S4 Episode 19: Psalm 130

Translation: New English Translation (NET Bible)

3 Questions:

What word, phrase or image strikes you in this text?

Toward what is God calling you in this text?

What do you yearn for more than watchmen for the morning?

Additional texts:

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Romans 8:6-11

John 11:1-45

Transcript

00:01.27
Kevin Shock
Nathan, did you ever have one of those moments where you just needed some nostalgia?

00:07.91
Kevin Shock
uh, I, I was just thinking about like, I wonder how it would feel to curl up on the couch and just watch some Mr. Rogers neighborhood.

00:19.88
Kevin Shock
Um,

00:24.73
Kevin Shock
um,

00:25.06
Nathan Pile
Well, your comment had me thinking, ah Rachel and I just watched finished watching Stranger Things. um

00:30.84
Kevin Shock
Oh, did you?

00:31.93
Nathan Pile
Yeah, and so it's pretty gory, but there's lots of

00:31.98
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:35.90
Nathan Pile
eighty s

00:39.15
Nathan Pile
connections and nostalgia in it. And so throughout, even though it was so gory, um, we, she and I had tried to watch it a couple of years ago and it was too gory for her.

00:41.53
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:49.31
Nathan Pile
And so we just stopped watching it. But here a couple of weeks ago, she's like, everybody's talking about it. I have to watch it now. So we watched it.

00:57.52
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:57.85
Nathan Pile
And though it is rather gory, it was fun to see all of the 19-, listen to 80s music, but also like the old Doritos bag.

01:08.89
Kevin Shock
Oh, yeah.

01:09.18
Nathan Pile
in the like the orange and orange and white one with the clear panel in the front and and Coke Classic.

01:09.56
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

01:14.84
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

01:16.70
Nathan Pile
like They had all kinds of product drops from the 80s that were kind of like, like how did they keep, keep the...

01:17.27
Kevin Shock
Oh, yeah.

01:25.43
Nathan Pile
like That's what my first thought was. who Who had a bag of Doritos that they saved since the 1980s? But I'm sure they just had the image and they just made it.

01:30.78
Kevin Shock
Oh, I think that they have...

01:33.26
Nathan Pile
right I'm with you.

01:33.84
Kevin Shock
Yes, I think that they have, right, I think they have ah ah designers that they pay a lot of money to do stuff like that for TV shows.

01:39.80
Nathan Pile
for, yeah, yeah but it was, it was, it was fun. It was fun to that all that nostalgia oh well we were crying at the end of the last season so so nostalgia

01:41.09
Kevin Shock
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, we've watched all but the all but the last season. We haven't watched the last season yet, so.

01:51.72
Kevin Shock
I've heard that other people say that, too. Well, what what got me thinking about that is that even though it's ah it's ah it's overcast, and it is warm outside today, warmer than what it has been, I was just thinking it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

02:09.53
Kevin Shock
And that was just that was the that was the phrase flowing through my head, and, and I, and it carries me right back to...

02:10.23
Nathan Pile
it, It is a beautiful day. There we go.

02:18.49
Kevin Shock
ah

02:19.70
Nathan Pile
Mr.

02:19.80
Kevin Shock
sitting on the living room floor or or sitting on my, um usually my great grandmother's couch, I can think of that, or ah sometimes my grandparents couch.

02:19.94
Nathan Pile
Rogers.

02:31.64
Kevin Shock
my The other grandparents couch I associate more with Scooby Doo for some reason, I don't know why. ah

02:38.17
Nathan Pile
That was the aft-. Maybe that was the after school couch.

02:40.34
Kevin Shock
That was the after, that was more often the afterschool couch. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

02:43.77
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

02:44.02
Kevin Shock
Um, but yeah, I just, uh, have fond memories of watching shows like that in the afternoon, taking a little rest without, without much worry or trouble in the world.

02:44.33
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

02:51.70
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hello.

02:56.19
Kevin Shock
It seemed to me at that point, but yeah.

02:58.18
Nathan Pile
Right. Yeah, sure.

02:59.80
Kevin Shock
So I think it's always a good time to talk about scripture and, uh, Though I don't know that I would say it makes me feel nostalgic. It does make me feel like I'm more grounded in the world and grounded in our friendship and grounded in my relationship with God when we do it.

03:15.41
Kevin Shock
So I'm happy to be doing that right now.

03:16.10
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

03:19.06
Kevin Shock
And today we are going to be looking at... Psalm 130. The translation we're using is the New English translation, the Net Bible. That's available on BibleGateway.com or the Bible Gateway app. I, I'm just going to give a disclaimer right now.

03:38.42
Kevin Shock
that I looked at about four different translations for the psalm. This is the one I finally landed on. But I wish that I could just use an amalgamation of all four translations, because there were things that I liked in each of them that didn't quite come through in the same way in any singular, single translation.

03:57.35
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

03:58.65
Kevin Shock
So, um so honestly,

03:59.71
Nathan Pile
So there'll be a Kevin's, Kevin's translation in the future.

04:03.84
Kevin Shock
that's um But that's something that you probably learned in seminary, and I learned too, Nathan, that when you're when you're preparing to preach or to lead Bible study, one thing that can be helpful is to look at the same text in a variety of translations.

04:16.68
Kevin Shock
And so, ah dear listeners, we encourage you to maybe look at other translations of Psalm 130 and see what else you get from them aside from just this one reading or this one translation.

