If you know the movie The Princess Bride you probably remember the character Inigo Montoya. He is the swordsmen who has devoted his life to seeking revenge on the six fingered man who killed his father. You may know his most famous line, which is what he says when he finally meets the six fingered man and attempts to kill him, “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
And without giving away too much, near the end of the movie he says that he has spent so much of his life seeking revenge that now that he has achieved it he doesn’t know what to live for.
I think we all know that harboring anger and seeking revenge can eat away at us and consume us. I believe forgiveness can be every bit as much for the forgiver as the forgiven. Holding anger can be life destroying.
The prophet Obadiah and Psalm 137 seem to go hand in hand. They are both showing us an age-old anger that existed between the Israelites and the neighboring nation of Edom. The front cover of the bulletin shows the way the kingdom of Edom lay just to the south of Judah, the southern kingdom of the ancient Hebrews.
According to the Bible’s stories in Genesis the Israelites and the Edomites had common parents – Isaac and Rebecca. You may remember that Rebecca gave birth to twins: Jacob (father of Israel) and Esau (father of Edom). Esau was the first born and is depicted as not all that bright. For example he sells his birthright to his brother for a bowl of bean. But Jacob isn’t portrayed well either. We Americans look at our founding fathers and want to glorify them. We talk about George Washington and his honesty for example. However the Israelites saw their founders, especially Jacob, in a very poor light. Genesis records Jacob as a liar, cheater, and scoundrel. Jacob eventually swindles his brother Esau so badly that he runs away from home fearing Esau’s retribution.
Years pass. Jacob gets in trouble with more people and decides to head back home. But there is the problem with his brother Esau. Can he even go home safely? The confrontation happens in Genesis 33. Esau comes out to meet his brother with four hundred men – a small army. Jacob sends gifts ahead in hopes of appeasing his brother and we wait anxiously to know what will happen. We know that if Esau kills Jacob it would be no more than he deserves.
Esau forgives Jacob completely and welcomes him with open arms. It is not what we would expect. Though Jacob is the father of the nation the histoy, Esau is the good guy. Maybe Esau wasn’t very smart, but throughout the story is he portrayed as an honest, decent hardworking guy. Again, it is fascinating that the ancient Jews often portrayed themselves as the bad guys in the story. Also, if you remember from a month ago, when we read Job, Job was considered the pinnacle of being a righteous man, and he would have been an Edomite. The ancient Jews described Esau as not being very bright, the way you’d expect an enemy to be depicted; and yet in other places they seem to have considered the people who lived in the Edomite region wise.
It is often said that the winners get to write history. But ultimately the Edomites lost. They were ultimately conquered and destroyed. They no longer exist. The Jews do. So, if the Jews are the winners, and the Old Testament is Jewish history, it is fascinating that the Jews included texts that at least in some places, put their enemies in a good light.
What is also fascinating is the way they recorded their hatred and desires for revenge. I don’t think anyone knows what was the root cause of the conflict between the Israelites and the Edomites. The best I can find is that it was disputes over territory, but who knows. Whatever the cause, it appears as if the Israelites and the Edomites rarely got along. It reached its peak in 587 B.C.E. when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. Accounts vary, but it appears as if the Edomites joined in the destruction and cheered it on. We see that in Psalm 137.
In all of this it is important to remember that we are not reading about the goings on of great nations. Judah and Edom, as well as Moab and Ammon were all tiny nation states. At their strongest they were still weaklings in the ancient world. Picture them like the army of Ontario County going to war with Wayne County or Yates County. When put on the global stage their petty grudges are almost laughable!
The first half of Obadiah is an oracle against Edom. It is a pronouncement of divine retribution for the evils of the Edomites. The second half is about God restoring the Israelites and giving them control over their neighbors. We’ll come back to that. First lest turn to Psalm 137.
Theologian and composer, Susan Briehl has invested a lot of time and study in Psalm 137. The hymn that we’re going to sing after the sermon, Once We Sang and Danced, is written by her based on Psalm 137. She isn’t exactly sure why the Jews included it in scripture – or even why they don’t just forget and ignore their hatred of the Edomites. After all, the Edomites were ultimately destroyed. So why hang on to this?
Briehl doesn’t know. But she does say it may be because they didn’t want to forget the pain and the sense of loss. Our Jewish faith ancestors are willing to remember deep pain. And unlike us Americans, who these days like to think we can rise to whatever occasion or crisis and then conquer it, the Jews of that day turned their past, their present, and their future over to God. They didn’t look to themselves for strength and salvation. They knew they couldn’t do it. They were too weak. They looked to God.
Perhaps that’s why the Jews were not afraid of their flawed past or their messed-up founders. They also felt there was importance in remembering times when they felt complete despair for their faith and the future. They felt there was importance in remembering when they were consumed with brutal hatred and desires for revenge; even for people who were their blood relatives.
Obadiah and Psalm 137 both record ugly dark feelings. If Susan Briehl is right, there may we a great deal of health in remembering times when you were so hate-filled, or filled with despair, that you were irrational, or were consumed by it.
Our own nation, like the ancient Jewish nation, has many things in its past to be proud of. Our nation, like the ancient Jewish nation, has many things to look forward to in the future. And our nation, like the ancient Jewish nation, has many things in its past it should be ashamed of: mistakes, failures, bad policies, cruel events.
No nation that has any history at all, and any power at all, functions without making blunders or without things it wished never happened.
Our nation is severely divided these days. I wish there was enough honesty and humility to see things the way the ancient Jews did. They could recognize truly good things in their enemies and opponents. And they were willing to look at the ugly times in their past, and hang on to them in a way that helped them in the present.
