Sermon for July 19th, 2026

Psalm 20:1-9

To the leader. A Psalm of David. 1 The Lord answer you in the day of trouble! The name of the God of Jacob protect you! 2 May he send you help from the sanctuary, and give you support from Zion. 3 May he remember all your offerings, and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices. Selah 4 May he grant you your heart’s desire, and fulfill all your plans. 5 May we shout for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. 6 Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with mighty victories by his right hand. 7 Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God. 8 They will collapse and fall, but we shall rise and stand upright. 9 Give victory to the king, O Lord; answer us when we call.

Psalm 20: Setting Out With a Blessing

There's an old Irish blessing--probably not the one you're thinking of--and it goes like this: May those who love us, love us. And those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts. And if he doesn't turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping.

Here's another one: May your neighbors respect you, may trouble neglect you, may the angels protect you, and may heaven accept you—but not just yet.

And one more: May you have the foresight to know where you are going, the hindsight to know where you've been, and the good luck not to run over yourself in the process.

Blessings--whether funny, beautiful, or deeply touching--are essentially small prayers of goodwill that we express toward people or things that are close to us. We bless our food before a meal, we bless people when they sneeze, and here in Texas, we say "bless your heart" when we want to politely excuse someone who said or did something stupid. As a church community, we bless backpacks at the beginning of a school year (which we'll do again two weeks from today!); we bless our graduates at the end of the school year; we bless the pets in our community after Easter, and we say a shalom blessing over families and church members who are moving away to begin a new chapter of their lives in a different place. We'll come back to that a bit later in the service!

Our scripture reading today is Psalm 20, and it is essentially a Psalm of blessing. But embedded within its nine short verses is, I think, a template for anyone who has ever stood at the edge of something unknown--a blessing spoken at the threshold, before the journey begins, while the outcome is still uncertain.

Psalm 20 is also one of the “royal psalms”--a psalm written for the king. The ascription at the beginning of the Psalm says that it is "A Psalm of David" but the preposition in Hebrew that is translated "of" is pretty ambiguous. It can also mean "to" or "for" or "about"--and in this case, I think it is probably better translated "A Psalm FOR David." This psalm was probably used in public worship just before the king and his army departed for battle. The troops have assembled, the chariots and horses are ready, and all the appropriate sacrifices have been offered. But before the king leaves the safety of Jerusalem and crosses the threshold into danger, the people gather around him and send him out with a blessing.

If you listen carefully, you can hear different voices speaking within the psalm. In the first five verses, the people address the king directly: “May the Lord answer you. May the Lord protect you. May the Lord send you help. May the Lord remember you.” Then, in verse six, another voice responds: “Now I know that the Lord will help his anointed.” Finally, the whole community joins together again: “Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.”

In other words, this is not simply the private prayer of a king asking God to help him win a battle. It is a communal act of faith. The king may be the one setting out, but the entire community is placing its faith around him. They do not know what will happen. They cannot promise that the battle will be easy or that everything will unfold according to plan. What they can promise is that the king will not go alone: he carries with him the prayers of his people and the presence of his God.

Psalm 20, then, is a psalm for the threshold--that place between what has been and what comes next, between the familiar world behind us and the uncertain road ahead. And while very few of us will ever ride out of Jerusalem at the head of an army, all of us will eventually find ourselves standing at that threshold, preparing to set out into something new.

So what do you say to someone standing at a threshold? Listen to what the people say--because every line of this blessing names something the traveler is going to need.

It begins in verse 1: "May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble." Notice that it doesn't say, "May you never HAVE any trouble." Trouble is assumed as a natural part of every journey, part of every life. The prayer is simply that when trouble comes, God will be there. God will answer.

And which God? "May the name of the God of Jacob protect you." The God of Jacob is just a poetic way of saying the God of Israel (Jacob's other, God-given name). But of all the ancestors the people could have invoked, Jacob makes sense. Jacob was a traveler--a complicated, imperfect man who fled from home, wrestled with God in the dark, and limped back by a road he never planned to take. The God of Jacob is the God who accompanies real people on real journeys, all the way there and all the way back.

In verse 2, the people pray, "May he send you help from the sanctuary, and give you support from Zion." They say this as they are standing in the sanctuary, and in the city of Zion, or Jerusalem. They are essentially adding their own support to the cause: May God help you, and may we help you, too. That's important--when you pray a blessing over someone, it's not just a passing hope for God to do something: You are committing yourself--your thoughts, your actions, your resources--to making that blessing a reality.

In verses 3 and 4, the people also ask God to remember the traveler's offerings, to grant his heart’s desire, and to fulfill his plans. These are not attempts to purchase God’s favor or persuade God to approve whatever the traveler wants. Instead, they place those desires and plans into God’s hands, asking God to receive them, guide them, and bring them into harmony with HIS desires and plans.

Then a shift in verse 5: "May we shout for joy over your victory." All along it has been you, you, you--and suddenly it becomes we. The traveler's trouble will be our trouble; his victory will be our joy. Whatever lies beyond the city walls, one thing is settled before the traveler takes a single step: he is not going alone.