04:16.85
Nathan Pile
It can be,

04:27.40
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

04:28.48
Kevin Shock
Especially, um, I know Nathan and I have it, but... um Many of you probably do not. the the alter The Robert Alter translation, which is not available online, only in print, talks about some interesting parts that. I'll go into that a little bit, I think, as we talk. But um anyway, the three questions that we're going to look at today. What word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text?

04:55.51
Kevin Shock
Toward what is God calling you in this text? And what do you yearn for more than watchmen for the morning?

05:05.07
Kevin Shock
Again, once we read it,

05:06.62
Nathan Pile
And once we read it, it will be revealed.

05:10.87
Nathan Pile
Yeah, I yearn for a lot of things more than Watchmen. But let's ah about hey, we'll get there. We'll get there. I got ah some information about your hosts.

05:19.45
Kevin Shock
I'm not saying that you yearn for Watchmen, but I'm...

05:21.59
Nathan Pile
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a.... We are men married to women in financially stable households, white firmly in middle age. college and seminary educated, we work in the Lutheran Church and were born and raised in Western Pennsylvania.

05:37.75
Nathan Pile
All of this affects how we read scripture and discuss it. But none of this makes us better able to read and discuss scripture than anyone else. We believe that the wisdom of scripture is the whole community's compiled interpretation for life with God and one another. So we want to know what you hear and think from your life experience.

06:01.18
Nathan Pile
All right, Psalm 130.

06:05.75
Nathan Pile
From the deep water, I cry out to you, O Lord. o Lord, listen to me. Pay attention to my plea for mercy. If you, o Lord, were to keep track of sins, O Lord, who could stand before you?

06:20.63
Nathan Pile
But you are willing to forgive so that you might be honored. I rely on the Lord. I rely on him with my whole being. I wait for his assuring word.

06:32.73
Nathan Pile
I yearn for the Lord. More than watchmen do for the morning. Yes, more than watchmen do for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord.

06:43.77
Nathan Pile
For the Lord exhibits loyal love and is more than willing to deliver. He will deliver, deliver Israel from all their sins. Amen.

06:58.84
Nathan Pile
If you're meeting with a group, you can pause the podcast now and engage the questions on your own. Or you can listen to Kevin as he answers the first question.

07:11.54
Nathan Pile
What word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text?

07:15.68
Kevin Shock
The image is God's willingness. um What God wills. ah the two There are two verses here, verse 4 and verse 7, that in this translation talks about God's willingness, and i appreciate them.

07:32.00
Kevin Shock
But you are willing to forgive so that you might be honored. Yeah. Again, this is this is one of those verses that I think the translations across four different translations sound pretty different. um ah But some of them don't talk about God's willingness. just Some of them just say, forgiveness is with you so that you might be revered, feared. Yeah.

08:01.12
Kevin Shock
um I like, I like this notion of willingness, that this, this is, this is who God is. And this isn't, this isn't a willingness that is compulsory or that is that has to be drawn out of God. This is what God wants to do.

08:22.45
Kevin Shock
God, and I think the implication here, because of the verse that comes before it, is that God does not want to keep track of sins. ah if you, alert ah O Lord, were to keep track of sins, O Lord, who could stand before you? But, you know, the as the footnotes here say, and this is pretty obvious, I think, the rhetorical answer is, well, no one could stand before you. But also part of the implication is that you don't keep track of sins.

08:51.61
Kevin Shock
And the answer comes right in that next verse, because you're willing to forgive.

08:55.90
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

08:56.98
Kevin Shock
And you're willing to forgive, So that you would like that. That's the other interesting thing for me is that God, what, um,

09:09.21
Kevin Shock
we think, I think human beings tend to think, tend to respect people who stand firm and maybe even are rigid, um, in their application of rules or regulations. Um,

09:27.50
Kevin Shock
That, you know, we we think that, well, someone someone never wavers, and so that they're someone who's who can be respected. ah But it's God's willingness to forgive that lee that is what makes God respected, honored, revered, feared, all those words. um It's just interesting to me.

09:49.84
Kevin Shock
It sounds, to me, again, this is just one more example of the, the way of God being in opposition to the way of humankind.

09:52.11
Nathan Pile
Thanks.

09:59.38
Kevin Shock
Um, you know, you're, you're, you're not a harsh master. You could be if you wanted to be, but you're not. And yet, and yet, because you could be, you're not a, um, you're not a disrespected master. You're one that people actually respect more.

10:22.65
Kevin Shock
Um, I don't know if that makes sense if my life if I'm properly articulating outwardly my line of thinking inwardly. ah But that, yeah.

10:33.27
Nathan Pile
I think so. I think so.

10:34.46
Kevin Shock
And then, and then verse 7, that encouragement to Israel to hope in the Lord, because the Lord exhibits loyal love and not just willing, but more than willing to deliver.

10:46.62
Kevin Shock
this This is what God desires for the people above all else, is, is to deliver them from their sins.

10:54.31
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

10:54.81
Kevin Shock
So, yeah, it's, it's, it's all this stuff that's bound in God's willingness and what God's willingness means for us and what God's willingness means for God and God's reputation. That was a word that we, I think we heard that in Robert Alter's translation a few months ago. Yeah.

11:14.25
Kevin Shock
yeah So anyway, what about you, Nathan? What word phrase or image strikes you in this text?

11:20.92
Nathan Pile
Well, um unlike my friend, I have one word. I actually have two words, but um you but you talked about three different sections of the text.

11:27.22
Kevin Shock
I had one word, willingness.