As people of faith we can take a big lesson from Obadiah and Psalm 137. The second half of Obadiah is an oracle against all the nations that have been against Judah. Our Christian faith will take issue with the way God will punish so many nations. And since it is a prophesy for the future, this will probably be innocent people. But notice that it is not the Israelites who will do it. God does not promise a future where they themselves will triumph. Nor does God promise a future where God will guide them to triumph. The future promise is that God will bring the triumph.
As we are people who are sinners in need of God’s grace, and that grace is our only hope, we do well to take this to heart. I’ve said it before, I’m saying it now, and I’ll probably say it in the future – this is very hard to believe – the future is God’s. It is secure in God’s hands. No matter how easy or hard life is, the future is God’s. No matter how fair or unfair things are now, the future is God’s. That does not mean that we sit back and do nothing. No, we work hard to make God’s kingdom a reality. But we do so knowing that the future does not rely on our efforts alone. If we fail it’s okay.
Since the future is God’s there’s no need for a lifetime seeking revenge, or for holding onto people’s sins against us. We let the hurts and injuries be God’s. We free ourselves from them and work onward. Amen
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
July 21, 2024 Psalm 51
As you are fully aware, we are in political election season. While we probably immediately think about the presidential election, let’s remember that the elections cover state and national congressional and senate races also. Perhaps the campaigning makes you mad. Perhaps it makes you anxious about the future. I don’t know of anyone who is happy about it all, so I won’t include, “Perhaps it makes you happy.” Or perhaps you don’t care at all. Although if you don’t care, then I remind you that it is your duty as a citizen of a democracy to care!
Regardless of how you feel about the elections, I invite you to take what is perhaps an eccentric critical view. As you see ads and hear debates pay attention to how the candidates vie to claim the moral high ground for themselves. Perhaps it has to do with: sexual ethics, or race issues, or gender issues, or environment, or labor, or finances, or international issues, or whatever it may be; all of it is rooted in some sort of maneuver to claim the moral high ground over an opponent. No candidate ever says, “I am the scum of the earth and so is my ideology. Therefore you should vote for me!” No, they try to claim some sort of fundamental moral superiority.
This should not surprise us. No one wants to vote for someone immoral. And if a candidate does have qualities considered to be immoral, they either try to hide them or excuse them.
This desire for the moral high ground goes for more than just politics. Everyone does it. When you feel you have successfully taken the high ground for yourself you can look down upon others in righteous judgment. It’s a good feeling. The reverse is horrible. You certainly don’t like it when someone tries to say that you, or your perspective, on things is fundamentally immoral. It is far easier to be the one on the high ground and righteously forgiving people, rather than be in the position of admitting that you are wrong and bad, and that you need to beg for forgiveness and change.
Writings like Psalm 51 do not find any place in our political landscape today – or really any part of our society. Yet it is of great importance.
Psalm 51 presents itself as King David’s response to the prophet Nathan when Nathan pointed out David’s sins with Bathsheba. I have never understood why David is raised up as a great king. Or why the bloodline of David is considered essential for Jewish kings. David was not a nice guy. The Bible describes him as: deceitful, cunning, arrogant, and overall highly immoral. He breaks five of the Ten Commandments. With the Bathsheba episode alone he overtly breaks three, and subtly breaks more. He is two-faced and even somewhat treasonous. 2 Samuel 7 even describes God’s displeasure with David. David decides he wants to build a temple to God – this is after first building a palace for himself. God says no way. No way is a killer like David going to build a house for God. If we turn to 1 Chronicles 22:6 God says to David, “You shall not build a house to my name because you have shed so much blood before me upon the earth.”
David did have moral guides in his life. The prophet Nathan was one of them. His first wife, Michel also gave him lots of great moral and political advice. All of which he ignored.
David could never claim any moral high ground for himself. There seem to be two things that made him the model king. First, he did tend to turn to God. He was faithful in that regard, even as he basically ignored God’s morality. Second, and I think this one is actually the key, he knew he was a sinner. And he was not an accidental sinner, he knew what he did was often flagrantly wrong.
We cannot excuse David’s bad morality, but if Psalm 51 is any indication of his soul, his awareness of his sinfulness played a significant role in his leadership. Perhaps that awareness was regularly with him. That is a very significant thing.
A. Whitney Brown has pointed out, “Any good history book is mainly just a long list of mistakes, complete with names and dates. It’s very embarrassing.” (The Big Picture: An American Commentary, New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, pg. 12) In the New Interpreter’s Bible theologian, J. Clinton McCann Jr. says that the Exodus story is one of embarrassing mistakes. “David’s story and the history of the subsequent monarchy are indeed very embarrassing. So is the psalmist’s story in Psalm 51. So is the behavior of the disciples in the Gospels. So is the situation of the early church, revealed in the letters of Paul.”
The Bible is many things. I suppose among them is that it is the embarrassing story of human faith.
McCann goes on, “[Also embarrassing] is the history of the Christian church throughout the centuries. So are the denominational and congregational lives of the contemporary church. So are the details of our life stories, if we are honest enough to admit it. In short, Psalm 51 is not just about Israel or David or some unknown ancient psalmist; it is also about us! It is about who we are and how we are as individuals, families, churches – sin pervades our lives. It’s very embarrassing.” (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IV, Pg. 888)
You want the Bible to speak truth in a clear, undeniable, absolute way? Turn to Psalm 51!
We have this craving to claim the moral high ground for ourselves. But we’re kidding ourselves if we think we’ve achieved it.
Psalm 51 says, “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” That is linking sex to sin. Many people have done that over the centuries. But that is a misinterpretation. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of the inevitability of human failing.
