Author: Marjorie George

David Taylor, a professor at Fuller Seminary, recalls a class he took in his own seminary years that was led by Eugene Peterson. After a semester of Peterson’s brilliant teaching, Taylor wanted one take-away for daily living. So he approached Peterson, and the professor gave him this response:  “Tomorrow read Psalm 1. The next day read Psalm 2, then the next day Psalm 3.  When you get to the end, start over.”

And that, says Taylor in a recent interview with Nathan Foster of Renovare, was the start of his lifelong relationship with the psalms. (https://renovare.org/podcast/david-taylor-psalms)

Over the past several weeks in our study of the psalms, we have looked at them in their original contexts. We have categorized them according to their several themes and have attempted to see God at work in our own lives and times through the eyes of the psalmist. 

But the psalms also call us to immerse ourselves in their wisdom from a more contemplative stance. 

In his own discovery of the psalms, Taylor says, “I allowed myself to read the psalms in a sort of non-anxious way, without feeling that acute need to make sense of them.”

There is indeed a case to be made for engaging the psalms in a meditative posture.  Taylor finds in the psalms a call to “the way,” beginning with Psalm 1 (and see Psalm 119). “The ‘way’ is wisdom language,” says Taylor, “and wisdom language is walking language. You go at your own pace and notice things.  It is a sense of a prayerful way of being in the world.”

C. S. Lewis insists that the psalms must be read as poetry, “with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, that are proper to lyric poetry. They must be read as poems if they are to be understood; no less than French must be read as French or English as English. Otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not.”

In his book Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis muses that poetry is “a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible” (pg 5).

Joan Chittister adds the genre of music to her reading of the psalms. “Both music and poetry allow us to bring our own meaning to the work and so enlarge the meaning and the consciousness of others,” she writes in Songs of the Heart. The psalms, says Chittister, “are about life, about what it means to be human, what it is to struggle and laugh, to be confused and depressed, to grapple with self-acceptance and strive for enlightenment.  They are about all of us” (pg 1).

No wonder that the psalms are often called “the hymnbook of ancient Israel” or that their primary purpose was as the foundation for  Israel’s worship of their God. One of the quintessential images of the psalmist is David singing them as he played the lyre. 

For Taylor the psalms as music incorporates an entire orchestra.  “All 150 psalms are like 150 musicians all playing this one piece together.” That is part of the deep magic of the psalms, he maintains – they talk to each other. They exist in community.  “The psalms are a world you inhabit with others,” says Taylor. “They provide coherence when nothing holds together.”  That is why psalms of lament exist alongside psalms of praise and joy. “I find myself attended to by all these sounds and all these spaces that make space for all the parts of my life that I don’t often know how to hold together,” says Taylor.

So this is an invitation to meander. To start at psalm 1 and read a psalm a day through to psalm 150, then do it again. Or to let the book fall open where it will, to snuggle down with it in your favorite chair and your morning coffee, to take it to the patio with a glass of wine in the late afternoon.

If you really need a prompt, start at Psalm 23, the most beloved psalm of all. And let it roll over you.  Bring Kleenex.

Psalm 23
A Psalm of David

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters; 
3     he restores my soul. 
He leads me in right paths
    for his name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, 
    I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff—
    they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
    my whole life long. 

For an introduction to the psalms with previous posts and a bibliography, click here.

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Marjorie George serves the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas as a consultant in Adult Christian Formation. Reach her at marjorie.george@dwtx.org. Or leave a comment below.

It is the image of the steps in Canterbury Cathedral that still resonates with me – a tutorial in faithfulness from my pilgrimage to England several years ago.  Canterbury Cathedral of course is incomparable.  The soaring architecture.  The incredible carvings at the hands of master craftsmen. The small altar marking the spot on the floor where Thomas Becket was murdered. 

But it was the steps – the ordinary cement steps leading from the main-floor nave down to the undercroft – that forced me to my knees. Perceptibly worn down and indented at the center, the steps gave evidence of the thousands of feet that had trod that way: Those who relentlessly guarded the faith. Those for whom God’s law was above man’s law. Kings and saints and poets and ordinary people carrying the faith.

In his book that captures that same sense of faithful journey – A Long Obedience in the Same Direction – Eugene Peterson examines 15 particular psalms the Hebrews sang as they made their way to Jerusalem for the great worship festivals. They are known as the Psalms of Ascent, psalms 120 through 134.