11:33.20
Kevin Shock
Okay, well, it was an image.

11:34.23
Nathan Pile
So, you know, I'm just saying, yeah, as an image, one image.

11:36.63
Kevin Shock
It was one image. Okay, what is your one word?

11:38.74
Nathan Pile
Okay. Oh, so you're going with the image. I see. I see not the multiple words of, uh, All right.

11:41.75
Kevin Shock
Yes. No. What is your one word, dear friend?

11:46.71
Nathan Pile
So, um, my, ah well, it's actually two words. It's loyal love. It's loyal love. Um, uh, I don't know if I've ever seen those two words put together, um, before, but I liked it with this translation.

11:52.92
Kevin Shock
Loyal love. Oh.

12:05.85
Nathan Pile
Um, well, because we talk about love in lots of different ways.

12:06.49
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

12:09.08
Nathan Pile
Right. And, and, Here, there's a relationship added to the love with that word loyal.

12:20.08
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

12:20.60
Nathan Pile
um

12:20.66
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

12:22.07
Nathan Pile
and and

12:23.93
Nathan Pile
um And so that that that first word of, you know, we want our friends to be loyal. um We want our family to be loyal.

12:36.38
Nathan Pile
um And obviously kings and queens want their subjects to be loyal. um But here um here it's God's exhibiting loyal love. um So God is being loyal to the love that God shows and shares with us. um And so, I'm, um, I'm intrigued because you know I guess I'm, I'm, there's lots of ways that I talk about love all the time

13:12.70
Nathan Pile
um

13:15.77
Nathan Pile
because of that being that but that being the nature of who God is. But here we get this idea of loyal love. And again, it's, it's not something that I've seen these two words positioned side by side together in this way. And, and it's a, and it's a love that it that is being shared from God.

13:40.95
Nathan Pile
um And so again, it goes back up and and hits all of the things um that you, in your one word description, covered of the forgiveness and and um and the idea of relying on.

13:57.05
Nathan Pile
um And so we had all of that

14:03.45
Nathan Pile
kind of laid out here, but this, this phrase of loyal love, um, it would, I'll probably play with this for a week or so now, just thinking about how can we talk about, because again, I love the, I love the relationship aspect of it.

14:11.20
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

14:14.22
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

14:17.61
Nathan Pile
uh, and not that we don't have relationship with just the word love we do. um But there's a a faithfulness um to this love that we know is a part of who God is. And so I just like the description of it.

14:38.40
Nathan Pile
So, yeah.

14:38.84
Kevin Shock
Yeah, loyal love. that Again, that makes me wonder how is this translated in other translations if it's not something that is, if it's something that you feel like you haven't heard before, which I'm, I'm with you.

14:45.75
Nathan Pile
Yeah, any the other translations?

14:52.43
Kevin Shock
I don't, it's not something that's necessarily familiar to me. um i when I hear loyal love, I think of, I also think of faithfulness.

15:04.42
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

15:05.30
Kevin Shock
And yeah.

15:09.30
Kevin Shock
Anyway.

15:10.16
Nathan Pile
But it brings a different, again, I use the word faithfulness a loss, but but here again, this just brings a different,

15:20.76
Nathan Pile
some different images to my head, to mine with that phrase, loyal love.

15:24.05
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

15:26.93
Nathan Pile
So, yeah.

15:27.62
Kevin Shock
Yep, I agree. Yeah. Thanks.

15:32.28
Kevin Shock
Okay. Should we look at it a second time?

15:33.11
Nathan Pile
All right. Yeah, I'll do a second time.

15:37.20
Kevin Shock
Psalm 130.

15:39.99
Kevin Shock
From the deep water I cry out to you, O Lord. O Lord, listen to me. Pay attention to my plea for mercy. If you, O Lord, were to keep track of sins, O Lord, who could stand before you?

15:53.21
Kevin Shock
But you are willing to forgive so that you might be honored. I rely on the Lord. I rely on him with my whole being. I wait for his assuring word. I yearn for the Lord more than watchmen do for the morning.

16:06.21
Kevin Shock
Yes, more than watchmen do for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord, for the Lord exhibits loyal love and is more than willing to deliver. He will deliver Israel from all their sins.

16:20.01
Kevin Shock
Nathan, toward what is God calling you in this text?

16:22.97
Nathan Pile
Well, Kevin, um as I was listening to you read this, I was, I

16:30.78
Nathan Pile
it got, I got into the thought vortex of, as the psalmist, there's a lot of I in here, right? um So my easiest, and the the easy answer is, is relying on the Lord.

16:42.68
Kevin Shock
The

16:46.68
Nathan Pile
um But I was, I was struck by how much, God is the subject here.

17:01.18
Nathan Pile
Right? the God does the is the sub, maybe it's not the subject. God is the, there we go.

17:06.55
Kevin Shock
the object

17:08.08
Nathan Pile
Thanks. You're the English major. um

17:13.46
Kevin Shock
yeah no Yeah, the object, sure.

17:14.42
Nathan Pile
But God's, God isn't the one acting the result, you know, as, as you read it, I, the Psalmist is the one reflecting on God's action over and over and over again.

17:20.49
Kevin Shock
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

17:24.34
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

17:25.14
Nathan Pile
Um, so it's still God is the one who's acting, but, um, it is in such a way of giving thanks and praise to God because of what I, the Psalmist has seen and experienced in life. And so, um,

17:41.98
Nathan Pile
So that it was just interesting to kind of, I don't know why, I know there's other Psalms that are similar to this, but I was struck by the number of eyes in this.