Somehow, for some reason, we humans do not believe that God really and truly made us complete and good. We insist that we can improve ourselves, or that fulfillment is to be found on our own terms and not God’s. It’s very embarrassing. It’s history. Ultimately there is no such thing as the “moral high ground”. The quest for the moral high ground is a sin in and of itself. The fact that we want the moral high ground is, ironically, proof of our sinful nature.
History is not in our favor. And if history is any indication, things are not going to ever truly improve. That doesn’t do well in a political campaign though. But here is the good news.
Perhaps the Bible is a very lengthy and highly embarrassing account of humanity. We mess up. We mess everything up!
God is with us. God has been with us. God will always be with us. We need to keep trying, we need to work hard not to be immoral, but we have to admit to ourselves that we’ll never succeed. And that even so we’ll never succeed we have to keep trying.
St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” That is not some renewed and more clever attempt at perfection, for that is just more of the ways of the world. It is the admission of the need for grace. And then, that recognition is what God can authentically work with.
There is never space for judgment and high morality when you know you are a sinner who will do embarrassing things. But God makes a new creation of those who know they need grace. Psalm 51 names our deep desires for self-rightness and points us directly to our need for God.
It is a blessed thing to live in God’s grace. It is a blessed relief to give up the quest for the moral high ground, and instead be free to live as God’s people.
Take a deep breath. God has this. God holds you. God holds our nation. What is certain is that we will continue to mess up. And what is certain is that God will continue to be faithful to us.
Regardless of how you feel about the elections, I invite you to take what is perhaps an eccentric critical view. As you see ads and hear debates pay attention to how the candidates vie to claim the moral high ground for themselves. Perhaps it has to do with: sexual ethics, or race issues, or gender issues, or environment, or labor, or finances, or international issues, or whatever it may be; all of it is rooted in some sort of maneuver to claim the moral high ground over an opponent. No candidate ever says, “I am the scum of the earth and so is my ideology. Therefore you should vote for me!” No, they try to claim some sort of fundamental moral superiority.
This should not surprise us. No one wants to vote for someone immoral. And if a candidate does have qualities considered to be immoral, they either try to hide them or excuse them.
This desire for the moral high ground goes for more than just politics. Everyone does it. When you feel you have successfully taken the high ground for yourself you can look down upon others in righteous judgment. It’s a good feeling. The reverse is horrible. You certainly don’t like it when someone tries to say that you, or your perspective, on things is fundamentally immoral. It is far easier to be the one on the high ground and righteously forgiving people, rather than be in the position of admitting that you are wrong and bad, and that you need to beg for forgiveness and change.
Writings like Psalm 51 do not find any place in our political landscape today – or really any part of our society. Yet it is of great importance.
Psalm 51 presents itself as King David’s response to the prophet Nathan when Nathan pointed out David’s sins with Bathsheba. I have never understood why David is raised up as a great king. Or why the bloodline of David is considered essential for Jewish kings. David was not a nice guy. The Bible describes him as: deceitful, cunning, arrogant, and overall highly immoral. He breaks five of the Ten Commandments. With the Bathsheba episode alone he overtly breaks three, and subtly breaks more. He is two-faced and even somewhat treasonous. 2 Samuel 7 even describes God’s displeasure with David. David decides he wants to build a temple to God – this is after first building a palace for himself. God says no way. No way is a killer like David going to build a house for God. If we turn to 1 Chronicles 22:6 God says to David, “You shall not build a house to my name because you have shed so much blood before me upon the earth.”
David did have moral guides in his life. The prophet Nathan was one of them. His first wife, Michel also gave him lots of great moral and political advice. All of which he ignored.
David could never claim any moral high ground for himself. There seem to be two things that made him the model king. First, he did tend to turn to God. He was faithful in that regard, even as he basically ignored God’s morality. Second, and I think this one is actually the key, he knew he was a sinner. And he was not an accidental sinner, he knew what he did was often flagrantly wrong.
We cannot excuse David’s bad morality, but if Psalm 51 is any indication of his soul, his awareness of his sinfulness played a significant role in his leadership. Perhaps that awareness was regularly with him. That is a very significant thing.
A. Whitney Brown has pointed out, “Any good history book is mainly just a long list of mistakes, complete with names and dates. It’s very embarrassing.” (The Big Picture: An American Commentary, New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, pg. 12) In the New Interpreter’s Bible theologian, J. Clinton McCann Jr. says that the Exodus story is one of embarrassing mistakes. “David’s story and the history of the subsequent monarchy are indeed very embarrassing. So is the psalmist’s story in Psalm 51. So is the behavior of the disciples in the Gospels. So is the situation of the early church, revealed in the letters of Paul.”
The Bible is many things. I suppose among them is that it is the embarrassing story of human faith.
McCann goes on, “[Also embarrassing] is the history of the Christian church throughout the centuries. So are the denominational and congregational lives of the contemporary church. So are the details of our life stories, if we are honest enough to admit it. In short, Psalm 51 is not just about Israel or David or some unknown ancient psalmist; it is also about us! It is about who we are and how we are as individuals, families, churches – sin pervades our lives. It’s very embarrassing.” (New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IV, Pg. 888)
You want the Bible to speak truth in a clear, undeniable, absolute way? Turn to Psalm 51!
We have this craving to claim the moral high ground for ourselves. But we’re kidding ourselves if we think we’ve achieved it.
Psalm 51 says, “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” That is linking sex to sin. Many people have done that over the centuries. But that is a misinterpretation. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of the inevitability of human failing.
