This psalm 134 sings of God who is Lord and Sovereign. Really? We're adept at using religious words, but do we know the implications for the words we use? If the language, however beautiful, carries no contemporary and personal implication, then God is mocked. And God won't have that.
Verses 1-4: Notice at once that the psalm opens with Alleluia - Praise the Lord. But this is also the last word of the psalm. Like bookends. That this new day, that this hour, that this project would begin and end with the praises of God. That's not a sentiment but a conscious choice resulting in new action.
The invitation is to praise the Lord's name. Ours is not an anonymous God. The word name suggests familiarity and intimacy with a God superior to all the other gods. The psalmist also refers to us as servants: God has chosen us as his own. We belong to God who is good, loving and gracious. We're loved. And being loved should be transformative of how we think and act.
Verses 5-7: "The Lord is great and high above all gods." This is the proclamation of Jethro after the opening of the Red Sea. But why is the Lord high and great? Because he has freed his people from oppression. If I get is - really get this - everything will be new for me.
"High above all gods." God is Sovereign. Israel's perennial temptation was to worship other gods. Their story is filled with infidelity. Ours too. We are no better than the ancient Israelites. For all our liturgical do-ing we are as susceptible to loving other gods: our gun-love; our shopping; our grazing (endless eating); our money-love; our worship of youth, sexiness, fitness and comfort; the nations' infatuation with all things military; the weaponization of our planet, all the ways we tolerate the destruction of our planet-home.
Verse 6 speaks of God's rule being vast, unlimited and invasive of the ancient three-tiered world of sky, earth and sea-depths. But we might ask ourselves if God has sovereignty of that universe which is my mind: my thinking, my policies, my takes, angles, biases and issues. Some Christians have mental associations and loyalties that are ungodly, confounding, even depressing.
In Verse 7 the psalmist references thunderstorms (as in other places) because storms were the ancient business of the god, Baal. The psalmist wants us to know that our God is even superior to Baal. God summons and acts. The other gods are powerless because they are manufactured by humans - gods of metal, plastic, synthetics, human concoctions with power connections.
Verses 8-14: It was the wind that opened the Red Sea and the lightning accompanied God's visitation at the top of Mount Sinai where Moses received the Law. Now the psalmist takes a few lines to summarize the divine action of the Exodus story. God is sovereign, not Pharaoh. God is sovereign over the lesser kings, Sihon and Og. God is sovereign even over all the kingdoms of Canaan.
Some religious people like this kind of buster-God who in the end will get the enemy, who is anyone not like me. They miss the essence of the religious story. The Exodus is a dramatic telling of how God with compassion takes up the cause of oppressed peoples, symbolized by the Israelites who have been pressed into slavery.
Some Christians don't understand this. They prefer a nationalized, politicized God, a get-me-what-I-need God. God is paid lip service and kept very small - no bigger than our supreme court fights. Who is oppressed today? Syrians? Hondurans? The baby in the womb? