Monthly Archives: October 2023

Psalm 94 Thy Kingdom Come

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Marc Chagall, Solitude (1933)

Psalm 94

1 O LORD, you God of vengeance, you God of vengeance, shine forth!
2 Rise up, O judge of the earth; give to the proud what they deserve!
3 O LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult?
4 They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast.
5 They crush your people, O LORD, and afflict your heritage.
6 They kill the widow and the stranger, they murder the orphan,
7 and they say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.”
8 Understand, O dullest of the people; fools, when will you be wise?
9 He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?
10 He who disciplines the nations, he who teaches knowledge to humankind, does he not chastise?
11 The LORD knows our thoughts, that they are but an empty breath.
12 Happy are those whom you discipline, O LORD, and whom you teach out of your law,
13 giving them respite from days of trouble, until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For the LORD will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage;
15 for justice will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.
16 Who rises up for me against the wicked? Who stands up for me against evildoers?
17 If the LORD had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
18 When I thought, “My foot is slipping,” your steadfast love, O LORD, held me up.
19 When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.
20 Can wicked rulers be allied with you, those who contrive mischief by statute?
21 They band together against the life of the righteous, and condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the LORD has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge.
23 He will repay them for their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness; the LORD our God will wipe them out.

James L. Mays begins his comments on this psalm by quoting a line from Maltbie D. Babcock’s song “This is my Father’s world”: “Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” (Mays, 1994, p. 302) The opening line of the psalm names God as the God of vengeance, and yet God’s vengeance is necessary to avenge the wrongs done to the vulnerable and powerless who suffer in an unjust society. Because of this beginning this is sometimes called a psalm of vengeance, yet it is important to realize this vengeance is an action to restore society and to undo the work of those who utilize their positions of power to oppose God’s justice on earth and to oppress the ones God promised to defend. Much as the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer call for “God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven,” this psalm calls on God to act in concrete and visible ways to repair a society that has become controlled by those who have abandoned the ways of the covenant righteousness.

The proud and wicked have prospered in the society the psalmist lives in and they have turned the dream of a just society on its head. They have killed and oppressed the widow, the stranger, and the orphan who God has promised to protect, and who the leaders who work on God’s behalf are to ensure justice for. These arrogant evildoers perceive that they are not bound by the requirements of the law for the God of Israel has not acted to judge them. In their view, “without God everything is possible.” (Brueggemann, 2014, p. 407) These wicked ones view the LORD the God of Israel as either unwilling or unable to respond to their actions which violate God’s command, oppress the vulnerable among God’s people, and threaten God’s own heritage.

The psalmist testifies to the tension of an unjust present and a life in hopeful expectation of God’s intervention in the world. In the present the wicked are prospering and crime does pay. (NIB IV: 1019) To challenge this honest observation of the present the psalmist relies on the language of the wisdom tradition in scripture. The proud, arrogant, wicked evildoers who profit by oppressing and murdering the vulnerable and believe that God does not see or hear about their actions are foolish. The wise are glad to be disciplined by God and God’s law, but the foolish will ultimately perish. They may prosper in the moment, but that moment is an empty breath.[1] Yet, even though their time in power may be short the threat to the vulnerable is acute and needs God’s intervention.

In the meantime, the psalmist also testifies to the ways God has continued to provide respite and protection for the faithful ones in the midst of injustice. In times where their feet were slipping, God held them fast. When their worries were great God provided consolation. Without God’s protection they would dwell in the silence of the dead. These actions of God may not have brought about the fullness of God’s kingdom for the psalmist, but they have been the necessary provision and protection in their time of waiting and the actions which renewed their hope for God’s intervention which they trust is coming.

For people of faith a part of the desire for God to reign as king comes from the experience of injustice in this world and the desire for the God of vengeance to bring God’s justice to those who exploit God’s people and God’s world. When wicked people sit in the positions of power and the laws and statutes that should provide protection have become warped and utilized to oppress, the faithful cry out for God’s reign and God’s vengeance to create a society where the vulnerable are protected and justice prevails. (Mays, 1994, p. 303) The work of the wicked is a concrete and visible reality in the world of the psalmist and the cry of the psalmist is not for some otherworldly deliverance from the toils of this earth. The psalmist demands the judge of the earth to rise up and cause justice to return to the righteous. The prayer is for God’s justice to be a concrete and visible reality which displaces the injustice of the world.

