Psalms for 2019

I'm beginning a series on the Psalms, all of them, in 2019. Every other day or so starting today post another reflection on one or more of the Psalms. Several introductory posts get us oriented to the approach to these poems I will take. Spend a year with me in the Psalter, won't you?

The Psalms (1)

Their Focus

The 150 poems, or prayers, in the book of Psalms probe the height and depth, the length and breadth, of the relationship between Israel’s God and Israel. The heart, hopes, hurts, drives, dysfunctions, joys, and practices that form that relationship are opened up for inspection, appropriation, and performance. The Psalms:

-show us what constitutes this relationship,

-guide us into this relationship, and

-nurture us into deeper relation to God.

The People

God created the people of Israel when he called Abraham and Sarah out from Ur to follow him to a place where he would lead them and promised them a great and large family. God would bless and protect this  family and ultimately use them to bless the whole world that had turned away from God in arrogant ingratitude and a grab for control over their life (Gen.12:1-3). The hope of the world, then, rests on the relationship between Israel and its God. The Psalms probing of this relationship, then, goes right to the core of what it means to be human and the work God is about in the world.

The Book

“An anatomy of all parts of the soul.”

The Psalms can and should be approached in many different ways. The perspective for this study is the Psalms as what John Calvin called it: “an anatomy of all parts of the soul.” He claims “there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated” (Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Introduction, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom08.ii.html).

Responses and Theology Undergirding The Psalms

According to Walter Brueggemann, the Psalms limn out a life lived between gratitude/praise and lament/complaint (From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: Introducing the Psalms, Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition: 3).

God’s steadfast love and faithfulness occasion the gratitude and praise of the people while the distresses and difficulties of life call forth lament and complaint. The former is often exuberant and effusive; the latter often vigorous and passionate. The same divine faithfulness that elicits praise is the cause of lament and complaint when absent or perceived to be absent.

In gratitude and praise one gives oneself gladly to God. In complaint and lament one asserts oneself amid distress and difficulty and claims or even demands God live up to his word. In the former the pronoun “you” (God) predominate, while in the latter it is first-person, I or we, pressing our case for divine help and response (Brueggemann, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: 3). Brueggemann comments,

“Thus the poetry that cedes self to God and that claims self over against God bespeaks the intensely dialogical quality of Israel’s faith. The hymns by themselves may lead to an excessive abandonment of self in exuberance. The forcefulness of laments by itself may lead to an unhealthy preoccupation with self. It is, however, the give and take of praise and lament, of ceding and claiming, that is variously submissive and demanding that keeps the faith of Israel open and dynamic. Such a faith is quite in contrast both to religion that is rigorously moralistic, on the one hand, or that is narcissistically engaged only with one’s own “spirituality,” on the other” (From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: 4).

Two theological truths undergird these prayers of the people: torah and Jerusalem/David/Temple. Ps.1 reflects the first, Ps.2 the second and together form an introduction to the whole Psalter.

Torah, the “Law,” is far more than mere legal norms. It means something like teaching or instruction, a vision of a way of life that marks the people as belonging to God. Shalom, God’s good design for human and creational well-being, attends faithful living out of this way (1:1-3). Death and destruction result from disobedience to torah (1:4-6).

In Ps.2 we find the cluster of Jerusalem/David/temple. “The city of Jerusalem and the temple (are) the epicenter of cosmic reality (Brueggemann, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: 6). David and his line are the monarchs God promised to sot on Israel’s throne forever. The temple is the chief institution in Israel since it is the place where God dwells and where he promises to meet and have fellowship with his people. Jerusalem as the site of the temple and David as the promised ruler of that holy city naturally cluster together in the biblical story.

Torah and temple then are the theological foci around which the Psalms revolve and on which they constantly reflect. They are obviously connected as in Ps.15 where the question of who can enter the temple (v.1) is answered in terms of torah-keeping (vv.2-5).

The Shape of the Torah

The Psalms are bookended with the torah-centered Ps. 1 and ends with the glorious and passionate giving of the people’s hearts and bodies to God in Pss.146–150. Within these bookends the psalmists execute their diagnostic and therapeutic work on the people (Brueggeman, From Whom No Secrets Are Hid: 7).

Five books make up the Psalms (1-41; 42-72; 73-89; 90-106; 107-150). The number “five” reminds of the centrality of torah, the five books pf Moses. Though the five books of the psalter may reflect the course of Israel’s history, we’re not going to chase that rabbit here. Instead we’ll borrow from other works in which Brueggemann develops another paradigm for engaging the Psalms (see his “Psalms and the Life of Faith: A Suggested Typology of Function,” The Psalms and the Life of Faith: 154-442; Spirituality of the Psalms, and The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary).

Orientation/Disorientation/Reorientation

Brueggemann breaks the Psalter down into three “seasons” of life we all go through in our faith journeys.

-Psalms of Orientation. These are the psalms we are most comfortable with. They express gratitude for God’s good ordering of life. This is the way life is supposed to be: well-being for the whole full creation. These are psalms where the Torah is celebrated and the God of creation is praised. Examples include

Psalm1,8,14,33,37, 104,111,112,119,131,133,145

-Psalms of Disorientation These psalms are the reaction of the faithful to God when the world they knew goes to hell. They are laments, both personal and corporate, that move and deepen the faith of the worshiper. These psalms can be quite vigorous and expressive of a rage and a vengeful hope that repulses us (see Ps.137). But whether we can credit such things or not, we all know there are moments in life when they arise, often unbidden, in us and to express them in their raw rage is an important way to deal with them. Psalms like 137, called “Imprecatory Psalms,” give us permission to deal with them in this way. They reflect the pain of a people engaging with their God in world-shattering circumstances. Examples include

Psalm 13,22,32,35,50,51,7,3,74,79,81,86,88,130,137,143

-Psalms of New Orientation: The ends of life we face are not the end, the pit is but prelude for more. These Psalms not the end of life; there is more. New orientation Psalms reflect the surprise of new possibilities unexpectedly presenting themselves as gracious gifts of a good God. Filled with thanksgiving and praise for such serendipitous restoration. These psalms map onto the characteristic pattern of deliverance and redemption. Often the psalms don’t tell us exactly what happened to effect the evident change from death pursuing the psalmist to new life in God’s grace and presence. It is enough to know it happened and mark its impact on the people’s life. Psalms of this type include                                                               Psalm 23,27,30,34,40,65,66,91,100,103,113,117,124,135,138,150. Psalm 100

Dealing with these seasons through which life passes is complicated by our tendency to hold on like grim death to what has passed or been lost (the movement from orientation to new orientation) and our willingness to settle and have expectation for or openness to surprise leading to newness (the movement from disorientation to new orientation). We will observe these movements at many points in our study.

Not-Enough World	More-Than-Enough World
anxiety – I am not in control enough	divine faithfulness – God is in sovereign control
greed – I do not have enough	generosity – I have more than enough
self-sufficiency – I am not enough	ultimate dependence – God is more than enough
denial – my life does not fulfill my expectations enough	abrasive truth-telling – truth is more than enough to face the contradictions of our lives
despair – my world is not satisfying enough	hope -  life will finally be more than enough
amnesia – my world has not meaning enough to live by	lively remembering – my world has hints and examples of meaning more than enough to discern and live by
normlessness – nothing is enough/everything is permitted	a normed world – God’s way is more than enough to generate freedom and joy