Eugene Peterson - “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction”
*using the Songs of Ascent to talk about the journey of “discipleship in an instant society”

Psalm 120 is a song of someone who is fed up, done with a world of lies and hate, someone who is so broken and frustrated with the pain of this world that they’re crying for something else, they’re ready to move, ready for something different, ready to travel…

I’m in trouble. I cry to God, desperate for an answer: “Deliver me from the liars, God!
They smile so sweetly but lie through their teeth.” —Psalm 120:1-2

Rescue me from the lies of advertisers who claim to know what I need and what I desire, from the lies of entertainers who promise a cheap way to joy, from the lies of politicians who pretend to instruct me in power and morality, from the lies of psychologists who offer to shape my behavior and my morals so that I will live long, happily and successfully, from the lies of religionists who ‘heal the wounds of this people lightly,’ from the lies of moralists who pretend to promote me to the office of captain of my fate, from the lies of pastors who ‘get rid of God’s command so you won’t be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions!” (Mk 7:8). Rescue me from the person who tells me of life and omits Christ, who is wise in the ways of the world and ignores the movement of the Spirit. —- Peterson, pg 27

Rescue me from every pretense that we have or can figure things out for ourselves

Do you know what’s next, can you see what’s coming,all you barefaced liars?
Pointed arrows and burning coals will be your reward. —Psalm 120:3-4

-Peterson says we have to get fed up with the ways of the world to desire the world of grace.

I’m doomed to live in Meshech, cursed with a home in Kedar, my whole life lived camping
among quarreling neighbors. I’m all for peace, but the minute I tell them so, they go to war! —Psalm 120:5-7

Meshech - a far-off tribe, thousands of miles from Palestine in southern Russia
Kedar - a wandering tribe with a reputation as barbarians who moved along Israel’s borders
***The writer is saying, “This world is not my home and I want out.”

And so we

Reveal Answer

and travel a different way - the start of a life of faith is a turning; it’s not an emotion, but a decision to move away from a life that is about us, to a life that is about God

We need to be wonderers who wander.
Faith isn’t something we grasp, it’s something we

Reveal Answer

There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness. Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mindset. Religion is understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when we have adequate leisure. —Eugene Peterson, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

A monument only says, ‘At least I got this far,’ while a footprint says, ‘This is where I was when I moved again. —William Faulkner