{"id":818,"date":"2011-07-12T22:05:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T03:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=818"},"modified":"2011-07-12T22:05:38","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T03:05:38","slug":"spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirituality for Religious People: Old Testament Perspectives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are some thoughts on spirituality in the Old Testament, which I take to be spirituality for those of us who don’t make good mystics but would like to make good Christians.\u00a0 This is from a talk given a few months ago to our faculty.\u00a0 I’d welcome your comments.\u00a0 (Mark Hamilton)
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How do we speak of spiritual formation in the Old Testament?\u00a0 It is much like talking about the wetness of water or the automobileness of Bugatti.\u00a0 It seems redundant.\u00a0 After all, the Old Testament is full of prayers, wise sayings, stories of exemplars and antiheroes, in short, of all the raw materials of a grammar of assent to the presence of God.\u00a0 Still, if I must try to say something about all this in a few moments, the best and most obvious place to begin would be the Psalter, that magnificent collection of 150 laments, hymns, wisdom meditations, and so on scanning the spectrum of human emotions from anger to zaniness \u2013 or if not that, then at least delirious joy.\u00a0 In these ancient songs, we see shiny bits and pieces of the human encounter with God, all of them merging together in a gorgeous mosaic of faith.<\/p>\n

And what a faith!\u00a0 The basic conviction of the Psalter, and indeed of all biblical faith, is that the race before us is not too long, nor the foes besetting us too fearsome, nor our own strength too small that we cannot finish with success.\u00a0 Evil does not win, despite all appearances.\u00a0 This is so because we tread the path laid out by the one who accompanies us through the valley of gloom, the God who created the cosmos and from time to time shakes it up a bit so as to leave Mount Zion secure and its citizens confident.<\/p>\n

Perhaps a way to begin to understand the Psalms\u2019 sense of the presence of God is to notice how the various psalms themselves begin.\u00a0 It is never, of course, easy to begin a poem.\u00a0 The only things harder than the beginning are the middle and the end!\u00a0 I am often glad that I have been given a way to start prayers \u201cDear God\u201d or \u201cOur Father in Heaven\u201d so that I didn\u2019t have to think of one.<\/p>\n

The beginnings of the various psalms say something about their spirituality: \u201cblessed is the one\u201d; \u201cWhy do the heathen rage?\u201d; \u201cOh Lord, how numerous are my enemies!\u201d; \u201cwhen I call, answer me\u201d; \u201cHear my utterances O Lord\u201d; \u201cO Lord, in your anger do not rebuke me\u201d; \u201cO Lord our God, how majestic is your name in all the land\u201d; \u201cI will praise the Lord with my whole heart\u201d; \u201cWhy, O Lord, do you stand far away?\u201d\u00a0 Those are the first ten entry points.\u00a0 We could go on: \u201cO Lord, I called you; notice me\u201d; \u201cI cry with my voice to the Lord\u201d; \u201cO Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my petition\u201d; \u201cblessed be the Lord my rock\u201d; \u201cI shall exalt you, my God the King\u201d; \u201cOh my soul, praise the Lord\u201d; \u201cfor it is good to praise our God\u201d; \u201cpraise the Lord from the heavens\u201d; \u201csing to the Lord a new song\u201d; and \u201cPraise God in his sanctuary.\u201d\u00a0 Those are the last ten.\u00a0 In between the Psalter moves those praying it from the desolation of life seemingly without God to ecstasy \u2013 all without escapism or sentimentalism or the life-denying pseudo-piety that so often passes for spirituality in our own time.\u00a0 The Psalms are a nonsense-free zone.<\/p>\n

But they can look life squarely in the eye because they can see round the corner.\u00a0 The beginning of an honest piety leads us not to despair or cynicism but to hope.\u00a0 Consider just two examples.\u00a0 The 46th<\/sup> psalm boldly opens with an appeal to \u201cour God a refuge and strength in crisis, found strongly to be a help during distress\u201d \u2013 or as the KJV puts it so eloquently, \u201ca very present help in trouble.\u201d\u00a0 It then offers a way of whistling through the graveyard: \u201ctherefore we shall not fear when the earth quakes or the mountains shake in the heart of the seas.\u201d\u00a0 Why such confidence, if it is confidence?\u00a0 Or perhaps better, what spiritual values would lead one to think that perhaps we could steel ourselves in the face of adversity by appealing to God?\u00a0 The Psalmist answers the unspoken question with a warrant for such faith: \u201cthere is a river whose streams make God\u2019s city rejoice, the holy dwellings of the Most High.\u00a0 God is in its midst.\u00a0 It will not be shaken.\u201d\u00a0 The old poetic idea that a river flows through the heavenly mountain of God gets transferred to Zion \u2013 where the only rivers exist in the imagination \u2013 so that it can be surpassed as a symbol by that to which the symbol points: God\u2019s presence.\u00a0 And how does the one praying know when God is present, other than the gorgeous words sung by a believing community?\u00a0 The psalmist answers \u201cGo \u2013 masculine plural \u2013 observe the wonders of the Lord where he has done shocking things in the earth, stopping wars to the ends of the earth, snapping the bow and shattering the spear, torching carts.\u201d\u00a0 What evidence is there that God is present?\u00a0 We can answer that in one word \u2013 peace.<\/p>\n