Somehow, for some reason, we humans do not believe that God really and truly made us complete and good. We insist that we can improve ourselves, or that fulfillment is to be found on our own terms and not God’s. It’s very embarrassing. It’s history. Ultimately there is no such thing as the “moral high ground”. The quest for the moral high ground is a sin in and of itself. The fact that we want the moral high ground is, ironically, proof of our sinful nature.
History is not in our favor. And if history is any indication, things are not going to ever truly improve. That doesn’t do well in a political campaign though. But here is the good news.
Perhaps the Bible is a very lengthy and highly embarrassing account of humanity. We mess up. We mess everything up!
God is with us. God has been with us. God will always be with us. We need to keep trying, we need to work hard not to be immoral, but we have to admit to ourselves that we’ll never succeed. And that even so we’ll never succeed we have to keep trying.
St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” That is not some renewed and more clever attempt at perfection, for that is just more of the ways of the world. It is the admission of the need for grace. And then, that recognition is what God can authentically work with.
There is never space for judgment and high morality when you know you are a sinner who will do embarrassing things. But God makes a new creation of those who know they need grace. Psalm 51 names our deep desires for self-rightness and points us directly to our need for God.
It is a blessed thing to live in God’s grace. It is a blessed relief to give up the quest for the moral high ground, and instead be free to live as God’s people.
Take a deep breath. God has this. God holds you. God holds our nation. What is certain is that we will continue to mess up. And what is certain is that God will continue to be faithful to us.
Monday, July 15, 2024
July 14, 2024 Psalm 122
Today we look at Psalm 122. Beginning with Psalm 120 we are in a collection of 15 psalms called “A song of ascents.” These 15 psalms were probably used by pilgrims as they headed towards Jerusalem for a holiday. Jerusalem was the political capital and the religious capital of ancient Judaism. It was the center of Jewish faith, and played a major role in Jewish identity.
It is perhaps difficult to fully appreciate these 15 psalms. Most pilgrims would travel on foot. They would travel in groups for camaraderie and for safety. If you’re used to travelling individually and by car, plane, train, or similar, you can’t feel these psalms as deeply as someone who has traveled great distances on foot.
We don’t know when Psalm 122 was written. Regardless, pilgrims approaching Jerusalem on foot would not be met by a sprawling and glorious metropolis. Jerusalem was small. The temple, so glorified in ancient Hebrew literature, really wasn’t all that impressive; especially by today’s standards.
Yet if you were a pilgrim who had journey a long way and Jerusalem had finally come into sight, there it was. God’s chosen city. God’s chosen home. The place of the palace and the temple – the seat of the House of David, and the center of right relationship with God.
Most evidence within the psalm suggest it is from the post-exilic period. That is, it was built after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. You’ll remember that the ancient Jews believed the temple to be God’s promised dwelling place. God had promised to be there forever. That building would stand forever. And a king in the bloodline of David would be their ruler for all time.
The nation had stumbled and struggled for centuries. It had its ups and downs. The ancient Jews were a small and insignificant nation and they were regularly bullied around by whatever African or Middle Eastern empire happened to be dominant at that time. Yet they always survived; somehow, against all odds. God was indeed with them. God was true to the promises God had made. Until…
Until the Babylonians did the unthinkable. They destroyed it all. And they put the bloodline of David in jeopardy as well. The ancient Jews were devastated. What had gone wrong? Was God weak? Did God lie to them? Had they possibly been so bad that God couldn’t stand them anymore and was rejecting them?
The ancient Jews did survive the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. They survived having most of their leading citizens hauled off to Babylon for a couple generations of exile. And in time they were allowed to return and rebuild the temple.
But the rebuilt temple was not as glorious as the original one. They didn’t have the means to rebuild its former splendor. For example, the original had ten gold lampstands. The rebuilt one had one. Where there had been an altar of burnished bronze there was one of unhewn stone. This is all part of the complexity of Jewish history, the temple, and this psalm.
The psalmist praises the temple, the city of Jerusalem, and the house of David. There is religious and national pride there. But we do not know what all it meant. Perhaps the psalmist was nostalgic about the grandeur of the former temple. Or, perhaps the reduced grandeur of the new temple pleased the writer of this psalm.
If you remember Old Testament history well, you’ll remember that David did not build the temple. His son Solomon did. The Bible described Solomon’s great work on the temple, the lavish spending, and the forced labor. That was for the temple and for many other projects. Not everyone approved of it all. The Bible describes deep resentment from the people because of Solmon’s taxation and labor expectations. The nation split into two after Solomon’s death because Solomon’s son would not reduce the burden upon the people. We realize that even their greatest leaders caused mixed feelings among them.
Does the current psalmist feel nostalgic about the grandeur of the original temple, wishing it was back; or does he feel greater peace because the current temple was built with far fewer resources and mostly by voluntary effort? We don’t know. But we do know that the ancient Jews had an understanding of their history that they knew was complex. They knew there was good and bad. There was fair and unfair. There was faithfulness and unfaithfulness. Through it all was God’s promises and God’s presence. That was clearly before pilgrims as they approached Jerusalem. Jerusalem wasn’t much. It wasn’t grand. But it was their city. It was where God promised to be. And it was a rebuilt symbol of ongoing hope. Someday… someday… God would act and set all things to rights.
Verses 6-8 are a collection of puns on the name Jerusalem. Of course we lose the puns in translation as almost always happens. In English the words are, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May the prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.”
In Hebrew you can sense the alliterative resemblance to the word Jerusalem. My pronunciations are terrible here, but they go something like this:
Pray: shaalu – Jerusalem
Peace: shalom – Jerusalem
Prosper: yishlaya – Jerusalem
Tranquility: shalwah – Jerusalem
Hopefully you can sense the combination of sentiments: prayers, peace, prosperity, and tranquility – all hopes and dreams for Jerusalem. Which was at that time, a city that probably felt those things very seldom.
