Sermon for August 3rd, 2025

Psalm 30:1-12

A Psalm. A Song at the dedication of the temple. Of David. 1 I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and did not let my foes rejoice over me. 2 O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. 3 O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

4 Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. 5 For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” 7 By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. 8 To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication: 9 “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?

10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!” 11 You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, 12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

Back to School Sunday: Psalm 30

Since today is “Back to School Sunday” I’d like to talk to you about the difference between a teacher and an educator. Which one is better? Which one is more like God? And for those of us who are students, what should our response be, when we have been taught, when we have been educated? That’s where our Psalm today comes in, but first—to illustrate the point—a story.

At a small private school somewhere in America (not our school, of course!) the teachers were faced with a unique problem: A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick for the first time, and they would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night, the school custodian would clean the mirror, and the next day, the girls would put the lipstick marks back again. Several teachers tried their best to address the problem, asking the girls not to do this, and explaining to them at great length the extra work they were creating. All to no avail. The lipstick marks flourished on the bathroom mirror.

Finally, Mrs. Johnson (a true educator) decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the custodian. To show how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the custodian to demonstrate his cleaning efforts. He took out a sponge on the end of a long handle, dipped the sponge in the toilet, and proceeded to clean the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers, and there are educators. What’s the difference?

The English word “teach” comes from the old Germanic word taikjan, which in turn comes from the Latin word *dico.* If you know Spanish, think of the Spanish word “dico” which means I speak, say, or tell. So a teacher (originally) was someone who taught students, by speaking, telling, or explaining things to them. Many teachers today still do. Interestingly, the English word “dictator” comes from exactly the same root as the word teacher. A dictator is someone who tells you what to do!

But an educator is a little bit different. The word educate comes to us directly from the Latin word *educere* which means to draw out, to lead out, or to lift up. The implication is that the educator recognizes what is already inside the student, and draws it out. Or another way to look at it—the educator sees where a student is, and lifts her up to a new perspective, where she can form her own conclusions.

Teaching assumes a void—the student is an empty vessel in need of filling up with information and explanations. Educating assumes a relationship, a back-and-forth interaction between two capable and intelligent beings.

Now would be a great time for us to pause and remember those great educators in our own lives who didn’t just tell us the answers, but who helped us to understand the questions, who led by example, and who trusted us to figure things out, gently and patiently nudging, provoking, and inspiring us where needed. Thanks be to God for them.

So which one is God—a teacher or an educator? God certainly says a lot of things in the Bible; he gives Moses a list of Ten Commandments; and there are definitely times in the Old Testament where God seems kind of like a dictator!

But I think if you asked David, the one to whom our Psalm today is attributed, he might have a different perspective. David says right in the first verse of Psalm 30 that you, O Lord, “have drawn me up” (remember that’s the literal definition of an educator!) and in verse 3: You, O Lord, have “brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.” Basically, he’s saying, you saved my bacon. You saved my life.

I think back to Dr. Grady Walker, my college English professor. I was driving to his house one afternoon to meet with a study group he hosted, and I got a flat tire. It was my first car, and when I tried to change the tire, I put it on backwards. I ended up breaking something, which made the car undriveable. I called Dr. Walker to let him know I wouldn’t make it. He immediately left the study group, came to pick me up, had my car towed to a repair shop, and paid for the repair (and a new tire) himself. And still made me come to the study group.

Another time, I did something stupid on a school trip (which is not the subject of today’s sermon) and found myself in the Dean’s office facing possible expulsion from school. Dr. Walker marched down to the dean’s office and spent three hours arguing with the Dean, until the Dean relented and put me on disciplinary probation instead. Two weeks after I graduated from college, my father passed away unexpectedly. It was Dr. Walker who drove to my apartment, took me home to his house and stayed with me that night so I wouldn’t be alone, and put me on a plane home to my family the next morning.

I remember a lot of things Grady Walker taught me. But even more, I remember how many times he lifted me up, saved my bacon, saved my life. And yes, for those who are tracking, I did name my eldest son after him. We honor the names of our great educators, just as David does in verse 4 of our Psalm: “Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.”

Right after that, in verse 5, David mentions (almost in passing) the wrath of the Lord: “His anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

A good educator has many tools in the proverbial toolkit. Humor, honesty, patience, creativity, and yes—sometimes even anger. Not uncontrolled, unrestrained or cruel anger… but focused, righteous anger that lasts for just a moment, in the wider context of steadfast and lifelong love.

Two other great educators in my life were my parents, my first teachers. My mother’s anger was quiet and determined—she didn’t have to say anything, but you could read it in her body language. Sometimes that anger was directed at me… and sometimes it was directed at teachers or school administrators who told her that I was incapable of learning… because I was incapable of sitting still in a chair, or keeping my mouth shut while the teacher was talking.

My father’s anger was more like a thunderstorm—loud and terrifying, but gone in the morning, when I would wake up to the smell of him cooking my favorite breakfast, as a sign of peace and his enduring love.

Just like the humor, honesty, patience and creativity that my parents also brought to bear in my earliest education, their constructive use of anger always drew something out of me—an opportunity to respond. Sometimes that response was caution, sometimes it was remorse. Sometimes it was awareness of a real and present danger that I would have been oblivious to if they had been calm about it.

David hints at this tendency in verse 6 of the Psalm: “As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”

When we are doing well, when we feel safe and happy, we often develop the sense that we don’t need to be educated—that since we have accomplished everything we want to accomplish, we have therefore learned everything we need to know. This is true of all ages, but if you’ve ever tried to educate or parent a teenager, you especially understand how this looks.

Verse 7: “By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; but you hid your face; and I was dismayed.”

This is another technique of a great educator: Hiding your face. As parents and teachers, sometimes we are too quick to jump in and solve the problems of our children, or provide them with the answer that has worked best for us—instead of letting them wrestle with it for awhile, and come to their own resolutions. Make no mistake, if you try this approach, there will be dismay and tears at first: “I can’t do it.” “I give up.” “It’s too hard.” “You don’t care about me!” I actually love David’s over-the-top response in verse 9: “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?” Who are you gonna argue with if I’m gone? This is David’s subtle way of reminding God “Hey, wait a minute! I thought we were in this together.”

And of course, David is not wrong either. Education is a subtle, flowing dance, with plenty of back and forth, give and take. It’s knowing when to hide your face for a time, giving your dance partner space to try a new move, to show off (or trip, fall, and get back up again). But it’s also knowing when to step back in, leading and drawing out the best in each other.

God does this for David, who says in verse 10, “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!”

In the NRSV translation, this is phrased as two imperatives, or two requests: Be gracious to me. Be my helper. But it’s not quite so cut and dry in the original Hebrew. Your pew bibles have a footnote to this verse with an alternate translation: “The Lord heard and was gracious to me; the Lord became my helper.” We don’t really know whether this verse is David’s request or God’s response. And I think that ambiguity is kind of fitting. Kind of like a dance, where sometimes you’re not exactly sure who’s leading and who’s following. That’s education.

And in the last two verses of the Psalm, David acknowledges as much, when he says: “You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”

Today we give thanks for great educators, for great students, for loving parents and beloved children, and for the God who binds us all together in love, lifting us to new heights and drawing out the very best in every one of us.

Three more quick school jokes?

• What’s the tallest building in the school? The library. It has hundreds of stories.
• Why does it take pirates so long to say the alphabet? They spend a lot of time at C.
• On the first day of school, the teacher asked the students to name something great they have in school today that they didn’t have 10 years ago. One eager student piped up and said, “I know, I know! Me.”