The spirituality of the Psalms thus does not land in the calmness of the individual human soul, but in the trust of a community seeking the end of adversity, not just for itself, but for the \u201cends of the earth.\u201d\u00a0 The Psalms of the sons of Korah, of which this is one, long for a resolution of conflict, a worldwide calmness and condition of human wholeness.\u00a0 Thus we read in another one from after the Exile, Psalm 85,<\/p>\n

Oh Lord, you have rescued your land, you have reversed the reversals of Jacob.<\/p>\n

You have removed the iniquity of your people; you have covered all their sins.<\/p>\n

It then makes a most interesting move.\u00a0 It says, \u201cReturn us O God of our salvation.\u201d\u00a0 Which is it?\u00a0 Has God returned us, or must that occur sometime in the future?\u00a0 Or perhaps the juxtaposition of time here \u2013 past and future \u2013 highlights a present, and indeed abiding reality.\u00a0 In all new situations, we continue to need God\u2019s help because we are in danger.<\/p>\n

Now you might criticize the psalm\u2019s understanding of the world, and any good modern person would raise questions.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t the spirituality of dependence diminish the autonomy and integrity of the human person?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it a form of escapism masquerading as piety, or even worse, a method for evading accountable action in the real world?\u00a0 The answer, I think, is no.\u00a0 No because claims of human perfectibility lack supporting evidence from our experience or history.\u00a0 No because the peace sought in the Psalms never comes without a prior commitment to justice.\u00a0 No because the dream of God\u2019s presence does not repeal human dignity but rather consummates it.\u00a0 Thus the psalm continues a few lines later:<\/p>\n

How near is his rescue to those in awe of him, for his glory to dwell in our land.<\/p>\n

Mercy and trustworthiness meet, justice and peace kiss.<\/p>\n

Trustworthiness springs up from the ground, and justice bends down from heaven.<\/p>\n

Yes, the Lord gives what is good, and our land gives its produce.<\/p>\n

Justice goes forth before him and plants its footsteps on the trail.<\/p>\n

The dream of this psalm, and of all the psalms, is not mere personal fulfillment.\u00a0 Our spirituality does not consist of warm moments of personal satisfaction or the comfort of those who love us or a sense that all we do is right.\u00a0 After all such things do the pagans seek.<\/p>\n

Beginnings and endings and middles thus give us clues to the spirituality of the Psalms.\u00a0 The vision of the individual praying with a community of people united across the barriers of time and space by a commitment to the creator and judge of the universe surely compels us.\u00a0 But there is one more feature of the spirituality of the Psalms and the Old Testament that we must address.\u00a0 It is not a quiet, passive, sweetness-and-light approach to God.\u00a0 Sometimes quarrels break out between God and Israel.\u00a0 Sometimes prophets persuade God to change God\u2019s mind.\u00a0 The praying community as a whole speaks openly of God\u2019s absence and on occasion of God\u2019s unreliability.\u00a0 Sometimes God\u2019s presence is experienced as anger, which was the ancient way of describing God\u2019s radical commitment to the right.\u00a0 (There are things about which we should be angry!)\u00a0 Interpreters of these texts have long struggled with how to make sense of such ideas \u2013 Philo of Alexandria already worried about them \u2013 because they seem to be too dynamic and \u201chot\u201d \u2013 the wire is a bit too live.<\/p>\n

So what should we do with such a querulous and argumentative spirituality?\u00a0 The Psalms, like the entire Bible in fact, express the deepest human longings so fittingly that it makes sense to introduce them not merely as our words but in some sense, God\u2019s.\u00a0 Our longing for God and thus for each other mirrors God\u2019s creative work in the cosmos, which seems to express God\u2019s movement toward beauty, radical variety, and fruitfulness.\u00a0 Such goals cannot be reached by timid, Hummel-figurine, weak tea and vanilla cookie sorts of prayers.\u00a0 God is not so distant or threatening or, alternatively, given to cheap grace that we must resort to platitudes and clich\u00e9s in our approach.\u00a0 We need not hide or pretend or pile up approved words and phrases because the spirituality displayed in the Old Testament does not confine its horizon to the human mind or even human society.\u00a0 Rather, it opens the door to a vision of the world in which, despite our questioning or perhaps because of it, we ask with childlike eagerness, in the words of the hymn: \u201cAll things praise thee.\u00a0 Lord, may we?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are some thoughts on spirituality in the Old Testament, which I take to be spirituality for those of us who don’t make good mystics but would like to make good Christians.\u00a0 This is from a talk given a few months ago to our faculty.\u00a0 I’d welcome your comments.\u00a0 (Mark Hamilton) How do we speak […]<\/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-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSpirituality for Religious People: Old Testament Perspectives - ACU Graduate School of Theology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spirituality for Religious People: Old Testament Perspectives - ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here are some thoughts on spirituality in the Old Testament, which I take to be spirituality for those of us who don’t make good mystics but would like to make good Christians.\u00a0 This is from a talk given a few months ago to our faculty.\u00a0 I’d welcome your comments.\u00a0 (Mark Hamilton) How do we speak […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-07-13T03:05:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Hamilton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Hamilton\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mark Hamilton\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/#\/schema\/person\/d2dc7d7077423050634fd2d6052bdb6b\"},\"headline\":\"Spirituality for Religious People: Old Testament Perspectives\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-07-13T03:05:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/\"},\"wordCount\":1661,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/spirituality-for-religious-people-old-testament-perspectives\/\",\"name\":\"Spirituality for Religious People: Old Testament Perspectives - 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