It is not true to say that Jerusalem has always been a place of strive and warfare. It has enjoyed centuries of peace too. But today it has long been a city that does not enjoy peace, prosperity, and tranquility.
Even so, let’s use this psalm’s context to learn about our faith and our religious spaces today.
As I said earlier, at the time the psalm was written the temple in Jerusalem was not a grand and magnificent structure. It was probably the same size as the original but it was nothing to brag about. Nevertheless, the psalmist sees it as something great.
Awe inspiring spiritual spaces can be great. Many a person goes into a gothic cathedral and experiences the soaring ceiling, a myriad of colors from stained glass, carvings and artwork everywhere, perhaps an organ in a magnificent casework that creates spine-tingling sound. We humans want to create amazing spaces for the worship of God. They help our hearts to soar. But of course they are also colossally expensive to build and maintain. And does God really care? Does God, who created the whole universe really get pleasure out of seeing our little collections of rocks and wood in the shape of a building we thing is beautiful?
On the other hand, you may have been in a worship space that leaves you totally uninspired. Run down warehouses with broken concrete floors and dirty windows do not make our spirits soar. The little chapels that you find in hospitals and nursing homes that seem like an afterthought, or a repurposed waiting room, do not help us think of God.
There are no absolute answers to this sort of thing, but whether humble or grand, our spirituality wants a space to worship that raises our souls above the limitations of our own little lives and directs them towards the eternity of God.
We need places that remind us of our common needs and limitations as humans. We need a place of penitence that frees us from recrimination. We need a place of good will rather than hostile judgments. We need a place of grace that lets us escape, if only for a time, the world’s endless measurement. We need a place that is spiritual and not sectarian; a place of honesty and humility, and not endless posturing, posing, and charisma. We need a place to breathe in God’s presence.
Underneath Psalm 122 is the author’s recognition that the temple of Jerusalem was that place. We Christians have no central temple, but we do have equal need for our worship spaces. May those spaces fill our hearts with praise for God and give us a sense of God’s will for the world.
It is perhaps difficult to fully appreciate these 15 psalms. Most pilgrims would travel on foot. They would travel in groups for camaraderie and for safety. If you’re used to travelling individually and by car, plane, train, or similar, you can’t feel these psalms as deeply as someone who has traveled great distances on foot.
We don’t know when Psalm 122 was written. Regardless, pilgrims approaching Jerusalem on foot would not be met by a sprawling and glorious metropolis. Jerusalem was small. The temple, so glorified in ancient Hebrew literature, really wasn’t all that impressive; especially by today’s standards.
Yet if you were a pilgrim who had journey a long way and Jerusalem had finally come into sight, there it was. God’s chosen city. God’s chosen home. The place of the palace and the temple – the seat of the House of David, and the center of right relationship with God.
Most evidence within the psalm suggest it is from the post-exilic period. That is, it was built after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. You’ll remember that the ancient Jews believed the temple to be God’s promised dwelling place. God had promised to be there forever. That building would stand forever. And a king in the bloodline of David would be their ruler for all time.
The nation had stumbled and struggled for centuries. It had its ups and downs. The ancient Jews were a small and insignificant nation and they were regularly bullied around by whatever African or Middle Eastern empire happened to be dominant at that time. Yet they always survived; somehow, against all odds. God was indeed with them. God was true to the promises God had made. Until…
Until the Babylonians did the unthinkable. They destroyed it all. And they put the bloodline of David in jeopardy as well. The ancient Jews were devastated. What had gone wrong? Was God weak? Did God lie to them? Had they possibly been so bad that God couldn’t stand them anymore and was rejecting them?
The ancient Jews did survive the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. They survived having most of their leading citizens hauled off to Babylon for a couple generations of exile. And in time they were allowed to return and rebuild the temple.
But the rebuilt temple was not as glorious as the original one. They didn’t have the means to rebuild its former splendor. For example, the original had ten gold lampstands. The rebuilt one had one. Where there had been an altar of burnished bronze there was one of unhewn stone. This is all part of the complexity of Jewish history, the temple, and this psalm.
The psalmist praises the temple, the city of Jerusalem, and the house of David. There is religious and national pride there. But we do not know what all it meant. Perhaps the psalmist was nostalgic about the grandeur of the former temple. Or, perhaps the reduced grandeur of the new temple pleased the writer of this psalm.
If you remember Old Testament history well, you’ll remember that David did not build the temple. His son Solomon did. The Bible described Solomon’s great work on the temple, the lavish spending, and the forced labor. That was for the temple and for many other projects. Not everyone approved of it all. The Bible describes deep resentment from the people because of Solmon’s taxation and labor expectations. The nation split into two after Solomon’s death because Solomon’s son would not reduce the burden upon the people. We realize that even their greatest leaders caused mixed feelings among them.
Does the current psalmist feel nostalgic about the grandeur of the original temple, wishing it was back; or does he feel greater peace because the current temple was built with far fewer resources and mostly by voluntary effort? We don’t know. But we do know that the ancient Jews had an understanding of their history that they knew was complex. They knew there was good and bad. There was fair and unfair. There was faithfulness and unfaithfulness. Through it all was God’s promises and God’s presence. That was clearly before pilgrims as they approached Jerusalem. Jerusalem wasn’t much. It wasn’t grand. But it was their city. It was where God promised to be. And it was a rebuilt symbol of ongoing hope. Someday… someday… God would act and set all things to rights.