[1] This is the Hebrew hebel which is translated as vanity in Ecclesiastes. The word means ‘vapor, mist, or emptiness.’ It is an evanescent word which points to the impermanence of the object it describes.

Psalm 93 God the King

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Stained Glass window at the Melkite Catholic Annunciation Cathedral in Roslindale, MA depicting Christ the King with the regalia of a Byzantine Emperor

 

Psalm 93

1 The LORD is king, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved;
2 your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.
3 The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring.
4 More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the LORD!
5 Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O LORD, forevermore.

This short psalm focused on the image of God as king makes explicit one of the assumptions of the psalter and the bible as a whole. Underneath the praise, lament, prayers, and appeals of the psalter is the understanding of God’s position of sovereignty and strength in relation to the people of God, the nations, and the world itself. God is able to respond because God is the sovereign over all creation. The God who is over all gods and who is the creator to whom the creation gives praise is also the object of the worship and the source of hope for the people of is the God. They confess that this God reigns in majesty and strength from everlasting.

The sovereignty of God is not linked to the king of Israel or Judah as in Psalm 2 and it is possible that this psalm emerges in a time where there is no earthly king who is entrusted with authority on behalf of God. In both Christianity and Judaism, “the reign of God is always proclaimed amid circumstances that seem to deny it.” (NIB IV: 1055) No matter the political situation the person proclaiming this psalm finds themselves within, the confession of God’s continuing reign over creation, the nations, and the world becomes a bedrock for the faith of the community. God’s decrees remain established and no floods or crashing waves can wash them away. No rulers or gods can rival God’s sovereignty.

Proclaiming God’s sovereignty in the midst of a secular world is an act of faith and defiance. It is only through the eyes of faith that the faithful one can witness the forces of creation giving praise to God. There may be moments where the reign of God is clearly visible to the faithful, but it often remains hidden by ‘circumstances that seem to deny it.’ Yet, the bedrock trust that God remains in control of the creation and that God reigns in strength is central to the life of faith.

Greenhouse for Faith

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The Greenhouse for Faith emerged out of a desire to capture what I would want a person in my community to know about the faith we are a part of. As a person formed by the Lutheran tradition of Christianity I have found it a beautiful, but often misunderstood approach of God. The initial courses in the Greenhouse for Faith begin with the Foundations course which talks about the central ideas of a Lutheran way of approaching faith. Then I will be adding a series of courses called Catechesis which reflects an ancient pattern of faith formation centered on the Ten Commandments, the Creeds of the church, The Lord’s Prayer, what our worship communicates, and a brief introduction to reading scripture.

Foundations Course (Click link for each video discussion)

Catechesis Part I: The Ten Commandments

Catechesis Part II: The Creed

Catechesis Part 3: The Lord’s Prayer

Catechesis Part 4: Introduction to Worship

Catechesis Part 5: Introduction to Scripture

Foundations Course: Session 1 God the Foundation

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Greenhouse for Faith Foundations Course: Session 1 (God the Foundation)

The Greenhouse for Faith: What We Grow Here is Meant to be Planted in the World

This is an introduction to a way of thinking about God that is ancient, but it is beautiful. It has brought life and meaning to one of the larger families of faith throughout the world. Yet it is very different from what many churches teach.

These reflections use the image of a greenhouse as a model for thinking about God, our relationship with God and the world God created.

The Foundation: that which everything else builds upon is a way of thinking about God.

This way of thinking focuses in on who God is and what God has already done.

“Let God be God” is a short summary of this way of thinking because we focus on God as the primary actor.

God is the creator, rescuer, and the one who renews this world and our lives.

God loves this world and is active, passionate, and engaged in the world and in our lives.

God also works in ways that may be mysterious, hidden, or unseen by us in our lives.

Questions for reflection:

  • When you think about your relationship with God do you begin with what you believe you need to do or what God has done?
  • Do you think that God is active in the world? In your life?
  • How do you walk through times where God’s working in the world seems hidden from you?
  • What in your life are you thankful for? What is something that is a part of the world that you are thankful for?

