I knew when we started a summer worship series on Old Testament poetry that we’d have to include the Song of Solomon, or perhaps more accurately named, “The Song of Songs.” You simply can’t leave it out. It is important poetry after all. But what to do with it? It is an erotic love poem. There’s no getting around it. It is so full of innuendos and sensuousness that it’s tough to find a passage that is suitable for a family friendly worship service! Five verses from Chapter 2 are tame enough to make it into the lectionary, but that is it! Harder yet, how to preach on it!?! For today we went with the entirety of Chapter 2. That gives us a sense of the passion at work in the whole without getting into the graphic depictions that are in most of it.
On the surface the Song of Solomon is poem that is back and forth between two adolescent lovers. They are sneaky, deceitful, and they fully indulge their physical passions without any regard for morality; or perhaps they are thumbing their noses at morality.
It is hard to tell exactly what is going on, but it appears as if there are reasons why the boy and girl cannot ultimately be together. It seems that there is something about her that makes their relationship unacceptable. Perhaps it is something to do with race or class or perhaps inter-family disputes. It is hard to tell. What we want to avoid is projecting too many modern-day ideas into it.
It is difficult to know why the Song of Solmon is in scripture at all. It is one of two books of the Bible that contain absolutely no theology and never once mention God. The other book is Esther. But even though Esther has no mention of God, it does tell the story that gave rise to the Jewish holiday of Purim. The Song of Solomon does nothing.
In the traditional Jewish understanding the Song of Solomon is a religious allegory recounting God’s love for Israel and the history of their relationship. For Christians it is an allegory for Christ’s love for the church. Michael V. Fox, in the Harpers Study Bible says this is the reason why the Song of Solomon became scripture.
I think that’s a stretch! While I recognize that the history of Christian interpretation of this book has been to see it as an allegory, it is a very warped allegory at best! The Song of Solomon is an erotic love poem. Period. Other cultures of the ancient near east had similar poems. The Song is based on, or at least derived from, a Mesopotamian ritual of marriage between two gods, the fertility god Dummuzi-Tammuz and his sister Inanna-Astarte. It has been suggested that it is part of a marriage ritual, or perhaps a funeral ritual that sets the power of love against the power of death. Who knows?
I generally reject what it called Womanist Theology, but I do think it is important to read and study the work of those you think are wrong. Womanist Theology is not the same as Feminist Theology. Womanist Theology rejects traditional theology as being too male dominated. It also rejects Feminist Theology for being too European. Womanist Theology claims to be the theology of black women. I generally reject it, not because of its perspective, but because I find it to be poor biblical scholarship that reaches conclusions that are not supported by the texts. However, as I just said, it is important to read those you disagree with because they will point out things you may miss otherwise.
Womanist Theologian Renita Weems points out that the Song of Solomon is the only book in the entirety of our scripture where a female voice predominates. The female gets 56 verses. The male gets 36. It is also the only book of scripture dominated by female imagery. Other books of the Bible about women, like Ruth and Esther, are still dominated by male-identified dramas. There is no such drama here. The girl in the Song of Solmon is assertive, uninhibited, and unabashed about her sexual desires. Renita Weems takes those thoughts and reaches conclusions that I think are flawed scholarship, but she brings up a significant point. The love portrayed in the Song of Solomon is mutual, with both lovers desiring, behaving, feeling, and speaking in the same ways and with the same intensity; immature and foolish as they both are.
So, what do we do with this love poem in scripture that nowhere mentions God, has no theology, and is just two immature lovers indulging their bodily passions?
I can’t honestly say I know why it is in the Bible. But if we believe the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the Song of Solomon has had its place in scripture for thousands of years, then it must be there for good reasons.
Let’s note what it is not. It is not a heady theological treatise like some of St. Paul’s writings. It is not a complex and multi-layered story like many ancient Hebrew writings. It is not a list of names and dates and detailed instructions that are tedious to read through.
It is also not like the prophetic writings. There are no politics. No religious or political leaders are being criticized. No one is being rewarded or punished. It’s not a list of dos and don’ts. There is not a heroic struggle or a call for superior virtue.
It is also not a struggle between right and wrong. It is not wisdom literature. No one is asking why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people. Last week we read from Ecclesiastes. The weeks before we read from Proverbs. Proverbs calls for wisdom and extols its benefits. Ecclesiastes calls into question wisdom and says that both the wise and the foolish end up equally dead, so what’s the point? Those are all good issues to struggle with. But the Song of Solomon has none of that. It is simply passion and indulgence in that passion.
If the Song of Solomon were not in scripture there would be no celebration of human passion in our faith. The book is a romantic idealization of life and passion. And yes, flawed and dangerous as it is, it acknowledges those feelings and desires. The Bible dives into and explores everything that it is to be a human, including sexuality. No subject, no struggle, no feeling is so offensive or taboo that the Bible will not get into it.
In the Song of Solomon life is good. Nature is blossoming. All obstacles can be overcome by love. There is energy, hope, delight, and happiness. The mundane drudgeries of life will come upon this blissfully happy couple in time. But they are going to enjoy this time fully. If you think about it, the Bible has very little in the way of passages about joy; or passages that develop any idea of joy as an inspiring and creative force. The Song of Solomon is one of those few places where it does.
I criticized Womanist Theology earlier for the way it can reach misguided conclusions. Here is a more solid conclusion from traditional theology by Hugh Kerr:
“For better or for worse, the Song of Songs found its way into the canon of Scripture, and unless we are to say that is has no place there, we must reckon with this historical fact of context. We need not press its earthly figures into allegorical molds.
