Who Wants to Live Forever?

A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

22^nd August 2021

 

Psalm 49

Matthew 6:25-34

As I was preparing this sermon this week,
            I found myself struck by the parallels between our Psalm for today,
            and the lyrics of two contemporary Psalms
            which take the form of pop songs.
 
Both these songs, like Psalm 49,
            reflect on the fleeting nature and value of life.
 
The first is from the 1970s, and was written by Brian May the astrophysicist,
            who also happens to be the guitarist for the rock band Queen.
 
It’s the song, ‘Who Wants to Live Forever?,
            and it was the theme tune for the film Highlander,
            which, starring Sean Connery,
                        tells the story of an age-old war between immortal warriors,
           
Here’s a couple of the verses:
 
There's no time for us,
There's no place for us,
What is this thing that builds our dreams,
            yet slips away from us,
Who wants to live forever?
 
There's no chance for us,
It's all decided for us,
This world has only one sweet moment
            set aside for us,
Who wants to live forever?
 
The other song is more recent,
            and is from the 2008 Coldplay album Viva la Vida,
and here’s an extract of the lyrics.
 
I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own
 
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"
 
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
 
I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing,
Roman Calvary choirs are singing.
For some reason I can't explain,
I know Saint Peter won't call my name.
Never an honest word.
That was when I ruled the world.
 
Both these songs take us right into the territory
            addressed by Psalm 49,
which asserts the fatalistic reality
            that rich and poor, wise and foolish,
            all share the darkness of the grave for eternity.
 
This psalm is one which fits the category
            often known as the ‘psalms of disorientation’.
 
These psalms give voice to the realisation that the old certainties of life:
            health, wealth, and prosperity;
are in fact capricious blessings,
            and useless as a method of judging a life’s worth.
 
Health can desert us in an instant,
            wealth and prosperity can be taken from us at a moment’s notice.
The evil prosper and the righteous suffer,
            and there seems no justice to any of it.
These are the insights of the psalms of disorientation.
 
Like the deposed king in Coldplay’s song,
            who sweeps the streets he used to own,
power is no guarantee of happiness.
 
So Psalm 49, along with the other psalms of disorientation,
            challenges us to look at our lives,
            to consider the so-called certainties of our existence,
and to realise that the seemingly unshakeable pillars of our world
            are merely pillars of salt and sand.
 
And so Psalm 49 invites its readers to consider two ways of living,
            which it characterises as the way of life, and the way of death.
 
It is seeking to correct a profound confusion
            about what in fact makes for life,
because many people all too easily and wrongly
            regard the way of death as the way of life.
 
So this morning, as we consider the significance of our own lives,
            let’s allow this psalm to lead us on a journey
            from the way of death to the way of life.
 
Psalm 49 begins by setting out its audience,
            and on this it is universal in its scope.
This is a psalm for all peoples,
            for all the inhabitants of the earth,
            for low and high, rich and poor together.
 
This isn’t just a message for the People of God,
            and it isn’t a message for the rich alone, nor for the poor.
It’s for all of us,
            and the reason for this universality
            is that it is a psalm in the tradition of ancient wisdom literature.
 
The clues are there in the opening verses
            when it speaks of ‘wisdom’ and ‘understanding’,
             of the ‘proverb’ and the ‘riddle’,
which suggest that what is about to be taught
            is not going to be obvious common sense.
 
This psalm is going to take its readers beyond the superficial
            into the world of the deep hidden wisdom of God,
            that belies the easy and obvious wisdom of the world.
 
In fact, the counter-intuitive nature of the wisdom on offer here
            has already begun to be revealed,
            in the universal nature of the call to wisdom.
 
The world does not teach the rich alongside the poor,
            it does not educate the stupid alongside the wise.
 
We see this in our own society where,
            despite the best aspirations of comprehensive education,
advancement to the higher echelons remains stubbornly dependent
            on the wealth and status of your parents,
                        the postcode you lived in,
            the colour of your skin,
                        and the school you went to.
 
The Psalm’s call for all to be taught together, because all are equal,
            is the beginning of its invitation to wisdom,
and an appreciation of the equality of humanity
            remains something we too need to discover in our own lives,
            our communities of faith, and our society.
 
Those who are economically and educationally disadvantaged
            do not, in some way, deserve their lot in life.
And neither do the rich and the successful.
 
One of the glories of churches
            is that they can be places where these barriers that exist in society
                        can begin to be broken down
            as we discover our fundamental equality before God.
 
One of the tragedies of churches
            is that too often they preserve, mirror, or even amplify
            the divisions within wider society.
 
From Christianity’s shameful collusion with slavery,
            to its oppression of women,
            to its exclusion of those who are LGBTQ+,
I think we still need to discover the wisdom of this psalm
            that, before God, all are equal.
 
