Thanks to everyone who wrote about the first post in this series.\u00a0 I always wonder if anyone is reading these, so it’s wonderful to receive such excellent feedback!\u00a0 I’ll get to your suggestions in time.<\/p>\n
For now, let me go to Psalm 2.\u00a0 One of the most brilliant interpretations of the psalm is the one in Handel’s “Messiah,” which puts it just before the “Hallelujah Chorus.”\u00a0 God’s triumph over the evils of the world comes about in the resurrection of Jesus, when God justifies the righteous and foreshadows the ultimate triumph over death and Evil writ large.\u00a0 Handel made this jump because it had been suggested to him by the use of Psalm 2 in Acts 4:25-31.\u00a0 The intensity and jumbledness (what’s the right word?) of the voices in Handel’s song capture just the right mood to understand the madness of the foes of God in the Psalm.\u00a0 I can hear the music in my head as I write, perhaps suggesting that I need some help!<\/p>\n
But never mind that.\u00a0 The Psalm makes four moves.\u00a0 Verses 1-3 describe the threats that foreign nations pose to little Judah.\u00a0 Verses 4-6 describe Yhwh, the God of Israel, as the ruler of the world.\u00a0 The Psalmist challenges the normal understanding of reality, which counts and weighs armies and treasuries as part of its moral calculus.\u00a0 “Think again,” the Psalmist says.\u00a0 Verses 7-9 offer the perspective of the king in Zion, the descendant of David, who relies on divine protection against overwhelming odds.\u00a0 Then verses 10-12 conclude by calling on the nations’ leaders to repent of their evil ways.<\/p>\n
What to make of this little song?\u00a0 Modern scholars tend to think of it as a political hymn, probably from a coronation service.\u00a0 I think that makes sense for its original setting, as best we can recover it.\u00a0 But the book of Psalms has reused it for different purposes, placing it alongside other hymns that have other meanings.\u00a0 Somehow, it must speak to the wise reader and singer of the book, the sort of person that Psalm 1 has said the whole collection is designed to aid in his or her pursuit of God.\u00a0 What should we learn from the Psalm?<\/p>\n
Many things, perhaps, but let me name two.\u00a0 The first is that, since God truly is the benevolent and just sovereign of the world, we should not be intimidated by other claims to absolute value, whether political, economic, intellectual, or spiritual.\u00a0 God is God, and we are not.\u00a0 But, by the way, we should also not confuse “lack of intimidation” with belligerence (as so often happens with Christian defenders nowadays.\u00a0 As I write this, I’m thinking of Anne Rice’s very public departure from Christianity while stating that she does not want to leave Christ.\u00a0 We’ve all felt that way sometimes.)\u00a0 The quiet confidence that God will make the world right, even when we don’t know how that will happen, underlies our lives of worship.\u00a0 As we Arkansas might say (but don’t; I’m making this up), the banty rooster struts most when he’s least confident in his crowing.<\/p>\n
Second, this trust directly affects how we worship.\u00a0 I’m not sure if I can get this part of the post in a clear logical order, but let me try.\u00a0 Do we struggle so much with performance in worship — whether that means getting it right for God or getting it right for people — that we come to think that God is someone we can manage, or that God is some sort of being whose superiority means we must try to be impressive (like I try when I present a report to our board, say)?\u00a0 Or does the kind of trust that allows the psalmist to count the enemy hordes and say that one single promise from God outperforms all of them also inspire us?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Worship is not a performance.\u00a0 It is life.\u00a0 And life is worship.<\/p>\n
Thank you for your interactions on this series.\u00a0 There is more to come, and we will stay here awhile.\u00a0 Let me hear your reflections on this and other Psalms and their implications for life.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thanks to everyone who wrote about the first post in this series.\u00a0 I always wonder if anyone is reading these, so it’s wonderful to receive such excellent feedback!\u00a0 I’ll get to your suggestions in time. For now, let me go to Psalm 2.\u00a0 One of the most brilliant interpretations of the psalm is the one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3538,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n