“From the biblical perspective itself there is no reason why its sensuous and sensual language cannot be taken at its face value. The Bible… does not minimize the love of man and woman. This indeed is a negative understatement, for, rightly viewed, the biblical conception of love can enhance and exalt what otherwise is merely human and mundane. The biblical perspective accordingly can appreciate the Song of Songs for what it is and rejoice in its eulogy of love. “All things are yours” says the apostle, “whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours (1 Corinthians 3:21-22). Writing to the Philippian Christians who wondered what to do about the secular society in which they lived, Paul said: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things (Philippians 4:8). From the Christian point of view therefore the [oversimplified] distinction which is so often made between secular and sacred is transcended simply because we are to “take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5).” (The Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 5, Pg 147)
Or said more simply, for the Bible to be complete is needs to include everything about being human, including adolescent love. Refuse to acknowledge, or take away, any part of humanness is to discredit or shame it. But acknowledge it, and encourage us to use it as part of a whole life of faith, is to be a true and complete person; blessed by God, and capable in the world.
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Monday, August 19, 2024
August 18, 2024 Ecclesiastes 3
(I was in Cohocton for the day. This "sermon" was written in the form of a New Testament letter to be read in worship.)
To St. John’s Lutheran Church of Victor, New York.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am thankful to be able to serve as the pastor of our congregation. I feel God has blessed us with the task of sharing the good news of salvation to the people of Victor. Who, while quite wealthy in possessions, tend to be poor in their acknowledgement of the need for grace. It is always difficult to proclaim to “successful people” that their worldly success is actually quite shallow. Success can easily fool people into thinking that they are righteous before God. Successful people tend to think their possessions ensure their value;… and that everyone else thinks they’re valuable people because of all their things. Nevertheless, all are in need of God’s grace, and true success only comes by faithfully living according to God’s will.
It is a sad reality that the more wealth and success a society has the more they turn away from religion. That goes for Christianity, and Judaism, and Islam, and eastern religions as well. The prosperity of North America and Europe today is unparalleled in human history. Never before have humans had life so easy. Never before have people enjoyed such a glut of comfort, entertainment, and luxury. People should be more thankful to God than ever before! But not so.
The Bible is full of stories of people who turn away from God when they become prosperous. The prophets often criticized the greedy kings of Israel. Jesus challenged the scribes and Pharisees who felt themselves righteous because of their prosperity. The rich young man who came to Jesus asking what he needed to do to inherit eternal life could not give up his reliance upon his wealth. From Adam and Eve onward, it seems to be a truth that people would rather turn to themselves for fulfillment rather than turning to God.
The book of Ecclesiastes dares to challenge the lie that deeply drives the lives of many people. Ecclesiastes is sometime attributed to King Solomon. This is almost certainly not true. But it is impossible to narrow down who wrote it or when it was written. A fragment of the book exists that carbon dates to 150 B.C. So, it was written sometime before then. That’s all we can say for certain.
Ecclesiastes is perhaps not popular because it dares the challenge many things. In general, we do not like what it has to say. It is almost never read for Sunday worship. Only a portion of Chapter 3 is read occasionally at funerals or weddings. But then it is pulled out of context. When left in its context we realize it is part of a larger writing that dares to question everything. It dares to speak things we don’t want to think about:
What is the purpose of life?
Why is God so often silent?
Why is life so unfair?
Why does God seem so far away?
Why doesn’t God give us clearer instructions for life?
Last week when reading Proverbs we talked about wisdom. The author of Ecclesiastes even questions the point of wisdom. After all, the both the foolish and the wise end up equally dead!
And what is the point of anything and everything that we do? Will it not all deteriorate in time?
If you have great accomplishments and live in wisdom, how do you ensure that your descendants won’t just squander it all?
Ecclesiastes does not preach well to most people in Victor, New York. And yet it dares to speak things that most people in Victor know about but don’t speak. Along those lines, Ecclesiastes asks lots of questions. It gives almost no answers. Or, perhaps it gives answers that we do not want to hear!
The first part of Chapter 3 that we read probably brought to mind the 1965 hit from the Byrds, Turn! Turn! It’s a catchy song. There’s nothing wrong with the song in and of itself. However, it can lead to a misinterpretation of the text. Some people read things like, “a time to weep and a time to laugh,” and, “a time to love and a time to hate,” and they think that’s talking about human time. They think that sometimes it is okay to love and other times it is okay to hate. Or that sometimes will be times to keep silence and other times will be times to speak. That is not what is meant.
Time is God’s time. That means that as time passes there will be times of love and times of hate. There will be times of war and times of peace. There will be times to gather stones and times to cast away stones. All of that is just the movement of time. All of that is within God’s hands. 3:14 says, “I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.”
This text ultimately calls us to be faith-filled people at all times. A faith-filled person is knows what type the time is and then acts appropriately. But how are we to be faith-filled people? The answers are woven in the text.
It starts with a healthy fear of God. Verse 11 says that God has put a sense of past and future in the minds of humans. We alone of all of God’s creatures have a sense of eternity. We alone of all of God’s creatures can sense God the way we do, and have questions about the meaning of existence. So, God has given us this ability to sense Him, yet God has kept from us full knowledge of what He is actually up to. This is the beginning of the fear of God. It puts us in our place and keeps us from getting arrogant.
Once we have a healthy fear of God, the next step in faithfulness is to trust God. We need to trust that God is indeed good. We need to trust that God cares about us. But what does God caring about us look like? Shouldn’t those who trust God have easy lives and those who do not trust God have miserable lives? Wouldn’t that prove that God is trustworthy? That makes sense. But that is not the way things work. Verses 16 and following talk about injustice in the world. They talk about wickedness being in the place of justice; and even in the place of righteousness there was wickedness. So what does that mean for trusting God? The author of Ecclesiastes answers that God is ultimately the judge of all of this. We (in our humility brought about by the fear of God) trust that God sees and that God knows. And we trust that in God’s time justice will be done.