But this conviction of equality
            is only the beginning of the wisdom on offer here,
because it has yet to address the question of justice,
            of why it is that the good and the faithful often end up impoverished;
            while the schemers and dealers so often come out on top.
 
This is the question of theodicy
            that we’ve spoken about previously in our series on the psalms;
and it isn’t a speculative or theoretical question,
            it’s an experiential question for many of us.
 
Life can sometimes be incredibly unfair,
            and how are we going to square that with a belief in a God of justice?
 
Well, says the psalm, death is the great leveller.
 
All the imagined advantage of wellbeing and power
            that the rich take comfort in,
is in fact of no consequence from the perspective of the grave.
 
As the modern proverb succinctly puts it,
            ‘you can’t take it with you’.
 
We’re all equal before God,
            and we’re all equal in the end.
So, what’s the point of life?
            What are we to do with our three-score-years-and-ten?
 
Is it a question of enjoying it now while you’ve got it?
            Or is there more to life than the drive to fulfil our desires?
 
This is where the psalm takes us next,
            as it reflects on the purpose of life from the perspective of the grave.
 
And the first area that it addresses
            is that of the experience of fear.
 
The Psalmist asks, rhetorically,
            ‘Why should I fear in times of trouble?’ (v.5).
 
For so many people, fear is the dominant and driving force
            that keeps them from living fully the life that is before them.
 
Clearly not all fear is bad:
            a fear of falling from a great height is healthy and perfectly sensible.
But if your fear of heights stops you
            going up the Eiffel Tower to see Paris by moonlight,
that fear has long since ceased to be life-preserving,
            and has instead become life-inhibiting.
 
And so many of us are constrained and constricted by our fears:
            fear of failure, fear of loneliness,
                        fear of rejection, fear of change,
            fear of uncertainty, fear of getting hurt,
                        fear of being judged, fear of inadequacy,
            fear of missing out, fear of losing control,
                        fear of something bad happening;
all these and so many more hold us back,
            and stop us being who we were made to be.
 
Well, asks the Psalmist, and I paraphrase:
            ‘What’s the worst that could happen?
                        You’re going to die anyway, we’ve already established that,
                        so don’t be afraid.’
 
But the freedom from fear
            that we gain by looking at life from the perspective of the grave
isn’t cast as a kind of self-help mantra
            to unlock success and wellbeing.
Far from it.
 
Unlike the myriad of websites
            who promise systems for overcoming fear
                        and achieving your potential,
            this Psalm takes the opposite view.
 
There’s no point accumulating wealth and power for its own sake,
            and no point being envious of or intimidated by those who do.
They can’t take it with them,
            so it’s meaningless.
 
Better to do something else with your life,
            something that has an eternal value,
            rather than a temporal valuation.
 
Those who are pleased with their lot in life go down to Sheol,
            to the darkness of the grave,
            and all their efforts amount to nothing (v.14).
But there is another way.
 
The Psalm offers it to us in the extraordinary v.15.
            ‘But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, f
            or God will receive me’.
 
The meaning we seek in life is found not in wealth, power, and privilege;
            and neither is it found in the asceticism of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Rather, life’s purpose,
            that which transcends the moment and acquires eternal value,
is found in God,
            in realising that one’s status and value
            are not a function of possessions or education,
but of knowing ourselves to be God’s dearly-loved children.
 
The rich cannot redeem themselves (v.7),
            but God can and does redeem the lives of those who trust in God.
 
All the moments of our lives find their eternal value
            as they are received into the eternally loving arms of God.
 
We need to be careful here
            not to try and impose a belief in the afterlife
            on this ancient Jewish text;
that way of looking at what happens after death
            had not entered the Jewish tradition
            at the time this Psalm was written.
 
This isn’t talking about who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell,
            and I don’t think we should do so either!
 
Rather, this is the Psalmist’s answer to the question
            of what makes for a meaningful life in the face of injustice;
            and the answer is simple.
 
A meaningful life is a life that is meaningful to God.
            A life of eternal value is found in a life focussed beyond itself,
                        on the divine other,
            rather than on the temporary rewards of the here-and-now.
 
Reading this ancient wisdom Psalm in the twenty-first century,
            it brings a surprisingly contemporary challenge.
 
To a world of consumer capitalism,
            which finds meaning in possessions, status, and privilege;
            this psalm opens the door to another way of finding value in life.
 
It confronts us with a God who seeks out for new life
            precisely those marginalised by the present system.
It invites us to embrace its wisdom,
            which critiques the economic powers of our society;
and it disarms the power of fear
            that holds us subservient to systems of social control.
 
If our trust, our ultimate trust, is in God,
            then the days allotted to us have an eternal value,
and life is encountered as truly and fully meaningful,
            both to us, and to God.