Lifting Our Eyes
Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A – Psalm 123
To You I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! [Ps. 123:1]
Last Sunday at Blacknall Presbyterian, a group of girls offered a spiritual dance as our music ensemble played. The girls were spread out along both aisles and across the front of the sanctuary. Jane and I were sitting in our usual spot about two-thirds of the way back alongside the left aisle. A sweet girl, about ten years old, or so, danced just to our right.
Before the service began, I had been talking with her parents, whom we know well. Normally, they sit closer to the front, but that morning they had chosen the pew directly behind us because they knew their daughter would be dancing nearby. Her grandparents sat another pew back.
As the dance was ending, she looked up at her father. I didn’t need to turn around to know his reaction. I could see the love and expectation that was registered on her face and, as a parent myself, I knew that his love was beaming even stronger towards her.
Her small sweet glance brought to mind the opening words of Psalm 123:
To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens! [Ps. 123:1]
Psalm 123, just four verses long, is one of fifteen psalms, 120 through 134, each titled, “A Song of Ascents.” The title points to the exiled Hebrew’s return to Jerusalem. Later, however, the title began to speak about the journey Jewish believers walked as they traveled to Jerusalem for festival worship. As you may know, Jerusalem sits on high ground, and from wherever a family started, the last stretch of the road would be a climb.
Read in order, the Ascents have a certain rhythm. In Psalm 121, the pilgrim lifts his eyes to the hills. In Psalm 122, the travelers are standing within the gates of the city. In Psalm 123, their eyes go higher than the city, higher even than the hills, to the One enthroned in the heavens.
At the center of this week’s Psalm, there is a single image. Just as servants might look to the hand of their master, just like the eyes of a maid would look up to her mistress, so the worshipper’s eyes look to the LORD our God. A servant’s looks to the master’s hand because that hand holds what the servant needs: food, direction, protection, or even release. The servant’s look is not one of independence. Instead, the look is expectant; it is hopeful. Can we see that we are the servants in the psalmist’s picture?
Most days, my eyes are on what is immediately before me. I glance at my calendar or at my specialized software that tracks the things I need to do. Perhaps you’re a bit like me. In expansive moments, we may think about our plans, even our dreams. The psalm invites us to look elsewhere, to look not out, but up. We need not cast aside completely our thoughts, but we should recognize that as we look up, the gaze of our loving Heavenly Father is already upon us.
Sunday morning gave me an earthly glimpse of that beautiful divine reality. A child looked up toward her father and mother. Their attention was already upon her.
The psalm begins with one voice: “I lift up my eyes.” In the second verse, however, the prayer becomes “our eyes” and “have mercy upon us.” The psalmist is no longer praying alone. A community joins in.
Their common plea in the psalm should sound familiar to us: “Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us” [123:3]. It is essentially the words of the Kyrie — “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” Each time we join our voices, we do so to that ancient prayer. We ask for mercy for ourselves and for one another.
The young girl at Blacknall looked up expectantly toward her father, but his attention was already on her.
Together, let us lift our eyes to the Lord, for the One to whom we look is already looking toward us in love.