Once we fear God and trust God, then what? How does that look in our lives? What are we to actually do?
We once again go back to humility and the fear of God. In Verse 14 the author says, “I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, or taken from it.” That means that God and God alone can do anything permanent. We shouldn’t even try. We need to understand that even the greatest of our life’s work will fade away in time. We will be forgotten. Our greatest accomplishments will all be replaced sooner or later.
Perhaps a look at sports stadiums is a good example. We build these great works that cost billions of dollars. We spend years building them. Someone buys the right to name them. And so they are named. Until someone buys the right to change the name. Frontier Field in Rochester becomes Innovative Field. The War Memorial Auditorium becomes Blue Cross Blue Shield Arena. The Auditorium Theatre becomes the West Herr Auditorium Theatre.
How big do we have to build something, how much do we have to spend to make our name permanent? We can’t. Only God does things that endure forever. Part of being a faith-filled person is having the humility to know that even the best of your life’s work is transitory.
So then what? Is it all pointless?
Have you picked up on the irony of Ecclesiastes? It is part of scripture. It is an enduring writing that has been passed on for a few millennium. Yet it is impossible to know who actually wrote these enduring words!
Ecclesiastes tells us what to do with our transitory lives. The final verse of our reading from Ecclesiastes says, “So I saw that there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot.” And Verse 12 says, “…moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.”
There we have it. Two “four-letter” words: “work” and “toil”. You’d think they’d become swear words. No one likes them. People avoid them as much as possible.
We have the New York State Lottery and all sorts of casinos. They all hold out the promise of gain without work and toil. How successful would they be if the winner got to do more work and toil for less pay?
The idea is absurd. We laugh. Work and toil are for people in prison. They are not for lottery winners! Yet that takes us back to where we began… life in Victor among successful people.
To be sure, the people of Victor know the meaning of words like work and toil. And it is reasonably likely that they have done a share of it. Perhaps friends and family even criticize them for doing it too much! The question is, for what are they toiling? Why are they doing it?
If they are toiling to afford a nice house, send their kids to an expensive college, and have a lot of nice things, then they are toiling in vain. We didn’t read any parts of Ecclesiastes that talk about vanity, but there are many of them. They talk about toiling in vain. Toiling in vain is toiling apart from a relationship with God. Toil that builds a person’s life is toiling with the knowledge and fear of God.
I’m fairly sure most of the population of Victor is toiling in vain. They toil effectively enough to appear successful. But their toils will take them nowhere. They are tired. They are frustrated. They end up in a vicious cycle of toiling for things so they can afford luxuries and entertainment, which they use to escape from their toil!
Work and toil done in faith-filled relationship with God will create a full life. According to Ecclesiastes it is an end unto itself. This is not a flashy message, but it is good news. It is the good news that we know and the good news that we live for.
Whether we are young and energetic, or old and tired, may God fill our days with work and toil that is meaningful. May we be willing to pick up those tasks and perform them well. In that way, whether their effects be short-lived or long-lasting, they will be done for the kingdom of God, which is truly enduring and worthwhile.
To St. John’s Lutheran Church of Victor, New York.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am thankful to be able to serve as the pastor of our congregation. I feel God has blessed us with the task of sharing the good news of salvation to the people of Victor. Who, while quite wealthy in possessions, tend to be poor in their acknowledgement of the need for grace. It is always difficult to proclaim to “successful people” that their worldly success is actually quite shallow. Success can easily fool people into thinking that they are righteous before God. Successful people tend to think their possessions ensure their value;… and that everyone else thinks they’re valuable people because of all their things. Nevertheless, all are in need of God’s grace, and true success only comes by faithfully living according to God’s will.
It is a sad reality that the more wealth and success a society has the more they turn away from religion. That goes for Christianity, and Judaism, and Islam, and eastern religions as well. The prosperity of North America and Europe today is unparalleled in human history. Never before have humans had life so easy. Never before have people enjoyed such a glut of comfort, entertainment, and luxury. People should be more thankful to God than ever before! But not so.
The Bible is full of stories of people who turn away from God when they become prosperous. The prophets often criticized the greedy kings of Israel. Jesus challenged the scribes and Pharisees who felt themselves righteous because of their prosperity. The rich young man who came to Jesus asking what he needed to do to inherit eternal life could not give up his reliance upon his wealth. From Adam and Eve onward, it seems to be a truth that people would rather turn to themselves for fulfillment rather than turning to God.
The book of Ecclesiastes dares to challenge the lie that deeply drives the lives of many people. Ecclesiastes is sometime attributed to King Solomon. This is almost certainly not true. But it is impossible to narrow down who wrote it or when it was written. A fragment of the book exists that carbon dates to 150 B.C. So, it was written sometime before then. That’s all we can say for certain.
Ecclesiastes is perhaps not popular because it dares the challenge many things. In general, we do not like what it has to say. It is almost never read for Sunday worship. Only a portion of Chapter 3 is read occasionally at funerals or weddings. But then it is pulled out of context. When left in its context we realize it is part of a larger writing that dares to question everything. It dares to speak things we don’t want to think about:
What is the purpose of life?
Why is God so often silent?
Why is life so unfair?
Why does God seem so far away?
Why doesn’t God give us clearer instructions for life?
Last week when reading Proverbs we talked about wisdom. The author of Ecclesiastes even questions the point of wisdom. After all, the both the foolish and the wise end up equally dead!
And what is the point of anything and everything that we do? Will it not all deteriorate in time?
If you have great accomplishments and live in wisdom, how do you ensure that your descendants won’t just squander it all?
