A Place to Dwell

‍A Place to Dwell

Psalm 113, Psalm 23:6

May 31, 2026

Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA

  PDF OF SERMON AVAILABLE BELOW

1 Alleluia! Praise, O servants of the Holy One.

2 Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

3 From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Holy One is to be praised.

4 You are high above all nations, and your glory transcends the heavens.

5 Who is like you, our God?

     Enthroned so high, 6 you look far down on the heavens and the earth.

7 You raise the poor from the dust, and lift the needy from the ash heap,

            8 to give them a place with the rulers.

9 You give the childless couple a home, a family, filled with your joy.  Alleluia!                              Inclusive Bible Translation

 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.             Psalm 23:6

 We will be looking at Psalms for the next few weeks. 

 In his book The Spirituality of the Psalms, Walter Bruggemann wrote this in the introduction

The Book of Psalms provides the most reliable theological, pastoral and liturgical resource given us in the biblical tradition. In season and out of season, generation after generation, faith women and men turn to the Psalms as a most helpful resource for conversation with God about things that matter most….The Psalms do this so fully and so well because they articulate the entire gamut of the Hebrew people’s speech to God, from profound praise to the utterance of unspeakable anger and doubt. …. They are also God’s good word addressed to God’s faithful people.

 Psalm 113 is a psalm of praise. Praise the Lord!  Alleluia!

 It’s right there in the first sentence.

 In her sermon on this psalm, Rev. Marci Glass writes:

As those seeking to know and serve and love the Divine Mystery, our praise is eternal. Our voices join the voices of the faithful from the past, and while we live, our voices carry the chorus. Other voices will take up the refrain after our voices fall silent. From this time on and evermore, we praise God.

 The act of coming to worship is an act of praise. It is one reason we gather each week, to lift our voices in prayer and song.

 And some days, during times of trial, sorrow, fear, praise can seem hard to voice. And as we gather together in times of trial and struggle, we may need to let the voices of the people near us carry our part in the song. When our voices our silent, our very presence can be the act of praise, faithfully joining with God’s people to worship.

 This psalm helps us remember why we praise God, in the good times and in the bad. And our praise is not to a god who is disconnected from us, or one who doesn’t care about us.

 The psalmist asks, “Who is like you, our God?” And the answer, of course, is no one. There was no other god in the world of the psalmist who looked far down on the heavens and earth and was with the people.

 When they translated this psalm from Hebrew, they hid some of the word connections that go throughout it, connections which make clear what kind of God we gather to praise.

 We serve God who is enthroned in heaven and who bends down to earth to care for a poor man, giving him a seat at tables of power. God also comes down to earth to care for all people, those who have children and those who do not.

 The image of God as a king is not one that resonates for many of us today.  And yet, there is an interesting meaning of the Hebrew word. The throne God has is the same root word in Hebrew for the seat the poor man gets and the dwelling the childless woman gets.

 Often the language of the psalms seems unfamiliar to us. But in this psalm, I think the imagery carries through. we want to have seats at the tables where decisions are made, whether we call leaders princes or not. We want a seat, a throne, where we have some sort of agency over our lives. We want a dwelling, a home, as the woman is given, a place of safety and shelter against the cares of the world.

 God shares the divine status of being enthroned with humanity. God raises us out of our proverbial dust heaps and barrenness and gives us a home.

And we praise God for sharing the very thing that makes God God—the divine enthronedness—with us. 

 Psalm 84:1   1 How lovely is your dwelling place, LORD Almighty!

Psalm 90:1  1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

yashab: To sit, dwell, remain, inhabit  : יָשַׁב  Transliteration: yashab (make to) abide(-ing), continue, (cause to, make to) dwell(-ing), ease self,

And as people who praise God for giving us a home, a seat, a dwelling place—I invite you to think about what home means to you, and where you have found it throughout your lives.  Times you felt at home – a place, people, a church or faith community, a neighborhood.  Maybe home is a hard concept.  Maybe home brings up times of uncertainty, sadness, lack of caring or other complex realities.  Maybe you are considering a new way of being at home in your life and in the world – spiritual home, a physical home.

I have been thinking about this Psalm – home, dwelling, a place – because of there are people in my life who are moving.  People in our church thinking about downsizing or moving to a place with more levels of care. Or young adults looking for a place to live.

And there are so daily news stories about immigrants, immigration policies. About migrants. About displaced people. Refugees and refugee camps. People who cannot go home for many different reasons.

And as we think about the people and places we’ve called home, we remember people still seeking literal home.

As a congregation who cares about people who are unhoused, we seek ways to work with other faith communities, local agencies and city, county and state government to seek adequate housing, affordable housing.  It is a complex issue, but we are talking about people who are made in the image of God.

As we think about where we’ve found our metaphorical home, we need to continue to work for actual homes. Because psalms are instructive. They show us the way God wants the world to be ordered. Psalms can be aspirational, pointing us toward a world where everyone has a home, where the poor people are given seats at the tables of power, where people can be part of all different kinds of families. Homes shouldn’t be the place where people face violence, hunger, or danger.

I want my home to be a place of welcome, and shelter, and safety. We want this for each other and all people.

God dwells with us. To all of us, intending us to live lives where we have a voice, and where we have a home. To praise God is an act of rebellion in a world that tries to tell people they don’t belong, and that their voice doesn’t matter, and that they don’t have a home.

This psalm speaks to the great reversal that we often see in scripture. In Luke, Mary sings her magnificat when she is pregnant with Jesus, and she rejoices in God, who “has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

The Magnificat even has the throne language. The powerful are brought down from their thrones. God lifts up the poor to thrones. Mary’s song is a continuation of Psalm 113.

And we also know of God coming down from the divine throne to lift us up because of Jesus. In John 1, we hear, “And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we have seen his glory,  full of grace and truth….From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

From last week’s adult ed class – Week 1  Love Takes a Body – (Elizabeth Jameson)

So when John says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, it's not just saying that God is in everything — it's saying that God is in us in a way that invites a new way of understanding.

Another way to translate that Johannine phrase: God pitched God's tent among us. That tent echoes the tabernacle. When the people of Israel were wandering, God said: This is where I dwell. I will go with you. That image of God going-with is something we humans have always struggled to trust.

Maybe we were taught or given the message - We are to imagine God "out there," separate. A Newtonian worldview: God is over here, I'm over there, and I need to get closer.

And yet God is closer than our very breath.

Invite you to reflect today and this week about your sense of home. How might you feel at home in this season of your life – spiritual home, a place to dwell, relationships.  And consider  how is God, the Holy One dwelling, in you.

I am grateful for the many ways you offer home, safe dwelling place. For me. For each other. For people in this community. For those who need to find a safe place.  May our welcome continue to widen and deepen. Amen

Resource

Rev. Marci Glass, “A Place to Dwell”,  June 16, 2019 https://marciglass.com/2019/06/16/a-place-to-dwell/‍ ‍