I've met Christians over the years who kind of pride themselves on not following the news. They don't watch TV news, they don't read newspapers, they don't follow any online news, they don't read books. They say the news depresses them and trust, "Someone will tell me if the world is ending." Kind of smug, I think. In a hurting world, that attitude is a luxury we don't have.
The psalmist knew the news of his day. Indeed, though the word psalm means praise, more often than not the psalms are complaints. Usually the complaining is about painful illnesses and enemies giving the psalmist a hard time. Still, here at the start of Psalm 80, we're called to join in: "Ring out your joy to God our strength."
The psalmist knows the score, that's why he calls God, Our Strength in the first line. Don't we need strength to survive it all: the family troubles, the Church troubles, the national chaos, the environmental tragedies, the wars - the awfulness we hear about every day?
Verses 3,4: Here we're given the liturgical context for the psalm.Its' a full moon at the harvest time which is September and October. It could be the first day of the Jewish New Year. Jews still keep these ancient feasts.
Verses 5,6: God reminds the nation that the obligation to celebrate these days has come down ever since God led them out of Egyptian slavery. That was a long time ago!
Verses7-9: In these verses we hear God going into some detail about those long ago days. We're forgetful creatures and need reminding: "I freed you," "I saved you," " I answered".
"O Israel, if only you would heed!" God is reduced to pleading with humankind, as if to say, "Oh please, pay attention to me. Don't walk away. We've been through so much together. I'm your God; you're supposed to be my people. Wasn't that the agreement?"
Listening recently to so many speeches and remembrances over the funeral days of Senator John McCain: "Country first," "Nation first," "Party first," - gee really? These psalm verses sound like God wants to hear from us, "God, you're first."
Some will argue, and granted that Europe in the early 1930's was something of a chess game, but we might recall the Reichskonkordat, the pact the Vatican made with Germany (July 20, 1933) - the Vatican being the first to offer prestige and legitimacy to Hitler's dictatorship. This psalm lets us hear God's voice, as God says to humankind, "Please remember, I come first."
Verses 10-14: "Don't be so quick to trust yourselves," God says in the psalm. History has shown how inclined we are to mistakes, infidelity, distraction. Still, God is there waiting for us to come to our senses, to wake up, as Jesus often says. God remains ready to take on our enemies, which are interior: our tribal pride, selfishness, resentments, greed, materialism, indifference, desire for power and control, short-sightedness, desire for the upper hand...
Verses 15,16: In our abandonment of God, which is often manifest in our spiritual immaturity and religious superficiality, we risk starvation, and we don't even know it. God waits and wants to feed us with a great bread made from refined wheat. And not just water from the rock, but honey! God is like an un-relenting Mother whose specialty is nourishing food. We are always God's people.
Some will argue, and granted that Europe in the early 1930's was something of a chess game, but we might recall the Reichskonkordat, the pact the Vatican made with Germany (July 20, 1933) - the Vatican being the first to offer prestige and legitimacy to Hitler's dictatorship. This psalm lets us hear God's voice, as God says to humankind, "Please remember, I come first."
Verses 10-14: "Don't be so quick to trust yourselves," God says in the psalm. History has shown how inclined we are to mistakes, infidelity, distraction. Still, God is there waiting for us to come to our senses, to wake up, as Jesus often says. God remains ready to take on our enemies, which are interior: our tribal pride, selfishness, resentments, greed, materialism, indifference, desire for power and control, short-sightedness, desire for the upper hand...
Verses 15,16: In our abandonment of God, which is often manifest in our spiritual immaturity and religious superficiality, we risk starvation, and we don't even know it. God waits and wants to feed us with a great bread made from refined wheat. And not just water from the rock, but honey! God is like an un-relenting Mother whose specialty is nourishing food. We are always God's people.
