Eric W. Sayers

The text: Psalm 58 – NRSV

Today we lift up another psalm that you will not likely find lifted up often, and almost never  during a polite worship service. Like Psalm 109, this psalm is imprecatory, a lament so passionately felt that the language to our ears may burn with anger and violence. From the beginning it wails against the work of little, worldly “gods” that bring violence and empower the wicked. The psalmist cries out to God, not so that the psalmist can enact vengeance, but so that God will act to bring justice to the earth. As I read this psalm now in this early part of Holy Week, and contemplate the events only a few days away, the words seem not shocking but highly appropriate and to the point. Can we understand the injustice and corruption that the psalmist lifts up? Absolutely. We will see it in abundance this Friday. Do we live in a similarly corrupt world? Absolutely. Watch the news, if you dare. What makes this psalm not merely angry words but something profound is that it is a statement of faith. It assumes—no, proclaims— that God’s justice is real, that God’s intended reality is this just reality, and is bold enough to insist this is true even in the darkest of hours. This psalm may not be found in a polite church service, but it is the one you want with you on Good Friday. This psalmist knows that whatever happens, in the end people will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth.” And on that darkest of days, a centurion, of all people, will say, surely this man was the Son of God!

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The text: Psalm 24 – NRSV

This is one of those little psalms that has much to say. It may be tempting to focus on its perhaps more famous second half that has been set to music many times. But to me this psalm speaks most strongly through the interplay between its two halves. On the one hand, the psalm asks who among us can ascend God’s holy hill and stand in that holy place. On the other, we see God arriving at this place through ancient gates. Is this then a convergence, a place where the human and divine meet? But this place is not the Holy of Holies, where only the high priest could stand, and then but once per year. No, we are talking about a company of people, those who have clean hands and pure hearts. This is not about law following. It is about internal transformation. What does that remind you of? Is this place none other than the Kingdom of God? It’s a fascinating question given how the psalm begins: The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. That Genesis claim sets the context for the entire conversation, pointing to a reality that God sees and desires. It may remind you of Psalm 47, another enthronement psalm that reflects the idea in Revelation of the world becoming the Kingdom. Perhaps there’s another way in. Remembering that such Hebrew literature can (and often should) be read at multiple levels, what if the gate, the ancient door, is the gate to your mind, heart, and soul? What would happen this Lent if you opened a gate in your personal defensive wall and let the King of glory come in? What would happen if you let the psalm self-reflect: read it again, now with the proclamation that you are the Lord’s and all that is in you. What transformation could this cause? It may be that the answer is right there: you will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from the God of your salvation.

The text: Psalm 66 – NRSV

Today on this Lenten journey we come to a notable milestone: Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. Whether you have been following along from the beginning or have found these posts only recently, I hope they have been of some help to you in your Lenten walk this year. On this final “little Easter” before the main event, we lift up a psalm that is a song of praise but also one of witness and thanksgiving. As we have seen in other psalms, a change in voice marks a turning point and an opening for understanding. The first half is communal, celebrating what God has done through major events like the Exodus, but such is the language that it can apply to any act where God has saved the people from disaster. The second half switches to first person singular: the individual psalmist offering a faithful response to God’s acts of communal salvation. Again, such is the language, where what God has done for the psalmist is never specified, that the psalm becomes an open invitation for us to substitute whatever it is God has done for us into the text, making the prayer our own. That God’s communal acts can result in individual faith is a powerful story, and a universal one. How else does anyone come to faith, if not through community? So on this Palm Sunday, perhaps this psalm asks us to remember and celebrate those communities in our own pasts and presents that have formed faith in us, or are forming and deepening faith, and to give thanks. It’s a pathway to owning our faith histories, our own personal stories to tell. If we keep these stories in mind on this day, just imagine what these stories might become a week from now!