Ecclesiastes does not preach well to most people in Victor, New York. And yet it dares to speak things that most people in Victor know about but don’t speak. Along those lines, Ecclesiastes asks lots of questions. It gives almost no answers. Or, perhaps it gives answers that we do not want to hear!
The first part of Chapter 3 that we read probably brought to mind the 1965 hit from the Byrds, Turn! Turn! It’s a catchy song. There’s nothing wrong with the song in and of itself. However, it can lead to a misinterpretation of the text. Some people read things like, “a time to weep and a time to laugh,” and, “a time to love and a time to hate,” and they think that’s talking about human time. They think that sometimes it is okay to love and other times it is okay to hate. Or that sometimes will be times to keep silence and other times will be times to speak. That is not what is meant.
Time is God’s time. That means that as time passes there will be times of love and times of hate. There will be times of war and times of peace. There will be times to gather stones and times to cast away stones. All of that is just the movement of time. All of that is within God’s hands. 3:14 says, “I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.”
This text ultimately calls us to be faith-filled people at all times. A faith-filled person is knows what type the time is and then acts appropriately. But how are we to be faith-filled people? The answers are woven in the text.
It starts with a healthy fear of God. Verse 11 says that God has put a sense of past and future in the minds of humans. We alone of all of God’s creatures have a sense of eternity. We alone of all of God’s creatures can sense God the way we do, and have questions about the meaning of existence. So, God has given us this ability to sense Him, yet God has kept from us full knowledge of what He is actually up to. This is the beginning of the fear of God. It puts us in our place and keeps us from getting arrogant.
Once we have a healthy fear of God, the next step in faithfulness is to trust God. We need to trust that God is indeed good. We need to trust that God cares about us. But what does God caring about us look like? Shouldn’t those who trust God have easy lives and those who do not trust God have miserable lives? Wouldn’t that prove that God is trustworthy? That makes sense. But that is not the way things work. Verses 16 and following talk about injustice in the world. They talk about wickedness being in the place of justice; and even in the place of righteousness there was wickedness. So what does that mean for trusting God? The author of Ecclesiastes answers that God is ultimately the judge of all of this. We (in our humility brought about by the fear of God) trust that God sees and that God knows. And we trust that in God’s time justice will be done.
Once we fear God and trust God, then what? How does that look in our lives? What are we to actually do?
We once again go back to humility and the fear of God. In Verse 14 the author says, “I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, or taken from it.” That means that God and God alone can do anything permanent. We shouldn’t even try. We need to understand that even the greatest of our life’s work will fade away in time. We will be forgotten. Our greatest accomplishments will all be replaced sooner or later.
Perhaps a look at sports stadiums is a good example. We build these great works that cost billions of dollars. We spend years building them. Someone buys the right to name them. And so they are named. Until someone buys the right to change the name. Frontier Field in Rochester becomes Innovative Field. The War Memorial Auditorium becomes Blue Cross Blue Shield Arena. The Auditorium Theatre becomes the West Herr Auditorium Theatre.
How big do we have to build something, how much do we have to spend to make our name permanent? We can’t. Only God does things that endure forever. Part of being a faith-filled person is having the humility to know that even the best of your life’s work is transitory.
So then what? Is it all pointless?
Have you picked up on the irony of Ecclesiastes? It is part of scripture. It is an enduring writing that has been passed on for a few millennium. Yet it is impossible to know who actually wrote these enduring words!
Ecclesiastes tells us what to do with our transitory lives. The final verse of our reading from Ecclesiastes says, “So I saw that there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot.” And Verse 12 says, “…moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.”
There we have it. Two “four-letter” words: “work” and “toil”. You’d think they’d become swear words. No one likes them. People avoid them as much as possible.
We have the New York State Lottery and all sorts of casinos. They all hold out the promise of gain without work and toil. How successful would they be if the winner got to do more work and toil for less pay?
The idea is absurd. We laugh. Work and toil are for people in prison. They are not for lottery winners! Yet that takes us back to where we began… life in Victor among successful people.
To be sure, the people of Victor know the meaning of words like work and toil. And it is reasonably likely that they have done a share of it. Perhaps friends and family even criticize them for doing it too much! The question is, for what are they toiling? Why are they doing it?
If they are toiling to afford a nice house, send their kids to an expensive college, and have a lot of nice things, then they are toiling in vain. We didn’t read any parts of Ecclesiastes that talk about vanity, but there are many of them. They talk about toiling in vain. Toiling in vain is toiling apart from a relationship with God. Toil that builds a person’s life is toiling with the knowledge and fear of God.
I’m fairly sure most of the population of Victor is toiling in vain. They toil effectively enough to appear successful. But their toils will take them nowhere. They are tired. They are frustrated. They end up in a vicious cycle of toiling for things so they can afford luxuries and entertainment, which they use to escape from their toil!
Work and toil done in faith-filled relationship with God will create a full life. According to Ecclesiastes it is an end unto itself. This is not a flashy message, but it is good news. It is the good news that we know and the good news that we live for.
Whether we are young and energetic, or old and tired, may God fill our days with work and toil that is meaningful. May we be willing to pick up those tasks and perform them well. In that way, whether their effects be short-lived or long-lasting, they will be done for the kingdom of God, which is truly enduring and worthwhile.
Monday, August 12, 2024
August 11, 2024 Proverbs 8:1-9:6
In recent decades there has been a desire to develop more female imagery for God. It’s understandable. We usually refer to God in male terms yet God is not confined to a gender. But I take issue with the way many try to go about it.
Some want to say that the Holy Spirit is female. They base this on the Greek word for spirit being feminine. There are a lot of problems with this. At best this is a very weak argument to make. You’re stretching if you’re taking the noun gender of an ancient language and trying to expand it into a description of God’s femaleness. And of course you run into a hard wall in John’s gospel where Jesus specifically refers to the Holy Spirit as “he”.