Verses 6-8 are a collection of puns on the name Jerusalem. Of course we lose the puns in translation as almost always happens. In English the words are, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May the prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.” For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.”
In Hebrew you can sense the alliterative resemblance to the word Jerusalem. My pronunciations are terrible here, but they go something like this:
Pray: shaalu – Jerusalem
Peace: shalom – Jerusalem
Prosper: yishlaya – Jerusalem
Tranquility: shalwah – Jerusalem
Hopefully you can sense the combination of sentiments: prayers, peace, prosperity, and tranquility – all hopes and dreams for Jerusalem. Which was at that time, a city that probably felt those things very seldom.
It is not true to say that Jerusalem has always been a place of strive and warfare. It has enjoyed centuries of peace too. But today it has long been a city that does not enjoy peace, prosperity, and tranquility.
Even so, let’s use this psalm’s context to learn about our faith and our religious spaces today.
As I said earlier, at the time the psalm was written the temple in Jerusalem was not a grand and magnificent structure. It was probably the same size as the original but it was nothing to brag about. Nevertheless, the psalmist sees it as something great.
Awe inspiring spiritual spaces can be great. Many a person goes into a gothic cathedral and experiences the soaring ceiling, a myriad of colors from stained glass, carvings and artwork everywhere, perhaps an organ in a magnificent casework that creates spine-tingling sound. We humans want to create amazing spaces for the worship of God. They help our hearts to soar. But of course they are also colossally expensive to build and maintain. And does God really care? Does God, who created the whole universe really get pleasure out of seeing our little collections of rocks and wood in the shape of a building we thing is beautiful?
On the other hand, you may have been in a worship space that leaves you totally uninspired. Run down warehouses with broken concrete floors and dirty windows do not make our spirits soar. The little chapels that you find in hospitals and nursing homes that seem like an afterthought, or a repurposed waiting room, do not help us think of God.
There are no absolute answers to this sort of thing, but whether humble or grand, our spirituality wants a space to worship that raises our souls above the limitations of our own little lives and directs them towards the eternity of God.
We need places that remind us of our common needs and limitations as humans. We need a place of penitence that frees us from recrimination. We need a place of good will rather than hostile judgments. We need a place of grace that lets us escape, if only for a time, the world’s endless measurement. We need a place that is spiritual and not sectarian; a place of honesty and humility, and not endless posturing, posing, and charisma. We need a place to breathe in God’s presence.
Underneath Psalm 122 is the author’s recognition that the temple of Jerusalem was that place. We Christians have no central temple, but we do have equal need for our worship spaces. May those spaces fill our hearts with praise for God and give us a sense of God’s will for the world.
Monday, July 8, 2024
July 7, 2024 Psalm 139
After spending the month of June struggling with the difficult book of Job, Psalm 139 is a welcome breath of fresh air! Where Job was dark and challenging, Psalm 139 is much more hopeful and much more readable.
We probably should have had read Job at the end of the summer rather than the beginning. We did Job first because Job shows up first in the Bible where all the poetry books are clustered. I say we maybe should have looked at it last because Job may be intended to be a critique of the other traditional wisdom literature. Perhaps it is sarcastic, perhaps a satire. Think of what Mark Twain was to American culture of his day. He wrote important truths, but they were a bit warped. They were sarcastic. Perhaps Job is like that. We don’t know.
By contrast Psalm 139 is easily at the core of theology and wisdom literature of its day. The psalm breaks into four parts. We read it in those four parts. Let’s look at each.
Part 1 is verses 1-6. The very first word of the psalm is Yahweh – the name of God never or rarely spoken allowed by Jews. “Yahweh, you have searched me and known me.” This part is clearly about God.
The second word is “you”. The second verse starts with you. The third verse starts with you, as does the fifth verse. This is all about God, and about how God knows a person completely and totally.
The word know (or known) show up seven times in the psalm. Maybe that’s deliberate. Maybe that’s a coincidence. Whatever the case, the number seven is a number that symbolizes completeness. God’s knowledge is complete.
As the psalmist says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me…” This can be intimidating. It is impossible to hide any thought or feeling from God. God even knows your thoughts of trying to hide your thoughts from God! So it’s best to just be honest.
At the same time such knowledge is wonderful. Why bother hiding anything from God? Just be honest at all times and in all situations. If you find yourself enraged at something that perhaps you don’t think you should be enraged at. Or perhaps you’re disgusted by something you don’t think you should be disgusted at, go ahead and share those feelings and questions with God too. God knows.
We want to be good people, but we live in an immensely complex world. We do not know as much as we want to know. Much of the news and information we receive, from whatever source we get it, is not reliable. If you want to be a conscientious, sincere, honest person in our world today… someone who works hard, truly deserves the lifestyle that you have, is not excessively environmentally damaging, and wants to just be a truly good citizen in your community, good luck! Sure, you can fool yourself by finding sources of information that tell you what you want to hear, and tell you that you’re a great person. But are you actually? Or on the other hand you can depress yourself by finding sources of information that will undercut every virtue you’ve ever valued. But are you actually bad?
Where is the authentic, conscientious guidance that we want to depend upon? You’re not going to find it in popular culture or news.
The creeds tell us that we will be judged by Jesus. The scripture tells us in several places that we are accountable to God for what we do. God alone knows and God alone judges rightly. But how do we know what is right?
All I’ll say is it requires critical thinking. Question everything that agrees with you and question everything that disagrees with you. Life takes work. There are no cookie cutter approaches to life and there are no shortcuts. And do all things with honesty and humility, for God alone knows the full truth.