17:51.24
Kevin Shock
Yep.

17:53.30
Nathan Pile
Now, five and chapters five and six, are verses five and six have a lot of eyes in them themselves, but it's up at the beginning too. so so it was just interesting to me. um But I think for for me, that idea of that phrase of rely on him or the Lord with all, with my whole being.

18:14.26
Nathan Pile
And again, this is how the NET translate this. it It sounds a little different by looking at the notes, um but I like how the NET translate this, you know, challenging um in of, you know, there's absolutely some things that I am willing to rely on the Lord for, but with my whole being, making, recognizing my need for reliance across all of life, all of all of who I am. Again, we live in a culture that's about me first. And so there's things that I think about doing that are about me.

19:01.75
Nathan Pile
on but here that that word of rely um and again there's a piece of well what does that mean for me today does it is it you know as the as the notes say is it is it a weight for the lord um and and you know I'm a little bit like uh

19:13.52
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

19:26.55
Nathan Pile
Abraham, sometimes I might pray for it, but if God doesn't do it right away, then I just do it for myself. Kind of, um, I have that part of me. Um, and so, you know, there's a little bit of waiting that I'm willing to do, but after a while, does it, do I just kind of say, well, I need to, uh, do I need to just do it myself?

19:47.03
Nathan Pile
Um, and so what does that look like? So I think that would be my, um,

19:55.32
Nathan Pile
you know what I feel called toward is, is living into um

20:03.06
Nathan Pile
life that waits, that relies, that is maybe a little bit more patient. Maybe that's the word I'm looking for. It's a little bit more patient

20:18.84
Nathan Pile
on the Lord.

20:22.65
Kevin Shock
Patient. Interesting. Okay.

20:24.20
Nathan Pile
Yeah, yeah.

20:25.50
Kevin Shock
Yeah. I don't think I don't think of relying. I like I. um It makes sense what you're saying. um I, uh, I don't think that I automatically make the connection between reliance and patience, but it, but it makes, yeah, it makes sense to me.

20:43.39
Nathan Pile
Yeah,

20:45.26
Kevin Shock
So it's, yeah, it's helpful for me to hear you make that connection in your line of thinking.

20:48.79
Nathan Pile
it's maybe not the only way that I rely, but it's probably, it's definitely one of the ways that I would rely is to be patient on the Lord.

20:55.74
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there is that in the last sentence in verse five, I wait for his assuring word. Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a patient kind of thing. um My answer is similar, except I, I make that reliance connection to another word. And the word that sticks out to me, I know that's a question one answer, but, but what I'm reflecting on this time around is, is yearning.

21:24.15
Kevin Shock
Um, I think that, I think that reliance is a natural, uh,

21:24.40
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hmm.

21:32.24
Kevin Shock
what's the word? ah Not consequence, but, but a natural, uh, a natural offshoot of yearning. Um, if I'm, if I'm yearning for someone or something, it's easier for me to rely on it.

21:50.72
Kevin Shock
Um, And, but the thing that, the thing that gets me, and I guess it's connected to that whole verse about the Watchmen and everything. Um,

22:07.19
Kevin Shock
The, the image that the image that pops, ah the the thing that gets me, okay. The thing that gets me is how do i yearning is not one of those things that like, I can well up in myself. We, we talk, I talk about that a lot in this podcast that trust is not, you know, when you say trust in the Lord, well, how do, how the heck do you learn to trust?

22:25.14
Kevin Shock
You can't just like make yourself trust some thing or someone.

22:27.14
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Right.

22:29.30
Kevin Shock
Um, it comes with relationship. It comes with time. It comes with experience. Um, and, And maybe rely is that too, but yearning is that too. Like, I, I can say I want to yearn for the Lord, but if life is comfortable,

22:46.68
Kevin Shock
um I mean, obviously the psalmist is not writing this from a comfortable place. From the deep water, I cry out to you, O Lord. That's...

22:58.30
Kevin Shock
if, if I were, If I were in the depths, if I felt like I were in the deep water and crying out to God, then then I would be yearning for God. But the reality is most days, that's not my situation.

23:11.80
Kevin Shock
and, And so on those days, how do I, um,

23:21.30
Kevin Shock
cultivate a yearning for God that doesn't come automatically? I don't know. Yeah, so I think I'm thinking about those watchmen.

23:33.55
Kevin Shock
I'm thinking about... um I, I already put the book away. I should have it right in front of me. The Alters translation of this verse is... doesn't even use a verb in the first part. It doesn't even talk about yearning. It just says, my, my being...

23:55.45
Kevin Shock
I think it says my being, not my soul. My being for the master. And then there's a then there's ah like ah like an, like an end dash there.

24:06.65
Kevin Shock
And then it says, more than dawn watchers watch for the dawn or so or something like that.

24:11.34
Nathan Pile
All right.

24:12.73
Kevin Shock
um and And he doesn't repeat the phrase like a lot of translations do, more than watchmen do for the morning.

24:13.04
Nathan Pile
Sure.

24:18.77
Kevin Shock
Yes, more than watchmen do for the morning. He says, he says that's a, that's an English kind of trick um because what happens is that the it's it's actually the the verb and the noun are so closely bound together in the Hebrew

24:25.60
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

24:35.96
Kevin Shock
there or there's one word that can be translated either a a verbal noun or a verb itself, like a verb itself. And so that's why he renders it more than dawn watchers watch for the dawn.