But despite that, people press on with all sorts of theology that goes nowhere at best, and creates a garbled mess at worst. I say a garbled mess because this is what I see happening: People will call the Holy Spirit female, then interpret that into the description of the Trinity laid out in the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds. Then they use that credal description as a lens to interpret the Bible.
Perhaps you didn’t follow that logic, and that’s okay. The point is you get a weak garbled mess. Anytime you use the creeds to interpret the Bible you’re going to get a mess. It’s one way logic. Scripture can point to an understanding of the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But once you’ve gotten a definition of the Trinity you cannot then reverse the process and use the Trinity as a tool to interpret scripture. When you add in that: you’re using a current day understanding of gender, imposing in on a pre-industrial age understanding of gender, and then using that to back-interpret your way into an understanding of the femaleness of God as described in the Bible… you just end up with a complete and total mess!
I suggest the opposite approach. I say let the masculine understanding of the Trinity stand unchallenged. Just leave it be. Instead go directly to the Bible to and let it speak in its own original terms about what we might be called God’s feminine qualities. Do that and you get not only a very strong argument; you’ll also get a vast and powerful useful theology.
The ancient Hebrews considered wisdom to be a female quality, and it was a quality created by God. Proverbs 8 and 9 are the mostly fully developed description of Wisdom. Wisdom is personified as a woman, and is sometimes called “Woman Wisdom.”
In Proverbs 8:22 Woman Wisdom says that the Lord created her at the beginning of his works, the first of God’s acts long ago. The verses continue to describe how Woman Wisdom was present and watching as the universe took its shape: stars, planets, the Earth, the features of the earth, and the living things upon it. Wisdom says she rejoiced in the inhabited world and delighted in the human race.
Does this mean that God literally created a being called “Wisdom”? No, I wouldn’t go that far. That gets you into a mess pretty fast. But you can say that the structure and orderliness of creation is interwoven with wisdom, and wisdom is feminine. This makes sense with the gender roles of the time.
We must remember that not too many centuries ago it took incredible amounts of human strength to survive. The strong survived. The weak died. Humanity was in a constant struggle against nature to even exist. Disease, wild animals, natural disasters, scarcity of resources, the complete lack of medical care, and more made survival constantly difficult. Men, the physically stronger of the sexes, were the providers and protectors. Women, the birth givers, were usually entrusted with child rearing and safety. Women had to be highly conscientious as they shouldered the responsibility of managing the family’s limited resources. Thus, wisdom was understood in a feminine light.
Femininity in this light is not week. It is not silly. It is a powerful guiding principle for life and prosperity. I say that if you want feminine imagery for God, build it from here. Don’t associate masculinity with toughness and femininity with weakness. If you do that then you must develop a feminine understanding of God so that God has a soft side. That’s just a mess. Masculinity has both toughness and tenderness. Femininity also has both toughness and tenderness. I don’t think anyone who reads about Woman Wisdom in Proverbs would call her weak. She’s a solid and strong dynamic; and one that you mess with at your own peril!
In Proverbs 8 Woman Wisdom calls for prudence, intelligence, and nobility. She claims strength for herself. She calls for honesty, honor, and discretion. She attacks pride, arrogance, perverted speech, and evil.
She says that by her ways there is justice and rightness. She says that by her ways nations are stable and prosperous. Without her all things fall apart. They descend into chaos and evil.
The idea of Woman Wisdom is not limited to just Proverbs 8 and 9. It’s not like you only find a bit of feminine understanding of God there. It spreads throughout the Old Testament and in the New Testament as well. It shows up in other parts of Proverbs. Job 28 seems to pull in ideas of Woman Wisdom. And there are a number of references in what we Protestants call the Apocrypha – those books of the Old Testament recognized as scripture to the Roman Catholic Church but generally not in Protestant Churches. The reason for that isn’t the point here. The point is that Woman Wisdom is frequently woven into ancient Hebrew thought.
And speaking of the references to these other books not in Protestant Bibles, we’ll use them to take the next step in feminine understandings of God. You’re surely familiar with these words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
There Jesus is quoting from a book called Sirach 51:23. There Woman Wisdom says, “Draw near to me, you who are uneducated, and lodge in the house of instruction. Why do you say you are lacking in these things, and why do you endure such great thirst? I opened my mouth and said, Acquire wisdom for yourselves without money. Put your neck under her yoke, and let your souls receive instruction…”
Jesus teaches that within himself are the dynamics and presence of Woman Wisdom. While Jesus is undeniably male, some biblical scholars point out that Jesus embraces the fullness of both masculine and feminine qualities.
And speaking of combining ancient feminine understanding, God’s creative work, and Jesus’ own embrace, we also have the opening line of John’s gospel. It’s almost certainly influenced by the idea of Woman Wisdom: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Wod was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The language there is clearly masculine. But as I said before I read it, the idea of Woman Wisdom is almost certainly woven through that.
So, if you want feminine qualities for God, there are plenty of them. They are strong. They are capable. They are important. They are an inseparable mix in the creation of the world and of the order of human society. For those who long for more feminine concepts of God I say that you do not have to invent them. They are already there. They are even highly sophisticated. You just have to get out of their way and let them speak on their own terms. True Wisdom is the knowledge and fear of God. Wisdom will lead you to fullness of life.
Some want to say that the Holy Spirit is female. They base this on the Greek word for spirit being feminine. There are a lot of problems with this. At best this is a very weak argument to make. You’re stretching if you’re taking the noun gender of an ancient language and trying to expand it into a description of God’s femaleness. And of course you run into a hard wall in John’s gospel where Jesus specifically refers to the Holy Spirit as “he”.
