Scene: A community group submitting an application

Katy Emslie-Smith August 18, 2025 4 3

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Psalm 80: 1-2, 8-19 (NIVUK)

1 Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,
    you who lead Joseph like a flock.
You who sit enthroned between the cherubim,
    shine forth 2 before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.
Awaken your might;
    come and save us.

 

8 You transplanted a vine from Egypt;
    you drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it,
    and it took root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade,
    the mighty cedars with its branches.
11 Its branches reached as far as the Sea,
    its shoots as far as the River.

12 Why have you broken down its walls
    so that all who pass by pick its grapes?
13 Boars from the forest ravage it,
    and insects from the fields feed on it.
14 Return to us, God Almighty!
    Look down from heaven and see!
Watch over this vine,
15     the root your right hand has planted,
    the son you have raised up for yourself.

16 Your vine is cut down, it is burned with fire;
    at your rebuke your people perish.
17 Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,
    the son of man you have raised up for yourself.
18 Then we will not turn away from you;
    revive us, and we will call on your name.

19 Restore us, Lord God Almighty;
    make your face shine on us,
    that we may be saved.

An opening shot of a group of people seated round a table. Papers lie strewn, copies of spreadsheets, costings, surveyors’ reports, risk assessments, community feedback, all the hard work of this community group preparing to submit an application to transform local derelict land. The camera pans round the faces. One man is frowning in deep concentration over a conservation report. Another runs his hands through his hair repeatedly, anxious and daunted by the amounts of money involved. A woman’s face is expectant, waiting for someone to speak. The camera jumps to another who smiles broadly, thinking of the creative opportunities of restoring blank, unappealing land to be somewhere full of life, new growth, young people, laughter and fun.

Psalm 80 identifies the withdrawn and saddened face of God. His face seems distant when people willingly neglect him and turn from his guidance for a wholesome, resilient, kind, protective society. The physical representation is so often land fallen to waste, barren and derelict, overrun by destructive weeds and wildlife, walls broken, open to looting and stealing, an unsafe place of fighting and conflict. And a sovereign, holy, loving God is saddened.

Through the redemptive work of Christ, God lifts his face towards acts of restoration and movements towards renewal, revival and regeneration. His face shines on acts which follow his own first action to reconcile the world to himself through Jesus.

Psalm 80 motivates our prayers for the very troubled parts of the world where warfare and human violence have laid desolate and derelict cities and rural landscapes where once human life flourished. Verse 12 allows our question of “Why” to God who has seemed so absent. Many of us have wondered where he is in the destruction and devastation of Gaza, of Ukraine, of Sudan, of Yemen…Yet when called on, he is willing to lift his countenance even there, even here, to bring the blessing of his presence, to establish the work of the Prince of Peace.

Prayer:

God, over the parts of the world where death and destruction are rampant, where cities and fields lie derelict through the dismantling work of human hands, we pray in an ongoing way the blessing of Aaron:

The blessing of Aaron:

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may he make his face to shine upon you and give you peace.

Amen