A
Lent 1 Psalm 1 BFC 2020
Psalm
1
March
1, 2020
Over
the last two weeks, everyone I have talked to has remarked on how exhausted
they are . . . continually tired . . . worn down. I think that happens when the larger
narrative we hear day after day keeps slamming into us and telling us things we
know are not true. We try to stand tall
against that narrative but then it carries the day and it is all we can do to
pick ourselves up and promise to be resilient.
Psalm
1 begins with the word, “Happy.”
“Happy
are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, stand on the road of
sinners, sit in the seat of scoffers.”
“Happy.” In his Oscar-nominated song, Pharrell
Williams tells us that he’s happy. “It
might seem crazy what I’m about to say; Sunshine’s here, you can take a break;
I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space; With the air like I don’t care,
baby, by the way.” So, Pharrell might
say, you are not the source of all goodness in the world. Making the world spin is not your
responsibility, “Sunshine, she's here. You can take
a break." And see if you can stop
yourself from clapping along in happiness when it comes to this video—a video
that makes me smile every time I see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM)
Pharrell Williams says about his
religious life and understandings, “On paper, I’m a Christian, but really I’m a
Universalist.” I think that can be seen in
the video, people from all walks of life, all different styles, expressing
through their bodies what it means to be happy.
On first blush, the song seems simple, a naïve feel-good tune. But in the lyrics, one can hear a sampling of
Psalm 1, “Here comes bad news talking this and that; Well, give me all you got,
and don’t hold it back; Well, I should probably warn you I’ll be just fine; No
offense to you, don't waste your time.”
There is a resilience to Williams’ happiness that does not just get diverted
walking in the path of the wicked, stand in the path of the sinners, or
unseated in the place of the scoffers.[1]
In true Wisdom tradition, Psalm 1
gives two distinct paths. One is a way
of the wicked, sinners, and scoffers, in which their choices become more and
more limited. They begin walking, they
continue by standing, and, finally, one can almost imagine them with their arms
folded, seated on the ground, inflexible, but easily removed like chaff, refusing
to receive the happiness intended for them.
Meanwhile, those who delight in the way of the Living God, are like
trees re-planted by a stream. The
journey of that person has their roots reaching down into the earth,
their branches growing up into the sky, and bearing fruit out in
due season for the resilience of not just the tree but for all of creation.[2]
On first blush, the Psalm that stands
like a topic sentence for the hymns and prayers of the rest of the Psalms can
seem rather simplistic. God is not
unlike Santa Claus. Do right, and be
rewarded, be happy. Do wrong, and find
yourself blown away, perish in that path.
As the first Psalm, however, we are invited to return to it again and
again after we enter the Psalms and read these ancient hymns of creation, complaint,
thanksgiving, lament, praise, and suffering that fill this entire book of songs
and prayers. We then return to Psalm 1
and read it with a whole set of different life experiences--experiences that
tell us life is much more complex.
People we love are lost. Tragedy
strikes whole communities. Our health
takes a downturn. We boil with anger
against our enemies.
Many
of the Psalms have an agnostic tone to them.
All this time we thought we were doing right by the Living God?! Where is the God who would be my Presence and
Savior? While we were trying to do
right, meanwhile, we see the wicked not only surviving but thriving,
prospering. We meet times in our lives
when we cry like Jesus did from the cross, using the words from Psalm 22, “My
God, my God why have you abandoned me?”
Returning to Psalm 1, with new eyes,
no longer believing in God as Santa Claus, we see the poetic exaggeration and
hyperbole meant to teach us a way of life that can sustain us in the most
violent storms. We choose to be planted
in a place where we have resources.
Near that stream, we grow our roots deep so that no drought will kill
us. Our branches growing up, sway and
bend in flexibility and adaptability so, with our deep roots, no wind can blow
us over. Our fruit produces outward,
recognizing our interconnection with all of creation, so that, as others are
fed, the world around us does not go to heck in a handbasket. Our fruit makes sure that we are not left
alone, growing while the rest of the world withers, dries, and burns, knowing
then that to wither, die, and burn, will eventually be our fate.