But despite that, people press on with all sorts of theology that goes nowhere at best, and creates a garbled mess at worst. I say a garbled mess because this is what I see happening: People will call the Holy Spirit female, then interpret that into the description of the Trinity laid out in the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds. Then they use that credal description as a lens to interpret the Bible.
Perhaps you didn’t follow that logic, and that’s okay. The point is you get a weak garbled mess. Anytime you use the creeds to interpret the Bible you’re going to get a mess. It’s one way logic. Scripture can point to an understanding of the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But once you’ve gotten a definition of the Trinity you cannot then reverse the process and use the Trinity as a tool to interpret scripture. When you add in that: you’re using a current day understanding of gender, imposing in on a pre-industrial age understanding of gender, and then using that to back-interpret your way into an understanding of the femaleness of God as described in the Bible… you just end up with a complete and total mess!
I suggest the opposite approach. I say let the masculine understanding of the Trinity stand unchallenged. Just leave it be. Instead go directly to the Bible to and let it speak in its own original terms about what we might be called God’s feminine qualities. Do that and you get not only a very strong argument; you’ll also get a vast and powerful useful theology.
The ancient Hebrews considered wisdom to be a female quality, and it was a quality created by God. Proverbs 8 and 9 are the mostly fully developed description of Wisdom. Wisdom is personified as a woman, and is sometimes called “Woman Wisdom.”
In Proverbs 8:22 Woman Wisdom says that the Lord created her at the beginning of his works, the first of God’s acts long ago. The verses continue to describe how Woman Wisdom was present and watching as the universe took its shape: stars, planets, the Earth, the features of the earth, and the living things upon it. Wisdom says she rejoiced in the inhabited world and delighted in the human race.
Does this mean that God literally created a being called “Wisdom”? No, I wouldn’t go that far. That gets you into a mess pretty fast. But you can say that the structure and orderliness of creation is interwoven with wisdom, and wisdom is feminine. This makes sense with the gender roles of the time.
We must remember that not too many centuries ago it took incredible amounts of human strength to survive. The strong survived. The weak died. Humanity was in a constant struggle against nature to even exist. Disease, wild animals, natural disasters, scarcity of resources, the complete lack of medical care, and more made survival constantly difficult. Men, the physically stronger of the sexes, were the providers and protectors. Women, the birth givers, were usually entrusted with child rearing and safety. Women had to be highly conscientious as they shouldered the responsibility of managing the family’s limited resources. Thus, wisdom was understood in a feminine light.
Femininity in this light is not week. It is not silly. It is a powerful guiding principle for life and prosperity. I say that if you want feminine imagery for God, build it from here. Don’t associate masculinity with toughness and femininity with weakness. If you do that then you must develop a feminine understanding of God so that God has a soft side. That’s just a mess. Masculinity has both toughness and tenderness. Femininity also has both toughness and tenderness. I don’t think anyone who reads about Woman Wisdom in Proverbs would call her weak. She’s a solid and strong dynamic; and one that you mess with at your own peril!
In Proverbs 8 Woman Wisdom calls for prudence, intelligence, and nobility. She claims strength for herself. She calls for honesty, honor, and discretion. She attacks pride, arrogance, perverted speech, and evil.
She says that by her ways there is justice and rightness. She says that by her ways nations are stable and prosperous. Without her all things fall apart. They descend into chaos and evil.
The idea of Woman Wisdom is not limited to just Proverbs 8 and 9. It’s not like you only find a bit of feminine understanding of God there. It spreads throughout the Old Testament and in the New Testament as well. It shows up in other parts of Proverbs. Job 28 seems to pull in ideas of Woman Wisdom. And there are a number of references in what we Protestants call the Apocrypha – those books of the Old Testament recognized as scripture to the Roman Catholic Church but generally not in Protestant Churches. The reason for that isn’t the point here. The point is that Woman Wisdom is frequently woven into ancient Hebrew thought.
And speaking of the references to these other books not in Protestant Bibles, we’ll use them to take the next step in feminine understandings of God. You’re surely familiar with these words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
There Jesus is quoting from a book called Sirach 51:23. There Woman Wisdom says, “Draw near to me, you who are uneducated, and lodge in the house of instruction. Why do you say you are lacking in these things, and why do you endure such great thirst? I opened my mouth and said, Acquire wisdom for yourselves without money. Put your neck under her yoke, and let your souls receive instruction…”
Jesus teaches that within himself are the dynamics and presence of Woman Wisdom. While Jesus is undeniably male, some biblical scholars point out that Jesus embraces the fullness of both masculine and feminine qualities.
And speaking of combining ancient feminine understanding, God’s creative work, and Jesus’ own embrace, we also have the opening line of John’s gospel. It’s almost certainly influenced by the idea of Woman Wisdom: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Wod was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The language there is clearly masculine. But as I said before I read it, the idea of Woman Wisdom is almost certainly woven through that.
So, if you want feminine qualities for God, there are plenty of them. They are strong. They are capable. They are important. They are an inseparable mix in the creation of the world and of the order of human society. For those who long for more feminine concepts of God I say that you do not have to invent them. They are already there. They are even highly sophisticated. You just have to get out of their way and let them speak on their own terms. True Wisdom is the knowledge and fear of God. Wisdom will lead you to fullness of life.
Tuesday, August 6, 2024
August 4, 2024 Proverbs 10
We just read in Proverbs 10:19, “When words are many transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.” I suppose that means I need to keep the sermon short!
People are fundamentally foolish. At least they are according to Proverbs. People will insist they know what is best for themselves. They think they know who they are. They think they know where they are going in life. They will insist they can be their own source of fulfillment. This is why religious beliefs fall off as a society’s prosperity increases.
