One of the major images of God in Scripture is that of judge.\u00a0 Yahweh is the God who evaluates and settles accounts, rectifying all the injustices of the world and bringing order where, before, chaos reigned.\u00a0 As I’ve noted before, it’s a hard image for many of us because it conjures up memories of legalism and human hard-heartedness.\u00a0 When applied to God, however, the image is appropriate since God can weave together mercy and fairness with a perfection that humans cannot equal.\u00a0 In fact, the image of God as judge can be very liberating because it means we can turn loose of our felt need to evaluate and measure everything and everyone, especially ourselves and our own actions.\u00a0 We need not worry whether these actions will “measure up” because they have been committed to God.<\/p>\n
The author of Psalm 26 believes all this.\u00a0 The psalm opens with an invitation to God to “judge me.”\u00a0 How to translate this?\u00a0 Does it mean “evaluate me” or “vindicate me” or “put me in my place”?\u00a0 The second half of the line both answers the question and raises new ones: “for I walk in my perfection,” meaning apparently that the psalmist is confident that God will find nothing amiss in this person’s life.\u00a0 How to understand a statement that seems to us so startlingly presumptuous?\u00a0 The answer comes when we consider the alternatives: no one whose life is in tatters could reasonably apply to God for such assessment (there are laments and penitential psalms for such a person to use).\u00a0 Nor could a person who has no confidence in God’s justice say such things.\u00a0 We may find the psalmist’s confidence a bit excessive, but perhaps that is because we do not take seriously enough the power of God’s forgiveness and work to bring human beings to a higher state of virtue.\u00a0 In other words, we may be so impressed by our own sinfulness that we allow it to outweigh God’s power to change our lives.\u00a0 The psalmist does not make such a mistake.<\/p>\n
The real resolution of the problem comes at the end of verse 1: “And I trust in Yahweh.”\u00a0 One of the earliest theological lessons of my life came one evening when we were sitting in the car outside the grocery store waiting for my mother.\u00a0 My grandmother Sullivan, for reasons I don’t remember, said to me, “I’m glad that Jesus is my judge and not my brothers and sisters.”\u00a0 The context doesn’t matter much.\u00a0 Perhaps it was one of our congregation’s many internal squabbles that she had in mind.\u00a0 But her point was a profound one.\u00a0 The God who judges can be trusted with that task, and therefore we have nothing to fear from it.<\/p>\n
The psalmist goes on to talk about the implications of such a trust: confidence in the stories of God’s steadfast love, a reformed personality pursuing justice in all our associations, a passion for repose in God’s house, and a sharp distinction between those who trust God and those who do not.\u00a0 The psalmist has found peace, not in the absence of conflict, but in the knowledge that a providence rides above the storm and shelters all who seek it diligently.<\/p>\n
So, happy new year to all.\u00a0 It would be hard to find a better reminder of why we hope for such a thing than this gorgeous little psalm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the major images of God in Scripture is that of judge.\u00a0 Yahweh is the God who evaluates and settles accounts, rectifying all the injustices of the world and bringing order where, before, chaos reigned.\u00a0 As I’ve noted before, it’s a hard image for many of us because it conjures up memories of legalism […]<\/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-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n