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.
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