{"id":867,"date":"2011-10-03T10:12:19","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T15:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/?p=867"},"modified":"2011-10-03T10:12:19","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T15:12:19","slug":"things-worth-clapping-for-the-psalms-in-our-worship-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/acugst\/things-worth-clapping-for-the-psalms-in-our-worship-38\/","title":{"rendered":"Things Worth Clapping For: The Psalms in Our Worship 38"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Applause is such a strange social phenomenon.\u00a0 We clap for bone-crunching tackles, masterful gymnastics routines, six year-olds at their piano recitals and famous virtuosos at theirs, baptisms and bar mitzvahs, speeches (including sermons nowadays), and a range of other activities.\u00a0 We signify our approval of sterling performance, a fact that assumes (1) that we have in our heads a set of standards about what constitutes excellence in a given field and (2) that the type of endeavor is secondary (so we applaud the open-field crushing of a receiver and a baptism of a young person, often on the same day &#8212; whoever said we humans were logical beings plainly didn&#8217;t know us!).\u00a0 Yet surely what we applaud determines what sorts of people we are.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Psalm 47 invites Gentiles to join Israel in its applause of the Almighty, signaling the universal scope of the rule of providence.\u00a0 Why should they applaud?\u00a0 Because Yhwh has redeemed Israel, thus keeping age-old promises and insuring that peace and holiness have a chance in the world.\u00a0 The psalm runs to the old image of God as king (and thus as guarantor of justice and human wholeness) by singing &#8220;Yhwh Most High is awesome, a great king over all the land&#8221; (v. 2; Hebrew 3) and &#8220;for Elohim is king over all the earth&#8230;. Elohim reigns o&#8217;er the nations; Elohim sits on his holy throne&#8221; (vv. 7-8; Hebrew 8-9).\u00a0 The enthroned ruler is the one who brings about life-giving order.\u00a0 A few observations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The setting of the song is unclear.\u00a0 Is it a celebration of a particular national victory, or a song sung in the midst of a festival (Tabernacles?) about a long-standing or recurring history of redemption?\u00a0 The answer might matter for how we interpret the psalm, but there is no way of knowing for sure.\u00a0 As it stands, the poem has gotten separated from its original setting and thus functions as a celebration of the world&#8217;s very structure as a place under the sovereign care of God.<\/li>\n<li>The phrase in v. 9, &#8220;Elohim who sits on his holy throne,&#8221; evokes a very old theme, seen also in Egyptian theology, of a God who is in charge of the cosmos and keeps all threats to peace and justice at bay.\u00a0 However difficult such a metaphor might be for us in our democratic age, the idea of God as the perfect ruler operates throughout the Bible and is a basic assumption of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the religions that sprung from Israel.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Why is God&#8217;s kingship, brought to bear in history, worth celebrating?\u00a0 If you assume that the infinite being cares perfectly for human beings and is incapable of corruption, ignorance, self-interest, inattentiveness, or any of the other frailties that mar human rule, then God&#8217;s rule sounds like very good news.\u00a0 Surely for its beneficiaries this would be so.\u00a0 Obedience to the dictates of such a ruler would be easy since they so obviously reflect a profound commitment to human well-being.\u00a0 Obedience would not be experienced as obedience at all, but simply as the movement of the soul in response to virtue (Aristotle&#8217;s ideal).<\/p>\n<p>Does the psalm assume that the nations somehow benefit from God&#8217;s salvation of Israel?\u00a0 Certainly the text does not spell out how this would be so, but it is not necessary to assume that the poet was a naive xenophobe who imagined that others would enjoy his happiness, whatever their own condition.\u00a0 If the non-violent, harmonious world imagined in the Psalms and prophets were to emerge, then surely everyone would benefit.\u00a0 After all, the ravages of war fall on everyone in their path, not just one group.\u00a0 So it does not seem too far-fetched to imagine that in the back of the psalmist&#8217;s mind &#8212; and in the minds of the congregations singing the psalm either in ancient Israel or subsequently &#8212; the prospect of divine settlement of wrongs would be an inviting idea.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the psalm is not engaging in political theorizing.\u00a0 It is trying to get people to sing and enjoy the prospects of a new world.\u00a0 In many ways, that option seems even more humanly inviting.\u00a0 If we celebrated the possibilities of peace and justice, and celebrated the reality of such when we saw it, how would our lives and our world be different?\u00a0 This week, I think I&#8217;ll try it.\u00a0 Stay tuned for results!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Applause is such a strange social phenomenon.\u00a0 We clap for bone-crunching tackles, masterful gymnastics routines, six year-olds at their piano recitals and famous virtuosos at theirs, baptisms and bar mitzvahs, speeches (including sermons nowadays), and a range of other activities.\u00a0 We signify our approval of sterling performance, a fact that assumes (1) that we have [&hellip;]<\/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-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - 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