The Lord Will Keep You

Psalm 121; Genesis 12:1-4a; Romans 4:1-5; John 3:1-17

There is a big difference between having and keeping. I have lots of books, in the office here at the church, in the Presbytery office, at home, and on my Kindle and Nook computer apps. I don’t have to have all these books. I will be shedding many of them in the months ahead. The physical books are heavy and take up a lot of space. I also have books on loan from the library and I have them for two or four weeks and then I take them back so that I no longer have them.

Keeping is something different. People keep pets. Paula and I keep a number of cats. I am sure that the cats think that we don’t keep them at the level they want to become accustomed to. After all, people don’t own cats, people are indentured servants for cats. We are responsible for the cats, feeding them, attempting to brush and pedicure them, cleaning their litter boxes, trying to amuse them when they are bored, and not disturbing them when they are resting.

I may possess the books for a time, but we keep the cats. They are dear to us, even when they are bad. We watch over them not just for our sakes, but for the sakes of their little furry selves. As independent as they are, they are dependent on us. We watch over them because if they suffer, we suffer.

Similarly, God does not merely have us, God keeps us. We are God’s beloved creation. Like any parent, God holds us very close to the heart. We are more than possessions for the Lord to take off a shelf for a time and then put back. If we suffer, God suffers. Psalm 121 celebrates the fact that Lord is our keeper.

This eight-verse psalm — short by psalm standards — uses one or another form of the Hebrew word shamar six times in the course of the psalm. The meanings of the shamar variations have to do with “keeping” in one way or another. English language translations vary in their word choice. The translators of the Contemporary English Bible that we use here have chosen to use the words “protect” and “protector” for the Hebrew. The New Revised Standard Version uses the words “keep” and “keeper.” Eugene Peterson’s The Message uses the verb “guard” and describes God as a “guardian." The New International Version and the New Living Translation use the language of “watching over” as well as of “keeping.” The King James Version uses the words “keep” and “preserve.” You get the idea: taking care of, maintaining, being responsible for, protecting, keeping. 

The eight verses are in four couplets. Verses 1 and 2 affirm that as God’s people we receive our help from the Lord. The hills may refer to the hills of the Temple mount, or they may be a metaphor for lifting our gaze away from ourselves (navel gazing; regret for the past and despondency about the present) and looking at the horizon, the future which God alone involves us in divine outcomes. 

Verses 3 and 4 speak of the constancy of God. God is steadfast, sure, faithful, and dependable, even when we can’t see it or can make heads nor tails of God’s merciful activity in the world. Both God’s constancy and God’s mercy have to be experienced and recognized by faithful people. John Calvin says that God has invisible constancy. From our human perspective, it takes faith and hope to sense God’s constancy. 

Faith and hope are entirely personal and subjective. The psalmist points out that God is the firm ground on which we stand (“God won’t let your foot slip”) and that God is the one who watches over and protects us. Constancy is not just a feature of God’s nature; it is also the reason for God’s vigilance. This constancy has both spatial and temporal manifestations. God is not only the ground of our being, theologian Paul Tillich’s phrase; God is also the guardian, preserver of our hope.

Verses 5-6 affirm that God is also a keeper. Israel needs a keeper. That’s the nature of things. The very sun that gives light by day can be dangerous (and the psalmist didn’t know anything about ultraviolet rays and skin cancer). The moon that gives light by night can be perilous as it waxes and wanes, as it hides behind clouds or fully illumines darkest night. Nature isn’t going to take care of the Israelites. The presence of God assures Israel that they shall not be smitten by sun or moon. There’s a conspiracy theory for you: Nature is out to get the Israelites. Don’t believe it. God rules day and night as well as humanity. The demons of the day or the nemesis of the night are fended off by God's presence. 

Verses 7-8 tell us that God also preserves. God’s protection doesn’t just deal with the known perils and dangers, it extends into the realm of what can’t be known by people, the realm of evil. God’s work of preserving is for both body and soul. The connection between the menace of evil and the endangerment of the soul is clear. Theologically speaking, the protection that God provides is portable. God the preserver pays attention both to our going out and our coming in. And it has nothing to do with the clock or calendar. The psalmist declares that God's protection will follow him “from now until forever from now.”

Our twenty-first century western culture encourages  individualism and self-sufficiency. Unfortunately each of us comes to the point where reality sets in. We cannot be our own gods. Try as we might, life will remind us that it’s not going to happen. We have to ask for help. We have to look to the hills.

When is God close to us? For some people it is in the midst of good times. Then they hit the wall with challenges. For others, God becomes close in the dark and challenging times. They let their protective guard down because they have no other option than to admit how their relationship to God plays out. There are finite limits to human power.

The point at which we become aware of our powerlessness is the point we can receive God’s keeping, guarding, caring, protecting blessing. These are not moments of increased powerlessness, but moments when it dawns on us just how little power we possess at any time. Naked before God, we are blessed to suffer the reality, uncomfortable as it is, that we need help beyond ourselves. With our spiritual feet not slipping, we can openly and sincerely cry to God.

Many commentators think that the psalm was used by pilgrims approaching Jerusalem for some occasion. It could have been a celebration of one of the feasts or at a time of crisis. A faith crisis, a time of needing to admit powerlessness, can happen as easily to a community of believers as to an individual. Congregations as well as individual believers are not immune from forgetting the power dynamics they have with God. Individuals may gather to form a church, but it is really God’s activity working in them, God providing the keeping authority to build a community. And communities can become despondent when events take them out of their zones of comfort, out of their complacent unreality of living without change, of being in a comfortable groove of stability. As crisis or change settles in, they lower their collective heads and gaze longingly in the past of memory rather than lifting their eyes to the horizon of future faithful possibility that the care-taking, preserving, guarding, watching, protecting God is providing and will continue to provide.

It takes two to keep and be kept. For all that we gain, we have to give ourselves to the one who offers the protection. Surrendering our little bit of control is difficult. Think again about caring for pets. We do not have them, but we keep them. We take care of them because of the love we feel for them.

It is as hard to accept that the Lord is my keeper as it is to accept that the Lord loves me. You can’t split the two ideas apart. The key to understanding is that the what, God’s care, and the why, God’s love, go together. God’s love is the very foundation of God’s trustworthiness. God loves us, and therefore the Lord will keeps us.


General Resources: Robert W. Fisher, “Psalm 121 – Pastoral Perspective,” and James H. Evans, Jr., “Psalm 121 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year A, vol. 1, 56-60.

Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com. 
Copyright © 2017 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.