the Psalms with the title of Lamott’s book: Help, Thanks, Wow.

Listen to the opening verses of Psalm 69:

1 Save me, O God*
for the waters have come up even to my neck.
2 I sink down in the deep mire, where there is no ground;*
I have come into deep waters, so that the floods run over me (BCP 2019, p. 354).

Help.

Or this great antiphonal hymn of Israel in Psalm 136:

1 O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is gracious,*
for his mercy endures for ever.
2 O give thanks unto the God of all gods,*
for his mercy endures for ever.
3 O give thanks unto the Lord of all lords,*
for his mercy endures for ever (BCP 2019, p. 451).

Thanks.

And then Psalm 100:

1 O be joyful in the LORD, all you lands;*
serve the LORD with gladness, and come before
his presence with a song.
2 Be assured that the LORD, he is God;*
it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
3 O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into
his courts with praise;*
be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.
4 For the LORD is gracious, his mercy is everlasting,*
and his truth endures from generation to generation (BCP 2019, pp. 398-399).

Wow.

Sometimes — not infrequently — there is a progression within a given psalm from Help to Thanksgiving to Wow. It goes something like this, in a pseudo-psalm I have cobbled together from various bits and pieces:

O Lord, how many are my foes;
how they are arrayed against me.
O God, come to my defense
and fight against those who fight against me.

Help.

And then a bit later on:

The Lord has heard my prayer;
his ears have been open to my supplication.
Thanks be to God who has not let the wicked prevail against me,
but has deliver me from all my foes.

Thanks.

And finally:

Great is our God and greatly to be praised;
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
What god is like our God?
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.

Help, Thanks, Wow. Supplication, Thanksgiving, Praise.

This brings us to the Psalm appointed for this morning, Psalm 86, which you have on the handout. It is attributed to David, and I will treat David as the author. Can we read this psalm as a prayer, read it in terms Lamott’s holy trinity of prayers: Help, Thanks, Wow?

What is David’s condition as expressed in verses 1-2, 14?

1 Bow down your ear, O Lᴏʀᴅ, and hear me, *
for I am poor and in misery.
2 Preserve my life, for I am faithful; *
my God, save your servant who puts his trust in you.
14 O God, the proud have risen up against me, *
and the company of violent men have sought after my life, and have not set you before their eyes.

This is a plea for Help. I am poor, and I am miserable. Just a note on the words misery and miserable: they are not primarily related to how you feel, but rather to the reality of your situation. To be miserable is to be worthy of pity whether you feel badly or not. A person in a train enjoying a pleasant lunch or just gazing at the beautiful scenery through the window is nevertheless miserable if there is another train speeding toward him in the opposite direction on the same track. He is to be pitied. Why? Because his life is in danger even though he knows nothing about it. This understanding of miserable is there in Cranmer’s prayer of confession in the service of Morning Prayer:

We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders (BCP 1662 International Version, p. 3).

We may not feel miserable when we offer this prayer; but the truth is that our sin places us in a miserable state, a state to be pitied.

In the psalm, David’s life is in jeopardy from a company of violent, godless men, and he knows it. He is miserable. Save me. Help.

Notice also how David describes himself in verse 2: he is faithful and he trusts in God. Hold those two states together: a faithful, trusting servant of God who also finds himself poor and miserable and near death. This is a common theme throughout the Psalms: the unjustly persecuted righteous man, the faithful one suffering calamity. Reading these psalms is an important corrective to the prevailing Christian notion in the affluent West that our faith should somehow shield us against suffering. That notion reaches its unholy pinnacle in the health, wealth, and prosperity Gospel peddled by preachers like Joel Osteen and generations before him; I remember Reverend Ike as the Joel Osteen of my youth. But, the same kind of notion slips in unawares on those who really know that such a perversion is a false Gospel. You hear it when people — good Christians — say things like, “He is such a good person; he deserves better than this,” or “Why did God allow this tragedy?” The implication is that some — those sinners — deserve and should expect bad things to happen to them, while the righteous should expect better from God. There is not much of that in the Psalms and even less in the Gospels and Epistles. Just the opposite: it is assumed that the righteous will suffer, often precisely because they are righteous. David’s assumption in this psalm is not that he will not suffer, but rather that God will deliver him from that suffering. That’s what we see throughout the Psalms. And that is what gives David the confidence to pray, Help. It’s what still gives us the confidence to pray, Help.

So, what would Help look like for David? The answer is scattered throughout the psalm, and it is far more than just a rescue from the violent men who seek his life. Let’s continue with verses 3 and following.

3 Be merciful unto me, O Lord, *
for I will call daily upon you. MERCY (hesed in Hebrew — steadfast love)

4 Comfort the soul of your servant, *
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. COMFORT

5 For you, Lord, are good and gracious, *
and of great mercy to all those who call upon you.
6 Give ear, Lᴏʀᴅ, unto my prayer, *
and attend to the voice of my humble supplications. ATTENTION

7 In the time of my trouble I will call upon you, *
for you answer me when I call. ANSWER

11 Teach me your way, O Lᴏʀᴅ, and I will walk in your truth; *
O knit my heart to you, that I may fear your Name. KNOWLEDGE AND RELATIONSHIP

16 O turn then unto me, and have mercy upon me; *
give your strength unto your servant, and help the son of your handmaid. STRENGTH

17 Show me some token of your favor, that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed, *
because you, Lᴏʀᴅ, have been my helper and comforter. VINDICATION

We may find our own lives in jeopardy so that the help we need is rescue. But, on a more routine basis, the help that we really need is the help David cries out for: mercy, comfort, attention, answers, knowledge, a deepening relationship with God, strength, and vindication.

Help.

What of Thanks?

12 I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart, *
and will praise your Name for evermore.
13 For great is your mercy toward me; *
you have delivered my life from the nethermost Pit.

Here, David thanks the Lord with his whole heart for mercy and for deliverance. It is not clear in the psalm whether David is celebrating present-moment deliverance or whether he is remembering God’s past acts of deliverance, of which there were many. If it is an act of remembrance — which seems likely, to me — then that, too, is part of the Help that God provides. Memories of God’s past faithfulness provide strength in current troubles. St. Ignatius of Loyola counsels us when in times of spiritual desolation to remember when we were in a similar state before and to recall how God was merciful to us and delivered us then. Remembrance and thanksgiving are not really distinct from Help in this Help, Thanks, Wow process, but are part of the Help God gives us.

And we come now to Wow, to praise.

8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord, *
nor are there any deeds like yours.
9 All nations that you have made shall come and worship you, O Lord, *
and shall glorify your Name.
10 For you are great and do wondrous things; *
indeed, you are God alone.

In thinking through this psalm, I have presented the prayers — Help, Thanks, Wow — in a particular sequence. But life is more varied and more complex than that. Sometimes the situation is so dire that Help is all I can muster; Thanks and Wow have to wait. On a brighter note, sometimes, I am not praying from the belly of the great fish; I am not in trouble and I don’t need specific help. But there is always occasion for Thanks and Wow; thanksgiving and praise are always in order.

I don’t think these three prayers are the only ones we need, but I do think they are essential components of a rich life of prayer. And they are certainly the basis for many of the psalms and good lenses through which to read the psalms. They teach us the way of the Lord.

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth;*O knit my heart to you, that I may fear your Name.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.