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The text: Psalm 81 – NRSV

When we think of a psalm of lament, I would guess that most of us imagine the speaker to be human. That is, the voice of the psalm is that of a person crying out to God in distress, or perhaps in the case of a communal lament, that of an entire community. But in this psalm the tables are turned. Here, the speaker is God. Now, the psalm doesn’t start this way. It opens with a song of praise, likely used at a festival or other communal worship. Having called the worship to order, the shift happens in v. 6, just after the psalmist states, I hear a voice I had not known. That, perhaps, is the problem in a nutshell. For God then launches into a recounting of Israel’s faith history, beginning with the Exodus from Egypt. As we read, we would be well advised to do what Israel did not: listen. Three times God complains about their, and our, failing to listen. Listen for God’s anguish in this psalm, and allow yourself to ponder what it can possibly mean for God to experience this emotion. What does it say about God that God would cry out to us in pain? Isn’t that our role? How should we respond? To me, this brings to mind the parables of Luke 15, where God seeks out the lost coin, the lost sheep, and finally the lost son. Maybe this reminds you of Psalm 8 that celebrates a God who acts first, or the incredibly close relationship God desires with us described in Psalm 139. This is not the behavior of a God who stands aloof, but one who stands just outside the door of our hearts and minds, hoping that we will open it. When we do, when we listen, maybe we can learn to say, this is a voice that I know.

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The text: Psalm 121 – NRSV

There is a particular point on northbound highway 191 as you leave Jackson, WY where the road ascends sufficiently so that, at last, one can see clearly what lies to the west. It is a moment of pure magic, and I will never forget my kids’ reactions when it happened almost 10 years ago now on our first trip to the most wondrous place of my childhood, Yellowstone. Seeing the Tetons for the first time, especially on a clear day, even more if you have only seen mountains that barely equal their foothills, can be a life-changing and intensely spiritual event. Being in the presence of raw majesty can, if we let it, profoundly correct our perspective. I cannot read this little jewel of a psalm without remembering such experiences. To me there is no psalm more beautiful than Psalm 121, no psalm more eloquent in its concise construction, no psalm more evocative of God’s nature. My advice is simple: memorize it. Take it with you. For the psalm is one of pilgrimage, encompassing the entire journey of a life of faith. What will you find when you look to the hills? It may be peace, it may be faith, or like Julie Andrew’s Maria, it may even be music. There is something about a mountain…

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The text: Psalm 29 – NRSV

This psalm appears to be right at home during the springtime. The main metaphoric event is a great storm, mostly likely in the local context the kind that would blow into Lebanon from the Mediterranean Sea. But any image of storm will do. I’ve already alluded to my Oklahoma childhood back when we discussed Psalm 49, and so this psalm brings to mind those spring thunderstorms, full of wind, thunder, lightning, and sometimes hail. On my more recent sojourns on the East Coast, I could add Nor’easters and an occasional tropical storm or two. I’m sure you have your storm images and experiences. While it may be tempting to think that the message here is that God’s power is made manifest in nature, or that God’s power is great, like that of a storm, I suspect there’s more going on here. It’s fascinating that the storm is never directly mentioned in the psalm; rather, the active agent is God’s voice. Some suspect that this hymn may have originated from Canaanite worship of Baal (the storm god), and that the Hebrew psalmist adapted it to describe the God of Israel (and indirectly ridicule Baal in the process!). As others have observed, the psalm mentions God’s voice seven times, a number indicating holy completeness in Hebrew numerology. This perspective may remind us of Genesis 1 and John 1, where God’s Word is proclaimed to be the agent of all creation. What does it mean to you for God’s voice, God’s Word, to have such power? If we, as John did, consider the Christ to be God’s Word, how might this inform our attitude toward prayer? When we ask God to speak, are we aware of what we are asking? It is a marvelous prospect! It may even help us understand how the psalm ends, where God is proclaimed to sit enthroned over any and every storm, to be king forever, blessing us with strength and peace.