The second part of the psalm is verses 7 to 12. There we are reminded that it is impossible to hide from God’s presence. No matter where you go, God is there. This psalm takes the idea of God being omnipresent even a step further than most other Jewish thought. Verse 8 says, “…if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” Sheol is the place of the dead. So, God is present even in death and among the dead.
Psalm 139 is one of those places in scripture which remind us that to exist is to be in God’s presence. And existence apart from God is impossible. The ancient Hebrews didn’t do much with the idea of hell as eternal punishment. That’s more of a Greek idea that wanders its way into Hebrew thought. Jesus does use it and so do the New Testament writers. But however you understand hell, and even though it is mind-bending to say it, hell itself cannot exist apart from God’s presence. Again, you cannot exist if God does not make existence possible. An atheist can deny God’s existence all he or she wants. Or a person could hate God and rebel against God all he or she wants. But there is just no getting away. There is no getting away from God’s presence just like there is no getting away from God’s knowledge.
The third part of the psalm is verse 13 to 18. There we read that it was God who knit us together when we were still in our mother’s womb. And there is where we read that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The images are warm and rich and wonderful.
The all powerful, all knowing, all present God who is too big to comprehend, crafted each of us uniquely and individually among the billions of people on the earth. God makes good things. God does not make mistakes. And God does not make junk. Never ever let anyone tell you that you are less than the wonderful thing God made you to be. You are valuable, capable, and wonderful.
At the same time, recognize the same value and potential in others.
Two things need to be noted about this section. One is great. The other is hard. First the great thing.
You’re probably familiar with the idea of God creating people the way a potter creates something out of clay. The prophet Jeremiah uses that imagery. So does Isaiah. St. Paul uses it in his letter to the Romans. It’s a great image. But this psalm does not use potter and clay imagery. Clay pots were the disposable vessels of that day. Things that were woven were not. A potter can turn out something quickly. Weaving takes time. In contrast to the usual potter and clay image this psalm talks about God as weaver and ourselves as woven. We are indeed carefully crafted by God, not a production line of disposable crockery.
That takes us to the hard thing. This psalm often finds its way into arguments about abortion. I should probably do an entire sermon on abortion based upon this text. But that is not what this psalm has in mind. I’m just going to be general and brief. God has given to many people the creative power to conceive new life – the ability to have God set to work weaving a new being that will bear God’s image. It is a wonderful and amazing power. Those who use that power carelessly and then decide to abort the results out of convenience or shame stand convicted by this psalm. It is the destruction of God’s handiwork for the sake of convenience.
I have worked with some people who have had abortions. And if they are conscientious at all, and they have decided to have an abortion for convenience sake then they bear those emotional scars for the rest of their lives.
And then there are abortions done for medical needs: mother’s life, fetal abnormalities. These are especially difficult because if we claim that God weaves together wonderful things, then what went wrong? There’s no short or easy answer to that. The only thing we can do is insist that God has indeed done a wonderful thing; but there is no way, with the limits of our knowledge, for us to understand it. People who have had abortions by medical need bear scars too. But here we find God’s presence and care coming alongside them fully acknowledging the grief and pain they feel. We live in a broken world. We do not understand it. But we know God is with us.
The final part of the psalm is usually left out when it is used in worship. Verses 19-24 ask God to kill the wicked. It talks about hating people with a perfect hatred.
If the writer of the psalm has been known by God since conception and woven together by God, then has God also not done the same with the wicked people?
That is a good question! But that is not the point of this psalm. Several of the psalms use hate language. We’ll look at one of them later this month. There is an important theme that runs through all of them, and all of the hatred language. The psalm writers are not seeking personal revenge for wrongs done to them. The psalm writers are turning to God and asking that God set things right. It is a “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” type of request.
Ultimately the hate is not so much a personal feeling as it is the writer’s way of saying that he or she opposes those who oppose God.
No one knows the situation that caused the writing of Psalm 139. But it appears that the writer is in serious trouble because of being wrongly accused of doing something. It is a cry for help to God. It is also a statement of faith and confidence in God’s protection.
Psalm 139 is a fun piece of literature. It is a favorite psalm among many people. God actively pursues us and will not let us get away. It invites both fierce loyalty to God and a safe and complete surrender of our whole selves to God. I suggest turning to it often as part of your own devotional life.
We probably should have had read Job at the end of the summer rather than the beginning. We did Job first because Job shows up first in the Bible where all the poetry books are clustered. I say we maybe should have looked at it last because Job may be intended to be a critique of the other traditional wisdom literature. Perhaps it is sarcastic, perhaps a satire. Think of what Mark Twain was to American culture of his day. He wrote important truths, but they were a bit warped. They were sarcastic. Perhaps Job is like that. We don’t know.
By contrast Psalm 139 is easily at the core of theology and wisdom literature of its day. The psalm breaks into four parts. We read it in those four parts. Let’s look at each.
Part 1 is verses 1-6. The very first word of the psalm is Yahweh – the name of God never or rarely spoken allowed by Jews. “Yahweh, you have searched me and known me.” This part is clearly about God.
The second word is “you”. The second verse starts with you. The third verse starts with you, as does the fifth verse. This is all about God, and about how God knows a person completely and totally.
The word know (or known) show up seven times in the psalm. Maybe that’s deliberate. Maybe that’s a coincidence. Whatever the case, the number seven is a number that symbolizes completeness. God’s knowledge is complete.
As the psalmist says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me…” This can be intimidating. It is impossible to hide any thought or feeling from God. God even knows your thoughts of trying to hide your thoughts from God! So it’s best to just be honest.