24:52.09
Kevin Shock
Like you hear the repetition in that phrase, but it's not the same way that a lot of translations do Anyway, so the image that that brings me to is that you, you think about,

24:54.77
Nathan Pile
Sure.

25:03.29
Kevin Shock
have you, Have you ever gotten up to look for a sunrise? Because it's something special that you want to see. The sunrise comes up. The sun rises every day. Every day the sun rises.

25:15.85
Nathan Pile
Right.

25:16.38
Kevin Shock
But if you are out, like in, in our part of the world, on the on the beach, on the shoreline, And you decide that you know this is a special moment you want to share with somebody, or this is a moment that you want you want your own peace and quiet and and you know seeking some connection with creation. You go out to the beach and you watch for the dawn. And, and it is a it's a it's a yearning. It's something that you, you make sure you're there early enough.

25:45.78
Kevin Shock
And you're, you're just fixated on that point in the horizon where you see that the light start to appear and you watch it until you see that first peak of sun come up over the horizon. It's, it's a, it's a focus. it's ah, it's something, If it's something that you desire, it's something that you are focused on.

26:08.02
Kevin Shock
And You know, you might do that on a special occasion when you're on vacation, when you're on a trip. um

26:16.24
Nathan Pile
Sure.

26:16.98
Kevin Shock
um I can, I can remember one of, one of the like most breathtaking scenes that I took in is that when I was on a trip to South Africa um with a group from the seminary, there were some other people who were like pastors and such who went along with us. And, and our last morning there, we were in Cape town and um someone had said something to us about hiking up Table Mountain.

26:50.34
Kevin Shock
And one of the one of the pastors who was there, Ginny Price is her name, she and I decided, you know, we like we want to go up in, we want to hike up in this cut and watch the sunrise over the over the the cloud, the table cloud, the cloud table that exists there on top of the mountain.

27:10.78
Kevin Shock
And sure enough, we did it. We woke up early in the morning. We had a driver drive us up to the trailhead and we hiked up through this cut and it was it was a beautiful hike. it was ah, It was a challenging hike.

27:23.03
Kevin Shock
And there was one point where we just turned around because we could see that you know start to see light cutting above the cloud. And we turned around and looked and it was like, you couldn't.

27:34.16
Kevin Shock
You couldn't have made a better shot in a movie, like through these, through like where these two little pieces of rock were jutting out and the cloud was right there at the, at the convergence of all three of those things.

27:37.05
Nathan Pile
ah

27:44.96
Kevin Shock
We just watched the sunrise and it was, it was, it felt miraculous in the moment. it's something It's something that happens every day in Cape town, but it felt miraculous to be there in that moment with creation.

27:54.04
Nathan Pile
Sure. For that day, for you, yeah.

27:57.96
Kevin Shock
and, ah and But that's the thing. If you decided that every day I'm going to make that hike and watch that happen, it would become old hat after a while.

28:13.90
Nathan Pile
Sure.

28:14.71
Kevin Shock
And so I wonder then, this makes me wonder,

28:14.94
Nathan Pile
Sure.

28:21.02
Kevin Shock
is that what happens to forgiveness for us?

28:24.50
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hmm.

28:26.14
Kevin Shock
God is so willing to forgive. God's so willing to pick us up whenever we fall that we... Quit even thinking about it.

28:35.07
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

28:36.63
Kevin Shock
And we don't yearn for God anymore. We just take God for granted. So i that all that is to say, yearning is what I feel called to um

28:50.78
Kevin Shock
But I need to think a lot more about what how do I, how do I engender yearning in my heart, in my soul, in my being for the, for, for the Lord.

29:06.01
Nathan Pile
One of the pieces of that yearning, though, would be it would have its source in God. The original yearning.

29:12.63
Kevin Shock
Yeah, sure. Yep. Yeah.

29:15.80
Nathan Pile
So some of it is, is already is baked into us.

29:21.88
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yep. Yep. I think you're right. And I think that's a good thing to lift up. Yes.

29:26.30
Nathan Pile
Like it's not like you can yearn enough

29:26.44
Kevin Shock
It's.

29:29.14
Nathan Pile
If that's not about that, you know, right. Like God has given us the seed that, that causes us to yearn.

29:40.79
Nathan Pile
um

29:41.42
Kevin Shock
Mm hmm.

29:42.01
Nathan Pile
But I also hear what you're saying in how do we, how do we nurture that? How do that curiosity, that, that drive to stay connected to God, to see the,

30:00.22
Nathan Pile
awesomeness of the wonder of God in the everyday from a beautiful so sunrise to to everyday forgiveness that yes God will be there I turn my back on God I turn around God's still there because that's who God is but do we marvel in that or how do we marvel in that that yearning peace is really interesting yeah

30:03.10
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah.

30:16.89
Kevin Shock
a hey

30:19.84
Kevin Shock
yeah

30:31.70
Nathan Pile
As you were reflecting ah about the Watchmen, I know we're gonna move to that third question of the Watchmen here. um

30:38.26
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah. It's not necessarily about the Watchmen, but yes, it is.

30:42.14
Nathan Pile
It's not, no, but it's definitely in the question.

30:42.76
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah.

30:44.66
Nathan Pile
um

30:48.22
Nathan Pile
But as you were reflecting on it, I was trying to think about the context of this and, and where that plays out. Do you think it's, when we talk about watchmen, my mind immediately goes to like army, military, somebody like that, you know, that is, that is watching over the night to keep people safe.