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The text: Psalm 80 – NRSV

Psalm 80 is a communal lament, a national cry to God for salvation. As you read it, however, the cause of the trouble is not at first clear. The psalmist, speaking for the entire community, pleas to God for salvation and questions how long God will remain angry. But angry at what? In an extended metaphor that dominates the psalm, the nation is compared to a vine that God planted and nurtured. Interestingly, this vine has walls, and it is these walls that God broke, allowing invaders to attack the vine. What is happening here? Did God abandon his precious vine? The psalm doesn’t give away the answer until the penultimate verse, and even then indirectly. After all of the pleas and cries comes the awful admission: it was not God who abandoned the vine; rather, the vine abandoned God. It’s one of the oldest stories in the Good Book. Yes, this psalm is a lament; but at its heart, it is a confession. We should take care here. Neither this psalm, nor the practice of confession that it so well exemplifies, is about blaming the victim, nor are its cries a call to self-loathing about our failings, either at the level of the individual or that of the nation. Confession is about restoration. It is about laying ourselves bare to God so that our relationship with God can be healed. Why else does the psalm repeat the refrain, let your face shine, that we may be saved? This Lent, how can you let God’s face shine?

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The text: Psalm 55 – NRSV

Often we hear it said, “All politics is local.” Perhaps that is also true of personal relationships, especially when a relationship is broken by betrayal. It is one thing to cry out in response to a social injustice, a tragedy, or even an illness, but the pain is often more wrenching when its source is one of our closest friends. Such is the situation in this psalm of lament. At first it reads like many other laments, lifting up complaints against the “enemy”, and maybe we begin to see armies or oppressors in our mind’s eye. Then comes v. 12-13, and the boom falls. It is not an enemy that afflicts the psalmist, but my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. The psalm then moves into a statement of faith before again returning in v. 20-21 to friend that has betrayed him. The emotions are raw here, and few psalms are so intimately personal. But in that intimacy is the psalm’s great gift, giving words to much needed prayers. For what are our lives but a network of personal relationships, so many of which are more broken than whole?

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The text: Psalm 73 – NRSV

Today’s psalm is one to remember, bookmark, and study, particularly in times such as these. This wisdom poem marks a progression in Hebrew philosophical and moral thought. In early psalms, particularly the very first psalm, we see a philosophy often called “the two ways”. It is a simple idea: there are the righteous and there are the wicked. God will bless the righteous and punish the wicked. Psalm 1 clearly articulates this perspective. The problem is that, as we all know, life is very often inconsistent with this perspective: bad things happen to good people, and vice versa. Scripture is not silent on this complexity: the great wisdom books of Ecclesiastes and Job are frontal assaults against “the two ways”. Psalm 73 is much briefer, but contains the seeds of these challenges, and asks the same questions posed forcefully in Ecclesiastes and Job.

It starts in the opening verses, culminating in v. 3: I saw the prosperity of the wicked. The verses that follow give examples of the problem, until in v. 13 the psalmist utters a cry that resonates so well with so many modern people who struggle with faith: All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. What is the value of faith in a morally complex and corrupt world? Watch and read carefully what happens next, for it is remarkable. The tone changes in v. 16 when the psalmist enters God’s sanctuary. It may seem a glib solution; after all, life is still unfair outside the church in the real world, and the wicked are still prospering. But then, at least to me, come two of the most stirring verses in the psalm, v. 21-22. While we can’t always do very much to change the wicked, what we can change is our own hearts and minds. We do have control over that. It’s a marvelous and convicting image: the faithful psalmist reduced to a brute beast simply because of the psalmist’s bitterness toward the wicked! So what is the answer to that? None other than the close relationship with God we have heard described repeatedly in other psalms so far (such as Psalm 139). There is a pathway to peace here, and out of that peace can grow hope. In this, perhaps this singular psalm can illuminate how you read Romans 5:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

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The text: Psalm 47 – NRSV

On this “little Easter” we lift up one of the clear enthronement psalms that celebrates God’s kingship over all nations. That God is king of all nations and not just our own, or not simply a given “chosen” nation, is perhaps an easy thing to say and outwardly fitting and majestic, but should give us pause if we take it seriously. What does it mean for God to be king of all humanity? What relevance does any nationalism have if this is true? Absolutely none, of course. What relationship do we have with people of other nations, if this is true? Are we not all one people? As the psalm proclaims, the princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. In many ways this psalm envisages the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, that God will bless all peoples of the earth through Abraham. It must be said that this proclamation seems contradicted by the realities of this or any other time (including the psalmist’s!); nevertheless, that God is king over all remains true, and the psalm looks toward a time when what it proclaims is fully true, and as Revelation says, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Amen!

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