Right along with people thinking they can be their own source of self-fulfillment is the belief that they are basically good people. It fits. If you’re your own source of self-fulfillment then you’re also going to be your own source of what is right and wrong. Again, a reason why people turn away from religions. They don’t want anything outside themselves critiquing their morality. But since they’ve created their own morality of course they think they’re moral! But that is circular logic that is doomed to fail.
It is also tragic ultimately. When you’ve convinced yourself that you are basically good, and that since you’re basically good that you deserve to go to heaven, then you’ve made grace something unnecessary and have a fundamental misunderstanding about a relationship with God.
Here's how Proverbs says that’s all foolishness.
Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings. Proverbs is often attributed to King Solomon. King Solomon was known for being wise. And indeed, it is possible that parts of it go back to him. But parts of Proverbs also cite other authors. As a whole, Proverbs is a composite work that was assembled over centuries. While Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings from the ancient Hebrews it is not unique to them. Many other nations and religions of the time has wisdom literature. Proverbs shows it has been influenced by these other cultures. There are two large sections of Proverbs that are almost certainly taken from the writings of other religions. That is where we start to see the core of what Proverbs is trying to teach. Where it appears material has been borrowed from other cultures or religions, it has been given a clear Hebrew reinterpretation. These Hebrew writings are about God the creator, and about the way God’s wisdom may be found in the world. Ultimately living by that wisdom is what gives a person a fulfilling and solid life.
Everything in Proverbs is about living in right relationship with God. It is about recognizing that God is God and we are not. God is the creator. We are not. God has power. We do not. God is important. And this is very important point - our importance only derives from God. God gave us an identity, and only in relationship with God can we truly understand who we are.
Think about it. This world seems like a big place. Political issues seem important. Economic issues seem important. Environmental issues seem important. Social issues seem important.
You’ve seen pictures of the Earth taken from the Moon. Huge as the Earth seems to us, we know that it is a small planet orbiting an ordinary star near the edge of an average galaxy. In the grand scheme of things we are a speck of nothingness. God’s power and size is beyond our comprehension. Who are we that God should pay attention to us? What claim do we have on God? None.
It is only by God’s choice and God’s grace that we are anything at all. We do well to remember that God could create a less troublesome, more capable, more faithful creature at any time. And we do well to remember that we live and we work only by the graciousness of God. An easy to overlook miracle of the coming of Jesus is that God bothers with us at all; let alone lives a lifetime like one of us, and then wrongfully dies at our own hands. Psalm 8 says, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them?” (Vs. 3-4)
Indeed, what are we really? Of what value are our individual lives in the vast machinery of this universe? We are kidding ourselves if we think we are important! We aren’t. It’s that simple. Our only value comes because God chooses to give us value.
So, from there everything else starts to come into place. True wisdom, as Proverbs would have us understand it, is recognizing that God is God and we are not; and that living in right relationship with God is the only way to do anything meaningful. I’m being repetitive here, but everything in Proverbs is rooted in a right relationship with God. And the only way anything can truly succeed is if it’s done in right relationship with God.
Foolishness is the opposite of wisdom. In Proverbs to be foolish is not to be unintelligent. In fact, intelligence and wisdom are not linked. You don’t have to be smart to be wise. You don’t have to have a lot of knowledge to be wise. You don’t have to have a lot of formal education and diplomas hanging on your wall to be wise.
Ever filled out a form that asks your educational level? Whoever created the form thinks there might be correlations between your other responses and how much education you have. There is probably truth to that in general. Still though, I’m waiting for one of those forms to have the option, “Baptized Child of God.” That is truly the core of all other education!
I think there are lots of intelligent and highly educated people who, despite all their brains, are fundamentally foolish. They can be very insistent that they are right. They can use their brains and cite all sorts of research and studies to back their point of view. But they cannot find what it means to be truly alive without God.
According to Proverbs, foolishness is doing things outside of a right relationship with God. That is foolishness because it’s a rat race to nowhere.
Doing things in right relationship with God guarantees that what you are doing is going to have lasting value, even if the world doesn’t recognize it; and even if the world seems to want to destroy it. Proverbs reminds us that God knows. What God sees and God knows God will use for lasting good.
Next week we’re going to look at an amazing thing about Hebrew wisdom. Wisdom is not just a concept for them. It is personified as a living being of God’s making at creation. It is a powerful concept, and it is one that I think deserves far more attention than it gets these days. But that is for next week. I do want to take one verse from what we’ll be reading next week.
It is Proverbs 9:10 which reads, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
This concept flows throughout Proverbs. Of course “Fear of the Lord” does not mean to be so afraid as to be frozen into inaction. It means proper respect and understanding.
Notice that Proverbs 10 does not promise an easy life. It does not promise a life above hardship. It does not say that if you are moral your life will be one of fairness and ease that is divinely protected. No, it calls for hard work. “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” And, “A child who gathers in summer is prudent, but a child who sleeps in harvest brings shame.”
It is also not about somehow getting life right and then being right always. Verse 17 almost seems to speak of constant learning, “Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but one who rejects a rebuke goes astray.”
And stormy times will happen to both the righteous and the wicked, “When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are established forever.”
In other words, Proverbs 10 calls for: humility, a strong work ethic, diligence, smart decisions, careful words; and all done with a life focused on God. There are no short cuts. There are no easy streets.
The chapters in Proverbs that follow continue in the same vein. I suggest you read them. There aren’t necessarily new concepts introduced, but the things introduced in 10 are made richer.
Be wise. Have faith in God. Don’t expect quick and easy solutions. But do expect a life of meaning and the satisfaction of working in line with God’s kingdom.
People are fundamentally foolish. At least they are according to Proverbs. People will insist they know what is best for themselves. They think they know who they are. They think they know where they are going in life. They will insist they can be their own source of fulfillment. This is why religious beliefs fall off as a society’s prosperity increases.