31:05.17
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

31:08.31
Nathan Pile
um Is there other, you know, I guess a shepherd would also be a watchman kind of the same ideas though.

31:16.34
Kevin Shock
Sure. Yeah.

31:16.98
Nathan Pile
Are there other versions of watchmen that you can think of or are those kind of the two big ones?

31:22.52
Kevin Shock
um I mean, I think, I think those are big ones. I think, yeah, like, right. We, right. We think of military or security guards. um

31:31.87
Nathan Pile
Right.

31:32.92
Kevin Shock
But, oh but that, question reveals an even bigger curiosity for me in this reading because because of the way that altar translates it more than dawn watchers watch for the morning it seems in the translation as though the purpose of these people is to actually watch for the sunrise or the dawn right right dawn and sunrise are not the same thing you're right and, and I don't know if that's like you know you think of uh

31:52.55
Nathan Pile
Only. Dawn. Mm-hmm.

32:04.76
Kevin Shock
the rooster, yeah the proverbial rooster on the, on the farmstead that, um that wakes people up in the morning whenever the first light breaks.

32:09.04
Nathan Pile
On the fence. Yeah.

32:14.62
Kevin Shock
um

32:17.46
Kevin Shock
ah So I feel like there's a sense of that. But I'm yeah, I'm not sure in, in our,

32:21.40
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Yeah, that would but that would change the kind connotation a little bit. Right.

32:27.35
Kevin Shock
Right, right. They're not watching necessarily for protection or for guarding or they're it's it seems like they're watching for something to happen.

32:33.02
Nathan Pile
For safety. Right.

32:40.38
Kevin Shock
And what they do with that, I, I don't know. we, We don't ever get that answer in the text, but.

32:44.99
Nathan Pile
Sure.

32:45.26
Kevin Shock
um Yeah.

32:47.27
Nathan Pile
Right.

32:53.34
Kevin Shock
Yeah, I can't think of another example of someone who watches. I mean, I can think of scenarios that have been ruined by our modern, our contemporary technology.

32:57.53
Nathan Pile
Right.

33:08.44
Kevin Shock
um Something that I remember as a child yearning for was whenever we had family coming to visit.

33:18.47
Kevin Shock
And now, now we can just say, We send a text message that says our ETA is 3.47

33:24.54
Nathan Pile
Is sure. Nobody's looking out the window waiting for their arrival.

33:26.90
Kevin Shock
so that's, That's exactly the the image that comes to mind.

33:30.97
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

33:31.86
Kevin Shock
Right. Right. I can remember, I can remember as a kid, before we moved to Altoona in Latrobe, we had like a big window in the front of the house with these thick curtains.

33:33.13
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

33:43.19
Kevin Shock
And I can remember like standing on the, as a little kid standing on the couch.

33:47.74
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

33:48.28
Kevin Shock
So my arms reached over the top of the couch and like splitting the curtains open. So I could just look out the window.

33:55.61
Nathan Pile
Right.

33:55.80
Kevin Shock
and And I could see whenever, you know, grandparents, aunts, uncles, people pulled up in front of the house. And then, and, and then what would I do? I would go and announce it to everybody.

34:05.69
Nathan Pile
Sure, sure.

34:07.26
Kevin Shock
That's the image I have of these dawn watchers watching for the dawn.

34:12.89
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

34:15.47
Kevin Shock
they're, They're focused on looking at something and then, and then they go and announce it. Yeah, yeah.

34:21.75
Nathan Pile
Well, and what I think stands out makes that makes that different than security guard doing their job, right? Like but some of, you know, doesn't mean that that it is, but a portion of me hearing a security guard watching for the Don is my shift is over. I'm done.

34:43.48
Nathan Pile
You right.

34:44.01
Kevin Shock
Oh, there's that, too. Well, well, right.

34:45.34
Nathan Pile
ah yeah

34:47.07
Kevin Shock
That's, it's the same.

34:47.35
Nathan Pile
And so they're desperate to be able to be like, I can go to bed or I can do whatever the next thing is. Whereas being a a watchman for the dawn, your only purpose is to be able to proclaim to others that it's here.

34:52.69
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

35:03.74
Nathan Pile
it's ah It's a little bit more of a hopeful yearning, right? It's not about being done with something else. It's about the arrival of the new thing.

35:12.94
Kevin Shock
Mm hmm. Yeah.

35:17.02
Nathan Pile
So to me, that's, that's goes to the why of the watchman, a little bit of why, why they do what they do, why they function, what they want.

35:17.36
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

35:24.99
Nathan Pile
know, I'm the security guard cause I get paid to do it. And so I'm thankful when my shift is over and it's morning and somebody new comes in and I'm done with that.

35:32.57
Kevin Shock
Sure.

35:34.58
Nathan Pile
Whereas being a little kid on the couch to jump, jump off the couch and run through the house and tell everybody grandma's here to completely different, um,

35:47.73
Nathan Pile
a different why.

35:51.63
Kevin Shock
Hmm. Hmm.

35:53.14
Nathan Pile
As a security guard, you, you have to tell other people that bad things are happening, but it's not a joyous thing.

35:53.17
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

35:57.95
Kevin Shock
Right.

36:00.53
Nathan Pile
It's more of an alert, whereas Watchmen for the morn, for the Dawn is to hark the day is here.

36:10.52
Nathan Pile
you know so I don't know, in my mind, it, it, it has a different feeling to it.

