It’s been awhile since the last post. Things have been busy here, with all sorts of pre-semester work, including a great trip by our faculty to DFW to meet with ministry leaders there, and as recently as yesterday, the inauguration of our 11th president. Classes have started, including a group of 3 students and me reading Isaiah in Hebrew. Wonderful stuff! Thanks for your patience.
Psalms 3-14 include a series of songs that an ancient scholar, maybe in the 2nd or 3rd century BC, connected to David. The connection allows these texts to become words of a pious Jewish person, and thus of any faithful believer. Today I want to offer a brief reflection on Psalms 4-7, which belong together in some ways. They all ask God for help, and they explore Israel’s deep longing to be in God’s presence, where peace and justice flourish. They also acknowledge that for several reasons, humans often do not live there. Faith is not about either escaping the messiness of life or pretending that the ugliness is unreal. It is about longing for the end of evil and committing ourselves to the vision of that end. To be a person of faith is to live between the times, to be people welcoming another world….
I asked my fifteen-year-old daughter to read Psalms 4-7 with me the other day. “What stood out to you?” I asked. “Well, it seems like there’s a contradiction. Sometimes he [the Psalmist] seems to say ‘God punish the sinners,’ but sometimes the prayer is ‘God, please overlook the fact that I’m a sinner. So which is it?” Very good question, which is why it’s always a hazard to ask teenagers to read the Bible!
But of course the collectors of the Psalter were well aware of the tension, and they left it here on purpose. On the one hand, we experience the subtle mixture of fear and expectancy of the Psalm 4: “Answer me when I cry out, o my righteous God…. Have mercy on me and hear my prayer.” God seems distant because of the various adversaries and adversities we face, and we hear the prophetic call to “sacrifice just sacrifices and trust in Yahweh.”
On the other hand, we also experience the sharp contrast stated in Psalm 5: “You should cause the speakers of lies to perish, the violent and quarrelsome person who offends the Lord. But as for me, because of your abundant mercy, I go to your house. I bow down toward your holy temple in awe of you.” Life is a social affair, and it requires commitments. Some people defy God by running over other people. Some people recognize their dependence on God and therefore live humbly and justly with others. It is not always easy to know who is who, or which one we are. We have to pay close attention. Sometimes we pretend to be one while really being the other, and even our pious language can betray us. Thus I think that the Psalmist is not one of those arrogant believers who self-righteously brands “those people” as the problem. He or she recognizes that we are all the problem. The statements paraphrasable as “I worship you” is not a boast but a commitment, and an expression of a desire for a certain kind of relationship and thus a certain kind of society.
Next time, I’ll slow back down and work awhile on Psalm 8. But I wanted to say a few words about Psalms that deserve to be reclaimed. Stay tuned for more!