Foundations Course: Session 2 Christ-Where God Meets Us

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Greenhouse for Faith Foundations Course: Session 2 (Christ)

The Greenhouse for Faith: What We Grow Here is Meant to be Planted in the World

There are four pillars that will be used in this greenhouse: Christ, Word, Faith, and Grace that help us understand the God who is our foundation. These are the classic ‘alones’ or ‘solas’ (Latin for alone) of Lutheran thought.

The first pillar is Christ: We are Jesus people. Jesus is where we come to know primarily what God is like.

The life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the key through which we understand everything else about God.

The God who comes down to be among us: the witness of Christmas is of the God who comes to meet us in Jesus. God comes where God can be approached and becomes vulnerable so that we may draw near. We don’t have to ascend to where God is because God approaches us where we are in Jesus.

In Jesus we also come to know the God who suffers for this world and the people God loves. On the cross we find a God who refuses to give up on the world or God’s people. The cross looks like a place where God’s love is absent, but we believe this is where we most clearly understand the depth of God’s love. A love that refuses to give up even when it is rejected and killed.

Questions for reflection:

  • How is Christ’s example of love different from romantic love?
  • How does Christ’s example of love inform romantic relationships?
  • How do you see your own leadership impacted by Christ’s example of love?

Foundations Course Session 3 Word Alone

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The Greenhouse for Faith: What We Grow Here is Meant to be Planted in the World

There are four pillars that will be used in this greenhouse: Christ, Word, Faith, and Grace that help us understand the God who is our foundation. We talked in the previous session about how we come to know about God in Christ.

The second pillar is the Word. When we talk about the Word we are primarily talking about three things: the Word of God as Christ, the Word of God as the proclamation of scripture and preaching in the church, and the Word of God as scripture.

  • The Word always goes back to Christ. When we talk about the Word of God we are first and foremost talking about the Word of God as John’s gospel relates it:
    • In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1
    • The Word who was with God, who was in the beginning and who was God is Christ. Christ is active in creation, throughout the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and continues to be active throughout our world.
  • The Word also goes back to scripture and proclamation. The Christ we talk about will also reflect the Christ we come to know through scripture and the preaching of the church.
    • Proclamation: We believe that God is active in the world and in the church, and particularly we believe that when a person from the community or the pastor both read and proclaim about scripture that God is active in that space. It is not that the pastor has the perfect words to say or that they are infallible, instead it is a trust and expectation that God and God’s Spirit are active in that time.
    • Scripture: Luther’s image of scripture being the manger where the Christ child is laid. Scripture is the source of where we come to know about God. We don’t believe that all scripture is equally valued, but instead it is that which presents Christ is the center of scripture. Christ is the key that unlocks everything else.

Reading scripture can be challenging. One of the challenges is the way we often approach scripture: We often go to scripture seeking answers, but scripture wants to give us wisdom. Scripture invites us to learn a way of life, a way of encountering the world, and an invitation to follow the God who we come to know in Christ.

A tool for reading scripture: Law and Gospel. This is one tool in the toolbox of how we approach scripture, but it is a good way to start. Scripture encounters us as Law: that which condemns us, shows us where we have fallen short and need God’s grace and ultimately should drive us back to God and help us reorient our lives on God. Scripture also encounters us as Gospel: that which sets us free, forgives us, renews us, and tells us about what God has done for us.

Questions for reflection:

  • Think of one of the passages from scripture you are familiar with. Identify both the Law and Gospel in that passage and share your thoughts.
  • Think of scripture that is problematic or hard to interpret. How does looking at this scripture through Jesus’s teachings change your interpretation?

Foundations Course: Session 4 The Gift of Faith

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The Greenhouse for Faith: What We Grow Here is Meant to be Planted in the World

There are four pillars that will be used in this greenhouse: Christ, Word, Faith, and Grace that help us understand the God who is our foundation. We talked in the previous sessions about how we come to know about God in Christ and through the Word.

The third pillar is Faith. Faith is a word that is often used in churches but is rarely defined.

  • In many churches faith is the collection of beliefs which the person is expected to agree to or believe in. There is nothing wrong with good doctrine, but that is not the faith that we are talking about.
  • Faith for us goes back to God and it is a gift of God. God is the one who opens our eyes, our hearts, and our minds and gives us an openness to what God is doing in the midst of the world. This is one of the ways God is at work in the world continuing to create faith.

I am interested in seeing where God is already active in the world.