36:12.14
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

36:16.15
Nathan Pile
so

36:16.34
Kevin Shock
Well, maybe, maybe there are people that yearn for the end of shift. and, and, and there's, I don't know, there's something about for for a kid looking out the living room window for family to pull up um their their their job is done once they see it it' but there's a different excitement there's different kind of yearning that goes along with it yeah um

36:35.87
Nathan Pile
Sure.

36:39.45
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

36:42.38
Nathan Pile
Right. Yeah.

36:46.28
Kevin Shock
I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm glad that that image popped into my head because that that to me is yearning. That's...

36:52.77
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

36:53.07
Kevin Shock
Yeah. um

36:54.23
Nathan Pile
I agree.

36:57.07
Kevin Shock
Excitement. But also here, this is this is deliverance too. This is... Yeah. This is...

37:05.70
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

37:05.74
Kevin Shock
um

37:08.26
Kevin Shock
salvation. this this is i know I know that's a word that we always have to unpack in this podcast for good reason, but this is ah your your life circumstance is changing wildly for the better whenever you're yearning for God and God arrives.

37:26.86
Kevin Shock
this, This God who is willing to deliver, more than willing to deliver. Okay.

37:35.08
Nathan Pile
Let's do it a third time.

37:36.44
Kevin Shock
okay

37:38.87
Nathan Pile
From the deep water, I cry out to you, O Lord. o Lord, listen to me. Pay attention to my plea for mercy. If you, O Lord, were to keep track of sins, O Lord, who could stand before you?

37:53.59
Nathan Pile
But you are willing to forgive. So that you might be honored. I rely on the Lord. I rely on him with my whole being. I wait for his assuring word.

38:05.21
Nathan Pile
I yearn for the Lord more than watchmen do for the morning. Yes, more than watchmen do for the morning. Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord for the Lord exhibits loyal love and is more than willing to deliver. He will deliver Israel from all of his sins.

38:25.98
Nathan Pile
Kevin, what do you yearn for more than Watchmen for the morning?

38:33.34
Kevin Shock
I don't know that, don't know that I can encapsulate it in one. I, I yearn for that. I yearn for that feeling I just described as a kid. You know, I, I, I think, and I don't know if it's the state of the world. I don't know if it's just because I'm older. I, There are...

38:56.59
Kevin Shock
there, There are things that I used to look forward to so, so, so, so much that I just don't look forward to in the same way anymore.

39:01.55
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

39:04.74
Kevin Shock
And maybe it's just the, you know, maybe it's just the mundane features of everyday life that make me not look forward to them in the same way.

39:19.44
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. But the thing, okay, so the thing that I, it's that feeling, it's that feeling, and it and and it is a feeling of goodness, it's a feeling of belonging, belovedness, all things that I know are rooted in God.

39:38.30
Kevin Shock
um I, I think I also yearn for human connection, and, And maybe i be I need to be more on the on the watch post um for that kind of thing.

39:53.84
Kevin Shock
um, I, You and I have talked previously, Nathan, about that this is like a ah um this is something that just comes with our work, that we make human connection.

40:09.53
Kevin Shock
um You know, any time...

40:13.53
Kevin Shock
It's been this way for a while, but any but certainly now, anytime that ah I show up in a place, in a congregation, in a ministry site, um people want to talk to me.

40:24.99
Kevin Shock
They want to shake my hand. They tell me they're happy to see me. I mean, those are, you know, um I'm sure sometimes they want to ah register a complaint as well, that's which is fine.

40:29.48
Nathan Pile
Sure.

40:36.86
Kevin Shock
But that ah that human connection as a part of my work comes... pretty naturally. What doesn't come as naturally as human connection in, in the mundane places of everyday life. And so I guess thought what I'm thinking about is how much I long, but I don't know if long is the right word for it. Maybe again, going back to the second question, maybe this is something I have to engender a longing or a yearning for. I recognize how happy I am when I even just

41:12.15
Kevin Shock
make a connection, a passing hello to somebody when when we're out in public, it just, it makes me feel good to for someone to acknowledge me and for me to acknowledge them, which doesn't happen a lot, frankly. Um, and, uh, yeah. And that's, um,

41:44.74
Kevin Shock
Yeah, that's, that's something that I, that's something that I yearn for. And I think that part if I'm unpacking it a little bit more, I, I think I yearn for it because it's, it's the life that God intends for us.

42:02.59
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

42:03.03
Kevin Shock
to, to, To live in a connected life, to live in a communal life, and not just be out there on our own, alone in the deep waters.

42:11.02
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

42:14.11
Kevin Shock
If we're in the deep waters, we're in the deep waters together. If we're delivered, we're delivered together.

42:20.63
Kevin Shock
Yeah. what, What are your thoughts, Nathan? what um what What do you yearn for more than Watchmen yearn for the morning?

42:30.49
Nathan Pile
Um, well, after we fleshed out what yearning for Watchmen is, I agree with you.

42:36.01
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

42:38.28
Nathan Pile
Like, it's a hard thing to kind of put a finger on that. This is what I want. Like that, that of, you know, there's lots of things that, that don't feel like they used to feel.

42:49.76
Nathan Pile
yeah. And I'm with you there. and, and, And for all of the like, I don't know why that is, is it because we're older? I think, you know, a lot of times people talk about that they love that young kids are a part of the life of the congregation. I think sometimes it's the wonder that kids show on their face reminds us of the wonder we used to have.

