{"id":821,"date":"2011-08-01T10:10:31","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T15:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=821"},"modified":"2011-08-01T16:59:12","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T21:59:12","slug":"reputations-and-memories-the-psalms-in-our-worship-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/reputations-and-memories-the-psalms-in-our-worship-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Reputations and Memories: The Psalms in Our Worship 35"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a bit of a break, this post marks a return to the Psalms.\u00a0 Welcome back!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reputation.\u00a0 The legend is that at his trial for cheating in baseball, Shoeless Joe Jackson was accosted by a young fan who said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!\u00a0 Say it ain’t so.”\u00a0 Legend or not, the saying has stuck because\u00a0 we all want to believe the best about our heroes, and we never want them to disappoint us.\u00a0 Their failures are our failures at some level, if for no other reason than that we believed in them.<\/p>\n

Psalm 44 is a “say it ain’t so” kind of psalm.\u00a0 It opens with an address to God speaking of how the ancestors had spoken of the deity’s mighty saving deeds in the past (notably the exodus and the settlement in the land.\u00a0 The opening address also claims that Israel has been faithful, a fact that should motivate God to be faithful to them.<\/p>\n

Then comes the big shift.\u00a0 In verse 9 (Hebrew v. 10), the accusations begin.\u00a0 God, says, the psalmist has abandoned Israel to its enemies, making them like “a flock for devouring” and “people sold for no price.” Israel’s fate has become the stuff of foreign proverbs (v. 14 [Hebrew 15]).\u00a0 The psalmist summarizes the horror and confusing nature of the people’s fate by saying, “All this has befallen us, yet we have not abandoned you, nor have we betrayed your covenant” (v. 17 [18 Hebrew]).\u00a0 Such a fate would be understandable if the people had abandoned God, yet they have not.\u00a0 Say it ain’t so!<\/p>\n

What do we make of such a psalm?\u00a0 It is not unique in its frank criticism of the Almighty (see, for example, Ps 89).\u00a0 The refusal to admit guilt or to pretend away the horrors of the present are at once intimidating and refreshing.\u00a0 Intimidating because the sort of gall — if it is — required to say such a thing seems unusual, and refreshing for the same reason.\u00a0 Few of us ever rise to such a level of honesty in our expressions of outrage, pain, and confusion.<\/p>\n

Now, for those who believe that we must always spin our feelings when bringing them to God, such a psalm seems to present a serious problem.\u00a0 For some readers, it seems arrogant or downright disrespectful.\u00a0 Yet here it is in the Bible, a book not known for valuing such qualities.\u00a0 So perhaps we should reconsider what we think proper speech to God is.\u00a0 The claim of the psalm is that Israel has not deserved its fate, and that the suffering it experiences constitutes a violation of the covenant with Yahweh.\u00a0 God, says the Psalmist, has not kept His side of the bargain.\u00a0 A serious charge, if true.<\/p>\n

Still, it is important to note how the psalm ends.\u00a0 It does not end with a repudiation of the covenant or a denial of God.\u00a0 Rather, it invites God to “arise and save us, and rescue us for the sake of your steadfast love.”\u00a0\u00a0 Be who your reputation says you are, in other words.\u00a0 Save because you are the savior.\u00a0 The psalmist’s lack of confidence in God gives way to a higher confidence borne of waiting and wrestling.\u00a0 Yet the new confidence comes from a relationship with God that includes the sort of absolute candor that the psalm displays.<\/p>\n

The story is that Shoeless Joe answered the boy, “Yeah, kid, I’m afraid it is.”\u00a0 And so a hero drifted away.\u00a0 The psalmist gives his or her hero one more chance.\u00a0 Sometimes we need to as well, for God’s sake and our own.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a bit of a break, this post marks a return to the Psalms.\u00a0 Welcome back! Reputation.\u00a0 The legend is that at his trial for cheating in baseball, Shoeless Joe Jackson was accosted by a young fan who said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!\u00a0 Say it ain’t so.”\u00a0 Legend or not, the saying has stuck […]<\/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-821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nReputations and Memories: The Psalms in Our Worship 35 - 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\/reputations-and-memories-the-psalms-in-our-worship-35\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reputations and Memories: The Psalms in Our Worship 35 - ACU Graduate School of Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After a bit of a break, this post marks a return to the Psalms.\u00a0 Welcome back! 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