We see this intention for interconnection
with words like “prosper” referencing back to the word “happy.” We often use the word to reflect economic
affluence or material wealth, but the
connotation here has much more to do with getting traction, making progress, and
advancing. It has a connotation that the
righteousness and justice, the struggle we do on behalf of community is not
lost. It moves with the universe. Do not worry when the wicked appear to be
doing well. The Hebrew word for “prosper” in other parts
of Hebrew Scripture, providing context, is “shalom”, a word beyond individual
well-being, a social word that means interconnectedness, wholeness, and
peace. “Oh,” Psalm 1 seems to say, “the
wicked may seem to prosper in their wealth and power, but their prosperity
is not long-term and resilient. When
they fall, few are around to support and buoy them. They are supplanted by other short-root
systems who think they are God’s gift to the earth. Trees replanted by streams, however, know of
their interdependence and interconnection.”
For Christians, one other word is
important that I took the liberty to translate literally. Verse 2 states that the righteous person,
“their delight is in the Law of the Living God and on God’s Law they meditate
day and night.” We have so stigmatized
“The Law” in Christian tradition, that I believe we rarely hear the word as it
was intended. Others have translated the
Hebrew word as “Torah” as “wisdom” or “instruction”, but the literal meaning of
the Hebrew word “Torah” is “Way”, as was read today. Not surprisingly, early Christians referred
to themselves as people of “The Way,” never really intending to break from
their Jewish ancestors. Understood as
“Way”, Torah becomes more than the static, granite-like thing Christians have too
often made the Law out to be. The Way is
an active path that requires our walking, discovering, and delight. Delight.
Happy. Along the way, as we walk
in the way, we see an eagle on the Elk River, a child who experiences something
new and giggles in delight, or even a bare tree replanted by the stream that
tended and resourced will come to bud and flower and fruit. We smile in happiness and delight knowing
that our Sunshine is here, we can take a break as Creator moves with, in, and
through us and our community. We are
resilient—even when the wider narrative
of the world batters us.
Ash Wednesday began the season of
Lent within the Christian Church. Lent
is always a call to check our resources, ask ourselves what we may need to
leave behind so that we have the freedom for choices that bring our lives
long-term prosperity, shalom, happiness, with God. Those long-term choices give us a better
chance to stand resolutely and resiliently against the hardships that most
certainly come in every life, the lies that feel like they are winning in the
world. As we dig deep, show our
flexibility and bend and sway, we eventually bear fruit, bloom and grow in due
season.
A spirituality website, Contemplative
Mind, published a list of spiritual practices with a fitting image to
illustrate them, you have it on the front of your bulletin. The
image did not print out as well as I had hoped but what it shows are the
diverse ways we might practice “the Way” so that we become more resilient,
nimble, and well-resourced. Maybe you
walk as I see Vi and Clarence do, maybe you are a person who practices yoga on
your own or with Lisa on Thursdays, or maybe you find halting ways to do
exercise and meditation, or maybe you even walk the Red Road by making sure you
attend meetings and thereby stitch together community for yourself. It is important on this First Sunday in Lent
just to begin.
The tree is a reminder that we need
regular spiritual practices, however small, but done regularly, consistently,
and persistently, so that we might be those long-term sources of life, growth,
and shade re-planted by the stream. Though
those trees may be bare at this time, the resources are stored and gathered for
something magnificent to start taking place when more light and warmth and time
come to pass. Lent is the hope that we
might declare our freedom to pick up intentional spiritual practice, re-plant
ourselves, so that we might inherit the prosperity, the shalom, the happiness
God intends for us. As Pharrell Williams
would say, and we are going to get a chance to practice at the end of worship
today, “Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof; clap along if you
know that happiness is the truth.” Go
down with your roots, go up with your branches, go out with your fruit, as
trees re-planted by the stream. And we
shall not be like the chaff blown by the wind.
For we shall not be moved. Amen.
[1]
“Scoffers” and the “wicked”
are those people in the Bible who regularly rely on themselves rather than the
governance of God. They are people who
refuse to stand up for justice. J.
Clinton McCann, Jr., The Great Psalms of the Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster, John Knox Press, 2009), pp. 5,
7.
[2] Danielle Shroyer, “The
Road Less Travelled,” The Hardest
Question, May 13, 2012. http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/yearb/easter7psalm/
No comments:
Post a Comment