Faith allows us to see that we are both saint and sinner.

  • We can be honest about the times when we have missed the mark, where we have fallen short of God’s intent for our lives, where we have been caught up in sin. We can be honest about the brokenness in our lives and in our world.
  • Yet, it is primarily about what God has done in Christ and the gospel. God has forgiven, set us free, justified us and made things right between us and God. We as forgiven people are God’s saints set free to be a part of God’s work in the world.

Faith allows us to live in the tension of being saint and sinner. Therefore, I can rise us this day to live as a part of God’s kingdom.

Questions for reflection:

  • Does seeing faith as a gift from God impact other areas of your life?
  • How have you seen God being active within your own life?

Foundations Course: Session 5 It All Goes Back to the Grace of God

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The Greenhouse for Faith: What We Grow Here is Meant to be Planted in the World

There are four pillars that will be used in this greenhouse: Christ, Word, Faith, and Grace that help us understand the God who is our foundation. We talked in the previous sessions about how we come to know about God in Christ and through the Word and how God’s gift of faith opens us to be a part of what God is doing in the world.

The final pillar is grace which brings us back to the God who we come to know in Christ, through the scriptures interpreted through the key of Christ, and through God’s gift of faith which opens us up and reveals to us the gracious God who we come to know in creation, in Christ’s redemption, and through God’s continuing presence in our lives and in the world.

What do we mean by grace? Grace is God’s love which we come to encounter most centrally in Christ. It is the forgiving love that even when it is rejected does not let go of those who rejected it. It is a love that is willing to suffer for those that it cares about. It is the love that is summed up in what Luther called the gospel in miniature in John 3:16 where (to paraphrase) God so loved the world that God sent that which was most precious to God, the Son, God’s very self, to the world that God loves so that we may know that God loves the world and God loves us.

We live in light of this grace. We have been set free to live in light of this grace.

We live in a tension as people who are set free but also also people who follow a gracious God who comes to serve. As Luther expressed it:

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant to all, subject to all.” The Freedom of a Christian (1520)

If we follow Jesus we follow a Lord who reminds us that he came not to be served but to serve, and we as followers of Jesus live our lives in service to this world and the people that God loves.

Questions for reflection:

  • How would you describe Grace in your own words?
  • What are some of the tensions in your own life that you live with?
  • When is responding to God’s grace easy in your own life?  When is it hard?

Foundations Course: Session 6 A Life Lived for God’s Glory

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The Greenhouse for Faith: What We Grow Here is Meant to be Planted in the World

This final session looks back on all the things that God has done for us and in light of that we consider how we are to live. We are ending where a lot of Christians begin.

  • Many communities of faith begin with what we need to do to be in a right relationship with God and how we need to live our lives to ‘get into heaven.’
  • We start with what God has done and that God is the primary actor in the world and in our faith. God is the foundation for all we do. God in Jesus Christ shows us what love is like. The word as we encounter it in both scripture and the proclamation of the church continually points us back to the love of God in Christ, the gracious God of our faith. Faith itself is a gift of God where God opens us to experience God’s love, forgiveness, and frees us to participate in what God is already doing in the world. Everything we have talked about points to the gracious God who refuses to give up on this world that God loves and the people that God created.

How then do we live? Here are five markers of what a well live life looks like:

  • We live in Gratitude: We say thank you to God for all God has done for us and for this world. We live in ways that give thanks back to God. All that we encounter is a gift: life is a gift, faith is a gift, and when we can encounter this day as a day that God has made, we can rejoice and be glad in it and respond with gratitude.
  • We live in Freedom and forgiveness: We do trust that we can rise up each day as a child of God who has been forgiven and set free. We can go into each day with trust, faith and hope and we can let go of the things that have bound us in the past.
  • We encounter the world and our neighbor in grace, love, and forgiveness: We lift people up when they need to be lifted up. We forgive when people believe they are unforgivable. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things that we do but it is also one of the greatest gifts of our faith. Forgiveness refuses to allow the past to determine the future.
  • We live in service to our neighbors and the world that God loves: We follow a Lord who came to serve, and in following Christ we will serve both the neighbors we encounter, and this world God loves. God sends that which God loves into this world to both put down roots and bear fruit, and we are a part of what God is sending to this world God loves.
  • We live solely for God’s glory:  When we baptize a person we say “let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” We pray that our life is a mirror that reflects the love, grace, and forgiveness that we have received from God. We live our lives so that God may be glorified. Our lives of gratitude, freedom, love, and service ultimately a lived to give glory to the gracious God who is at work in our lives and in our world.