43:10.24
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

43:10.30
Nathan Pile
and whether that's that culture, society or age has made us more cynical or, or less open to that wonder, um, or that experience, that yearning, I don't know. Um, but you're right. Jumping off, you know as a kid jumping off the couch to announce to everybody in the house, that moment of complete excitement and joy that announcing to everybody else that somebody has arrived. Um, that that's a feeling that, um,

43:40.34
Nathan Pile
good that does feel harder to connect with now in my adult years.

43:45.65
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

43:46.33
Nathan Pile
And so it is when you when you do experience it, you're like, ah, here it is.

43:46.94
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

43:50.69
Nathan Pile
But it, it does feel farther apart than it used to. um And so, you know, how do we,

44:02.62
Nathan Pile
you know, um, I think your your answer of just having that feeling might be the thing that I yearn for again, um and what that feels and looks like. and and

44:21.27
Nathan Pile
And if there was ah some way of of helping helping me get back to that childlike yearning or wonder, um, I, you know, that's something I would, I would yearn for that, maybe that that would be a part of what I'm trying to to.

44:42.90
Nathan Pile
get to

44:48.44
Kevin Shock
Yeah, they I mean, I don't know. This is the kind of stuff as we're as we're talking about this. This is the kind of

44:58.13
Kevin Shock
I think for me, there must be some connection here to when Jesus says, ah unless you receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, you will never receive it.

45:10.67
Kevin Shock
um It's interesting to me that we're having this conversation about longing and yearning and excitement and goodness. And a lot of this relates back to feelings or memories that we've had from childhood.

45:28.94
Kevin Shock
um And I don't think, I don't think that the psalmist writes this psalm from a childhood or childlike perspective. I mean, honestly, they're in um they're in some kind of distress. They're recognizing some kind of difficulty.

45:53.34
Kevin Shock
But when I think of Longing, yearning, desiring, um and frankly, even that word they use, Nathan, relying.

46:05.24
Kevin Shock
those those are all that Those are all words and ways of being that somehow make more sense as a child than they do as an adult.

46:19.09
Kevin Shock
And and maybe that's maybe that's part of what you were getting at when you were talking about that this you know this This just makes more sense to the things that we remember from childhood than it does to the things we experience in adulthood.

46:32.59
Kevin Shock
that, That all of these things are, they they just make a whole lot of sense to it. I mean, you know, when we think about, again, that word that used, rely, children have to rely on adults.

46:46.19
Kevin Shock
with the, prob-, Part of becoming an adult is learning the, well, learning the myth that we don't have to rely on anybody else.

46:58.36
Kevin Shock
But I'm, but I am, I am clear about saying it is a myth.

46:59.19
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

47:03.51
Kevin Shock
It's an untruth. ah it's, ah, It's a deception that we don't have to rely on anybody else. We rely on other people all the time and fool ourselves into thinking that we're doing it all on our own.

47:18.44
Kevin Shock
It's just not true.

47:19.93
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

47:20.57
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

47:21.02
Nathan Pile
Well, I appreciate that you're unpacking that in that way.

47:27.51
Nathan Pile
you know Helping us all to kind of see that. that's It's good. I like it.

47:30.97
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. Other, other thoughts on that third question?

47:38.51
Nathan Pile
I don't think so.

47:40.22
Kevin Shock
I, I think this is a, um I don't know. um I have a new appreciation for this psalm.

47:46.81
Nathan Pile
Yeah, I do too. I, Where we started 48 minutes ago and where right now is is different places. so

47:56.57
Kevin Shock
Yeah, and and it makes me wonder, again, I don't have it right in front of me, it makes me wonder if Psalm 130 is one of the psalms that's appointed for either morning prayer or night prayer in our tradition.

48:08.18
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

48:08.44
Kevin Shock
I feel like feel like I've seen it somewhere, and there's something about, there's something that makes a lot of sense to me to read this before I go to bed. um

48:21.55
Kevin Shock
Yeah, anyway.

48:22.26
Nathan Pile
Well, now, especially after we've reflected on it.

48:24.76
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Yeah.

48:27.99
Nathan Pile
So, you know what that means for us.

48:28.20
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

48:31.01
Nathan Pile
so

48:34.38
Kevin Shock
Well, um yeah.

48:35.32
Nathan Pile
Hearing that phrase about the watchman.

48:39.51
Kevin Shock
So as, as we look at this reading, this is a reading appointed for the for this particular lectionary year, the fifth Sunday in Lent, and other texts that you can reflect on. um And maybe there's some There's definitely some yearning and longing that come out of these texts too. One that we've discussed on the podcast previously, maybe in our first year, Ezekiel 37 verses 1 through 14, the dry bones of Israel are brought to life.

49:12.03
Kevin Shock
um Romans 8 verses 6 through 11 talk about life in the spirit. And yet another baptismal image from John chapter 11 verses 1 through 45, is the raising of Lazarus.

49:28.26
Kevin Shock
I can imagine that Mary and Martha are both longing, yearning for their Lord to arrive in that reading. ah So friends, we um we want to hear what you yearn for when it comes to this life that we live together and life that we have in God. We want to hear your reflections on this text.

49:51.01
Kevin Shock
um Even if it's just a, ah if you share a memory of something that you longed for and saw it arrive, that all that stuff is helpful as we continue to unpack these sacred texts together.

50:05.13
Kevin Shock
um Nathan, as always, I appreciate your reflections and this conversation that we have that opens scripture up for us. And friends, we hope to tend our faith with you again soon. Grace to you.

50:16.54
Nathan Pile
And peace.