Psalms (4) : Psalm 1

“The book of Psalms is an ancient mapping of Israel’s life with YHWH, a mapping that has continued through the centuries to be the primary guide for faith and worship in both the synagogue and the church”                                                                                                                                                                        (Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament, 311).

Structure

-Torah psalm/wisdom/orientation

-2 stanzas:

vv.1-3: A Torah-centered life

vv.4-6: A Torah-resistant life

Exposition

The Three Posture Images (v.1)

Psalm 1, along with Psalm 2, begins and grounds the whole Psalter. Its focus is on the Torah, the guidance, teaching, or instruction of the Lord as articulated in the first five books of Moses. As a wisdom psalm is casts a vision of human flourishing captured by the word usually translated as “Happy” (NRSV) or “Blessed” (NIV). God tells readers right off the bat that a flourishing life, a life lived as God intends. Far more than rule- or law-keeping, this is a life shaped or formed in its height and depth, length and breadth by a gracious relationship with God who has established his covenant with Israel. The covenant is God’s call to humanity to live in peace with him. That’s what’s at stake here.

“This is all a powerful, imaginative call to be a certain way in the world not just because God demands it, 37 nor out of Kantian altruism (it’s the right thing to do and that’s enough), nor out of a mechanistic tit-for-tat view of God (if you read your Bible and don’t hang around with bad people, then God will bless you). But rather, this is based on the appeal to human flourishing for one’s own sake. 38 Would you rather be a fruit-bearing tree or rejected chaff? Would you rather flourish (be happy, that is, ʾašrê) or face judgment?” (Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition: 52).

Torah-centered life can be described both positively and negatively. Vv.1-3 take the negative tack pointing out what Torah-centered folk do not habitually do. This is a life-style description using three posture images: “walk,” “stand,” and “sit.” These posture images suggest the whole of life is under review. Some progression may be intended: becoming familiar with (“walk”), take one’s direction from (“stand”), and accept as one’s basic orientation (“sit”). Or to put it another way, the psalmist envisions a way of life in which our passions (the drives that animate us), and priorities (our deepest convictions), and practices (the way we live out our convictions) are align with the Torah. Eugene Peterson in his The Message renders these three negatives in vigorous imagery:

“you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon,
    you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,
    you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.”

Delight in Torah (vv.2-3)

So what keeps a flourishing life from tanking? The psalmist matches his negative description in v.1 with a positive affirmation in v.2 and an apt illustration for it in v.3. Delight in the Torah is what captivates and drives Torah-centered people. Indeed, they “meditate” (from a root meaning “growl” or “mutter) fulltime on Torah. It saturates them such that it becomes the “operating system” by which they operate.

The illustration draws on the phenomenon of irrigation, well known in the dry Near East of that time. Planted by abundant water sources trees can grow to their full potential and offer whatever fruit they have to bear along with the shade of their leaves. So those centered on Torah are nourished by it to become all that God intends them to be. Occupied with Torah, “Sin Saloon,” “Dead-End Road,” and “Smart Mouth College” are just places of ministry and not sources of identity and vocation for God’s people.

Torah-Resistant Life (vv.4-6)

“The wicked are not so” (v.4). Those who live outside the reality of Torah (the “wicked”) lack the stability and substance of Torah-centered folk. They live out of the Not-Enough view of the world. A graceless way of life that makes them subject to the dynamics and dislocations of a scarcity-based way of living

And however profoundly they might live such a life, and many do so with great integrity, the psalmist announces their end, They “are like chaff that the wind drives away” (v.4). They will not pass the bar of judgment. And they will held accountable for their own lives as well as ways in which they have assaulted and damaged the people of God (v.5).

God’s watch care over his people and his world is the guarantee we have for these claims: “for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” This is a faith affirmation, of course. It can’t be read off the surface of history, And in the course of its unfolding culminating in Jesus this becomes a counter-intuitive, upside-down reality that is embodied in Christ’s martyrdom.

Reflections

This first psalm rings the bell of the first commandment: “You shall have no other god besides me.” Torah is first commandment theology and spirituality. It comes down to a choice between the one and only good and gracious God who created a more-than-enough world for his people or billions of creatures choosing autonomy and wannabe-deity status and striving against each other to enforce their own will and way on the world (or at least that part of it they’re interested in dominating). They live in a not-enough world locked in endless competition with others for what they believe are scarce goods. These two ways are a staple of Jewish theology and of Jesus teaching as well.

That we need roots is another insight of this psalm. In an age that takes freedom to be shedding all relationships, traditions, and ties that might keep us rooted somewhere or to someone, this is counter-cultural wisdom. Without them we are chaff, unable to grow into what God means us to be. This is another of saying that Torah is covenantal. A flourishing life is one within a community of faith. In a culture dying from loneliness God’s offer of a covenant community for human growth and well-being is counter-intuitive as well.

Following a way (God’s, our own, or someone else’s) is a process.

Walking – actively exposing oneself with some degree of openness to other ways of living and thinking and passively simply living in a world that is educating us to and conforming us to its various ethoi and ethics. Either way we cannot avoid interacting with forms of life that challenge and seek to win us to their way of living.

Standing – to make a settled stance on one way or another with some commitment to learning more about and try out its practices.

Sitting – making a firm commitment to a way of living and thinking that marks us as a certain kind of people.   

This is true for biblical faith as well as any other. 

The Apostle Paul uses this same set of posture images to structure his letter to the Ephesians. In this letter  he presents an overview of his gospel in a way that moves the reader from “Sitting” (chs.1-3) to “Walking” (4:1-6:9) to “Standing against the spiritual powers of evil (6:10-20). This movement

-from “Sitting,” the Ephesians’ receptivity of the mystery (ch.1) and memory (ch.2) of God’s gracious victory over the powers and Paul’s mentorship among them,

-from “Sitting” to “Walking” deals with the membership in the community and our growth into maturity in that community (4:1-6:9), and

-from “Walking” to “Standing” against the powers of evil (6:10-20), which is the point of the letter,  

marks the journey set and enabled for us by Christ.   

Psalm 1’s use of this imagery is a slightly different from Paul’s but similar enough for us to see the fruitfulness of it for our reflection and prayer.

Psalm 2, the counterpart to Psalm 1, is up next with it focus away from the dynamics of faith to the work of the great institutions of Throne and Temple. In a sense, Psalm 2 is an exposition of way 1:6 which declares the God is in control of things and cares for his people and brings the wicked to a bad end.