Jerusalem was topographically the highest city in Palestine, so the journey was literally uphill. But the history of the Hebrew people also had been a pilgrimage, frequently uphill metaphorically.  Beginning with the call of Abraham out of the land of Ur to travel to a place unknown, the Israelites knew the pilgrimage way.  “The Hebrews,” writes Peterson, “were a people whose salvation had been accomplished in the exodus, whose identity had been defined at Sinai, and whose preservation had been assured in the 40 years of wilderness wandering.” 

All this was acknowledged in their songs as they journeyed to the Temple in Jerusalem, the symbolic throne of God.

Peterson says, “They refreshed their memories of God’s saving ways at the Feast of the Passover in the spring; they renewed their commitments as God’s covenanted people at the Feast of Pentecost in early summer; they responded as a blessed community to the best that God had for them at the Feast of Tabernacles in the autumn.” 

It could be said that a pilgrim is one  who acknowledges and accepts that the spiritual life is a journey. One never arrives but is always moving forward, always deepening the relationship with God, and sometimes running into hostile territory. The psalms remind us that even when the path is thorny, our God walks with us and protects us.

One way to read Psalms 120 through 134 is as a guidebook for the journey. The psalms call the faithful to worship, extol the virtues of community, and warn against the barrenness of worldy ways. They remind believers that the call to follow God is a call to servanthood – both servanthood to God and to one’s neighbors.  They lean on the covenant God made with his people and assure God’s forgiveness. They offer comfort as one is comforted by a caring parent. They are laments and history and praise. 

Most of the 15 psalms are short and pithy, reminiscent of the wisdom of Proverbs. They invite us to add our own voices, to sing the melody of our journey. They are not monuments, said William Faulkner, but footprints. And footprints, says Peterson, show us where we were when we began to move again. They tell the journey my heart acknowledged in the worn steps of Canterbury Cathedral.

This week

Read the 15 Psalms of Ascent, slowly and prayerfully, appropriating what seems right for your journey.

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

For an introduction to the psalms with previous posts and a bibliography, click here.

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Marjorie George serves the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas as a consultant in Adult Christian Formation. Reach her at marjorie.george@dwtx.org. Or leave a comment below.

There is a word that is not often heard outside of seminary classrooms and expensive theological conferences. Pity, because it’s a great word.  The word is hesed, (hes-ed) and like many other grounding words it is so rich, so full, so deep in meaning that is takes half a dozen other English words to define it. When applied to the attributes of God, which is how we most frequently encounter the word, it means God’s love.  But that love enfolds God’s kindness, faithfulness, mercy, loyalty, and steadfastness.

Because there is no exact English equivalent to the Hebrew heed, it has proved hard for Bible translators to render it accurately, says Dr. Iain Duguid in the online essay Loyal-Love.  “Normally, hesed describes something that happens within an existing relationship, whether between two human beings or between God and man. In human relationships, hesed implies loving our neighbor, not merely in terms of warm emotional feelings but in acts of love and service that we owe to the other person simply because he is part of the covenant community. God’s people are to do justly, to love hesed, and to walk humbly with their God (Micah 6:8).

“Yet the most precious use of the word hesed in the Old Testament,” says Duguid, “is as a description of what God does. Having entered a covenant relationship with His people, God bound Himself to act toward them in certain ways, and He is utterly faithful to His self-commitment.”  https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/loyal-love-hesed/

God’s hesed is God living out God’s covenant with his people.  “You will be my people, and I will be your God,” he declares repeatedly through the prophets. God can do no other than to continually call his people into relationship with him. 

And it is to God’s hesed that King David appeals when he finally acknowledges and claims his sin. 

The story is told in 2 Samuel 11-12, and if you have not read it lately, do so now. It is a story of lust leading to a web of dishonesty, connivance, and murder on David’s part.  Having seduced the beautiful Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, one of David’s soldiers who is off fighting on the king’s behalf, David is confronted with Bathsheba’s pregnancy.  To cover his sin, David brings Uriah back from the war, hoping Uriah will sleep with his wife and own the pregnancy for himself.  But Uriah is a loyal soldier, and while his men are still on the battlefield, he eschews the pleasures of his wife and sleeps on the couch. 

David’s plan having been foiled, the king sends Uriah back to the battlefield and tells his general to put Uriah on the front lines, where Uriah will surely be killed. And he is.

Sin upon sin. David has succumbed to his human weaknesses, and most of us will cut him no slack.  Nathan certainly does not when he approaches David as God’s prophet and sets his sin before him. But such is the nature of God that when David concedes his wicked actions and repents, he can stand on the hesed of God. It is how David can say to God, in Psalm 51, “Against you only have I sinned” (vs 4).