At the same time such knowledge is wonderful. Why bother hiding anything from God? Just be honest at all times and in all situations. If you find yourself enraged at something that perhaps you don’t think you should be enraged at. Or perhaps you’re disgusted by something you don’t think you should be disgusted at, go ahead and share those feelings and questions with God too. God knows.
We want to be good people, but we live in an immensely complex world. We do not know as much as we want to know. Much of the news and information we receive, from whatever source we get it, is not reliable. If you want to be a conscientious, sincere, honest person in our world today… someone who works hard, truly deserves the lifestyle that you have, is not excessively environmentally damaging, and wants to just be a truly good citizen in your community, good luck! Sure, you can fool yourself by finding sources of information that tell you what you want to hear, and tell you that you’re a great person. But are you actually? Or on the other hand you can depress yourself by finding sources of information that will undercut every virtue you’ve ever valued. But are you actually bad?
Where is the authentic, conscientious guidance that we want to depend upon? You’re not going to find it in popular culture or news.
The creeds tell us that we will be judged by Jesus. The scripture tells us in several places that we are accountable to God for what we do. God alone knows and God alone judges rightly. But how do we know what is right?
All I’ll say is it requires critical thinking. Question everything that agrees with you and question everything that disagrees with you. Life takes work. There are no cookie cutter approaches to life and there are no shortcuts. And do all things with honesty and humility, for God alone knows the full truth.
The second part of the psalm is verses 7 to 12. There we are reminded that it is impossible to hide from God’s presence. No matter where you go, God is there. This psalm takes the idea of God being omnipresent even a step further than most other Jewish thought. Verse 8 says, “…if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” Sheol is the place of the dead. So, God is present even in death and among the dead.
Psalm 139 is one of those places in scripture which remind us that to exist is to be in God’s presence. And existence apart from God is impossible. The ancient Hebrews didn’t do much with the idea of hell as eternal punishment. That’s more of a Greek idea that wanders its way into Hebrew thought. Jesus does use it and so do the New Testament writers. But however you understand hell, and even though it is mind-bending to say it, hell itself cannot exist apart from God’s presence. Again, you cannot exist if God does not make existence possible. An atheist can deny God’s existence all he or she wants. Or a person could hate God and rebel against God all he or she wants. But there is just no getting away. There is no getting away from God’s presence just like there is no getting away from God’s knowledge.
The third part of the psalm is verse 13 to 18. There we read that it was God who knit us together when we were still in our mother’s womb. And there is where we read that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. The images are warm and rich and wonderful.
The all powerful, all knowing, all present God who is too big to comprehend, crafted each of us uniquely and individually among the billions of people on the earth. God makes good things. God does not make mistakes. And God does not make junk. Never ever let anyone tell you that you are less than the wonderful thing God made you to be. You are valuable, capable, and wonderful.
At the same time, recognize the same value and potential in others.
Two things need to be noted about this section. One is great. The other is hard. First the great thing.
You’re probably familiar with the idea of God creating people the way a potter creates something out of clay. The prophet Jeremiah uses that imagery. So does Isaiah. St. Paul uses it in his letter to the Romans. It’s a great image. But this psalm does not use potter and clay imagery. Clay pots were the disposable vessels of that day. Things that were woven were not. A potter can turn out something quickly. Weaving takes time. In contrast to the usual potter and clay image this psalm talks about God as weaver and ourselves as woven. We are indeed carefully crafted by God, not a production line of disposable crockery.
That takes us to the hard thing. This psalm often finds its way into arguments about abortion. I should probably do an entire sermon on abortion based upon this text. But that is not what this psalm has in mind. I’m just going to be general and brief. God has given to many people the creative power to conceive new life – the ability to have God set to work weaving a new being that will bear God’s image. It is a wonderful and amazing power. Those who use that power carelessly and then decide to abort the results out of convenience or shame stand convicted by this psalm. It is the destruction of God’s handiwork for the sake of convenience.
I have worked with some people who have had abortions. And if they are conscientious at all, and they have decided to have an abortion for convenience sake then they bear those emotional scars for the rest of their lives.
And then there are abortions done for medical needs: mother’s life, fetal abnormalities. These are especially difficult because if we claim that God weaves together wonderful things, then what went wrong? There’s no short or easy answer to that. The only thing we can do is insist that God has indeed done a wonderful thing; but there is no way, with the limits of our knowledge, for us to understand it. People who have had abortions by medical need bear scars too. But here we find God’s presence and care coming alongside them fully acknowledging the grief and pain they feel. We live in a broken world. We do not understand it. But we know God is with us.
The final part of the psalm is usually left out when it is used in worship. Verses 19-24 ask God to kill the wicked. It talks about hating people with a perfect hatred.
If the writer of the psalm has been known by God since conception and woven together by God, then has God also not done the same with the wicked people?
That is a good question! But that is not the point of this psalm. Several of the psalms use hate language. We’ll look at one of them later this month. There is an important theme that runs through all of them, and all of the hatred language. The psalm writers are not seeking personal revenge for wrongs done to them. The psalm writers are turning to God and asking that God set things right. It is a “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” type of request.
Ultimately the hate is not so much a personal feeling as it is the writer’s way of saying that he or she opposes those who oppose God.
No one knows the situation that caused the writing of Psalm 139. But it appears that the writer is in serious trouble because of being wrongly accused of doing something. It is a cry for help to God. It is also a statement of faith and confidence in God’s protection.
Psalm 139 is a fun piece of literature. It is a favorite psalm among many people. God actively pursues us and will not let us get away. It invites both fierce loyalty to God and a safe and complete surrender of our whole selves to God. I suggest turning to it often as part of your own devotional life.
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