Questions for reflection:

  • How do you define gratitude? What does it look like for someone to be gracious as an action instead of feeling it?
  • How does Christ’s example of gratitude inform your relationships?

Psalm 92:  Song of the Sabbath

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Cedrus libani var. libani — Lebanon Cedars; old and sacred grove. In the Cedars of God nature preserve in the Mount Lebanon Range, North Lebanon. Photograph By Jerzy Strzelecki – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3356425

Psalm 92

<A Psalm. A Song for the Sabbath Day.>
1 It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night,
3 to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre.
4 For you, O LORD, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
5 How great are your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep!
6 The dullard cannot know, the stupid cannot understand this:
7 though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever,
8 but you, O LORD, are on high forever.
9 For your enemies, O LORD, for your enemies shall perish; all evildoers shall be scattered.
10 But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; you have poured over me fresh oil.
11 My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies; my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.
12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God.
14 In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap,
15 showing that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

The superscription of Psalm 92 indicates that it is a psalm for the Sabbath Day, and although the Sabbath is never mentioned in the text of the psalm there are several reasons for this being an appropriate psalm for the Sabbath. The name of God is mentioned seven times[1] in the psalm for the seventh day set apart as holy to the LORD. The psalm begins with praising God is thankfulness, song, and declaration and ends in scenes of peaceful rest. The Sabbath as a day of rest is due the great works of God in creation, in the deliverance of the people from slavery, and the continued provision for those who seek God’s ways. Both commandments on the Sabbath[2] point to a vision of life where the people can trust in God’s provision and protection and lay down their burdens and fears to celebrate a day of gratitude and rest.

To most modern people their assumptions about life rotate around ideas of ownership and self-sufficiency. The theology of the bible understands life rotating around stewardship of the gifts that God provides and dependance upon God’s continuing work and provision for God’s people. From this perspective the psalm declares that it is good to live a life of gratitude to God for the works God has done. That gratitude is expressed in song, declaration, prayer, and praise. The psalmist lives in the trust that God provides for those who seek God’s ways. As J. Clinton McCann, Jr. points out:

From the perspective of Psalm 92, the irony is that the more sophisticated and self-sufficient we think we are, the more stupid and insecure we actually are. A renewed sense of the greatness of God’s works, of the stunning depth of God’s design for the cosmos, and of the breadth of God’s sovereign claim upon humankind, is urgently needed (see vv. 5-9). (NIB IV: 1052)

The wicked may spring up like grass, evildoers may flourish, those who seek self-sufficiency apart for God may succeed for a time, but the faith of the psalmist sees their efforts as foolish. Their lack of insight into the true nature of the world and God’s activity upon it makes them dullards. Their actions may seek to oppose those who trust in God, but it is God who anoints them and makes them strong.[3] The wicked are like grass but the righteous are like palm or cedar trees which are planted in the house of God flourishing and enduring.

James L. Mays notes that the Mishnah Tamid in speaking about Psalm 92 indicates, “It is a psalm and a song for the era to come, for the day that will be entirely Sabbath for eternal life.” (Mays, 1994, p. 300) The perspective of the psalmist moves beyond the immediate observations of the present where those who seek their own self-sufficiency and security apart from God’s provision may spring up like grass. They look forward to a vision of God’s future where the righteous are rewarded with fruitful flourishing as they reside in God’s court. Sabbath as a time of rest and praise anticipates this reality. The actions of gratitude and praise are anticipations the times when the steadfast love and faithfulness of God strengthen the righteous ones and God is demonstrated to be the upright rock that the people can trust.

[1] In English translations of the Hebrew texts when LORD is placed in capital letters it indicates that the four consonants YHWH which comprise the name of God given to Moses in Exodus 3 are present in Hebrew.

[2] The explanation of the Sabbath commandments differs in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. In Exodus the justification for the seventh day is God’s creation of the world in six days and resting on the seventh, while in Deuteronomy the explanation is remembering that the people were slaves in Egypt and the LORD delivered them.

[3] Exalting one’s horn is an idiom for strength.