Right along with people thinking they can be their own source of self-fulfillment is the belief that they are basically good people. It fits. If you’re your own source of self-fulfillment then you’re also going to be your own source of what is right and wrong. Again, a reason why people turn away from religions. They don’t want anything outside themselves critiquing their morality. But since they’ve created their own morality of course they think they’re moral! But that is circular logic that is doomed to fail.
It is also tragic ultimately. When you’ve convinced yourself that you are basically good, and that since you’re basically good that you deserve to go to heaven, then you’ve made grace something unnecessary and have a fundamental misunderstanding about a relationship with God.
Here's how Proverbs says that’s all foolishness.
Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings. Proverbs is often attributed to King Solomon. King Solomon was known for being wise. And indeed, it is possible that parts of it go back to him. But parts of Proverbs also cite other authors. As a whole, Proverbs is a composite work that was assembled over centuries. While Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings from the ancient Hebrews it is not unique to them. Many other nations and religions of the time has wisdom literature. Proverbs shows it has been influenced by these other cultures. There are two large sections of Proverbs that are almost certainly taken from the writings of other religions. That is where we start to see the core of what Proverbs is trying to teach. Where it appears material has been borrowed from other cultures or religions, it has been given a clear Hebrew reinterpretation. These Hebrew writings are about God the creator, and about the way God’s wisdom may be found in the world. Ultimately living by that wisdom is what gives a person a fulfilling and solid life.
Everything in Proverbs is about living in right relationship with God. It is about recognizing that God is God and we are not. God is the creator. We are not. God has power. We do not. God is important. And this is very important point - our importance only derives from God. God gave us an identity, and only in relationship with God can we truly understand who we are.
Think about it. This world seems like a big place. Political issues seem important. Economic issues seem important. Environmental issues seem important. Social issues seem important.
You’ve seen pictures of the Earth taken from the Moon. Huge as the Earth seems to us, we know that it is a small planet orbiting an ordinary star near the edge of an average galaxy. In the grand scheme of things we are a speck of nothingness. God’s power and size is beyond our comprehension. Who are we that God should pay attention to us? What claim do we have on God? None.
It is only by God’s choice and God’s grace that we are anything at all. We do well to remember that God could create a less troublesome, more capable, more faithful creature at any time. And we do well to remember that we live and we work only by the graciousness of God. An easy to overlook miracle of the coming of Jesus is that God bothers with us at all; let alone lives a lifetime like one of us, and then wrongfully dies at our own hands. Psalm 8 says, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them?” (Vs. 3-4)
Indeed, what are we really? Of what value are our individual lives in the vast machinery of this universe? We are kidding ourselves if we think we are important! We aren’t. It’s that simple. Our only value comes because God chooses to give us value.
So, from there everything else starts to come into place. True wisdom, as Proverbs would have us understand it, is recognizing that God is God and we are not; and that living in right relationship with God is the only way to do anything meaningful. I’m being repetitive here, but everything in Proverbs is rooted in a right relationship with God. And the only way anything can truly succeed is if it’s done in right relationship with God.
Foolishness is the opposite of wisdom. In Proverbs to be foolish is not to be unintelligent. In fact, intelligence and wisdom are not linked. You don’t have to be smart to be wise. You don’t have to have a lot of knowledge to be wise. You don’t have to have a lot of formal education and diplomas hanging on your wall to be wise.
Ever filled out a form that asks your educational level? Whoever created the form thinks there might be correlations between your other responses and how much education you have. There is probably truth to that in general. Still though, I’m waiting for one of those forms to have the option, “Baptized Child of God.” That is truly the core of all other education!
I think there are lots of intelligent and highly educated people who, despite all their brains, are fundamentally foolish. They can be very insistent that they are right. They can use their brains and cite all sorts of research and studies to back their point of view. But they cannot find what it means to be truly alive without God.
According to Proverbs, foolishness is doing things outside of a right relationship with God. That is foolishness because it’s a rat race to nowhere.
Doing things in right relationship with God guarantees that what you are doing is going to have lasting value, even if the world doesn’t recognize it; and even if the world seems to want to destroy it. Proverbs reminds us that God knows. What God sees and God knows God will use for lasting good.
Next week we’re going to look at an amazing thing about Hebrew wisdom. Wisdom is not just a concept for them. It is personified as a living being of God’s making at creation. It is a powerful concept, and it is one that I think deserves far more attention than it gets these days. But that is for next week. I do want to take one verse from what we’ll be reading next week.
It is Proverbs 9:10 which reads, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
This concept flows throughout Proverbs. Of course “Fear of the Lord” does not mean to be so afraid as to be frozen into inaction. It means proper respect and understanding.
Notice that Proverbs 10 does not promise an easy life. It does not promise a life above hardship. It does not say that if you are moral your life will be one of fairness and ease that is divinely protected. No, it calls for hard work. “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” And, “A child who gathers in summer is prudent, but a child who sleeps in harvest brings shame.”
It is also not about somehow getting life right and then being right always. Verse 17 almost seems to speak of constant learning, “Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but one who rejects a rebuke goes astray.”
And stormy times will happen to both the righteous and the wicked, “When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are established forever.”
In other words, Proverbs 10 calls for: humility, a strong work ethic, diligence, smart decisions, careful words; and all done with a life focused on God. There are no short cuts. There are no easy streets.
The chapters in Proverbs that follow continue in the same vein. I suggest you read them. There aren’t necessarily new concepts introduced, but the things introduced in 10 are made richer.
Be wise. Have faith in God. Don’t expect quick and easy solutions. But do expect a life of meaning and the satisfaction of working in line with God’s kingdom.
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
July 28, 2024 Psalm 137
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
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 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.
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