The facts of David’s sins are indisputable and irrelevant. God has committed himself to relationship with us and will move heaven and earth, literally, to make it happen. Because we are made in the image of God, we long for that relationship as deeply as does our creator. Everything else is details.

There are seven penitential psalms. We read them as confessional, and that is good.  But if we read them claiming God’s hesed, that is better. 

We can join with King David and implore God:
Have mercy, O God, according to your
Loving-kindness (Psalm 51:1)
and know that mercy and loving-kindness are forthcoming.  

The Church, in her wisdom and mercy, provides us with an entire season of penitence in Lent. But we need not wait until next February to avail ourselves of the hesed of God.  Especially in this season of coronavirus, when we have been forced to slow down and sit in solitude, feelings we are usually too busy to acknowledge may surface, and we may feel the weight of past mistakes. If that is the case with you, I invite you to pray the Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence found on page 267 of The Book of Common Prayer, to remember that God has made covenant, and God will be faithful through all eternity no matter how we feel or what we do. God, being God, can do no other. 

This week, read the penitential psalms as the psalmists wrote them, being mindful of God’s hesed.

Psalm

6

32

38

51

102

130

143

Special note: If you are sorely distressed, remember that the Church offers The Reconciliation of a Penitent (page 447 in The Book of Common Prayer). Any priest of the Church can pronounce God’s forgiveness.  A good friend also can listen and assure you of God’s love and mercy, and you can do the same for others. 

For an introduction to the psalms with previous posts and a bibliography, click here. 

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Marjorie George serves the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas as a consultant in Adult Christian Formation. Reach her at marjorie.george@dwtx.org. Or leave a comment below.

If you listen closely on a winter day, you may catch the sound of the gas heater coming on.  First the click, then the hissing of the gas, then that long moment of suspense when you wonder if the pilot light really will respond. Then whoosh as the flame connects to the heater’s waiting portals. 

In the spiritual world that moment of uncertainty is known as liminal time – a time when something has ended but whatever is coming next has not commenced. Metaphorically, it is often portrayed as a flying acrobat having let go of her swinging trapeze, suspended in nothingness, before she grasps the hands of her waiting partner. 

It is a time, says theologian Richard Rohr, “”When you have left, or are about to leave, the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else . . . when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer” (from Everything Belongs). 

We are all in liminal time just now. The old markers are gone, and new ones have not yet arrived. It’s the morning after graduation, the day after the retirement party, the house after the funeral when everyone has left and you are alone.  It is the moment after the hospital called my mother to say my father had died, and Mom’s response was, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.”  

We are the Israelites at the end of their desert journey before they enter the Promised Land. God’s faithful servant leader, Moses, has died and Joshua is in place to take the people forward. The message God has for his chosen people at that moment is this: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” In fact, the phrase “be strong and courageous” is repeated four times to the people assembled in the first chapter of Joshua.

Richard Rohr sums up our anxiety: “If you are not trained in how to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust and wait, you will do anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing.” 

We do not easily embrace or happily hold this foggy cloud. We have questions: Will we have a job next week, or has a 30-year career just ended? Will we ever again be comfortable eating in a restaurant or going to a movie or watching the Spurs play in person? Is school going to start in the fall, and what might that look like? Back in march we thought this virus would sideline us for a few weeks and then we would return to normal. Now we know that we can’t even define normal any more. 

We are adrift, and we seek the assurance of answers. The psalmist instead calls us to wait and hope and trust with Joshua-like courage and strength.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope (130:5).

Wait for the Lord;
    be strong, and let your heart take courage;
    wait for the Lord! (27:14).

And the writer of proverbs adds:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding (3:5-6).

Instead of focusing on despair and disillusionment, the psalmist recalls God’s past faithfulness and looks toward the future with hope.  While fully one-third of the psalms can be classified as laments, they most often end with a call to remember that God has promised to not desert his people forever.

Even the mournful Psalm 22, that Jesus called on from the cross, ends with the wide view. 

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” it begins. Then after a long lament, the psalmist reminds us it’s always too soon to give up on God.

All the ends of the earth shall remember
    and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    shall worship before you.
For kingship belongs to the Lord,
    and he rules over the nations.

All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
    before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
    even the one who could not keep himself alive.
Posterity shall serve him;
    it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
    that he has done it (27-31).

This week, immerse yourself in the psalms of trust. Be strong and courageous, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

Psalms of trust

11

16

23

62

63

91

121

131

For an introduction to the psalms with previous posts and a bibliography, click here. 

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Marjorie George serves the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas as a consultant in Adult Christian Formation. Reach her at marjorie.george@dwtx.org. Or leave a comment below.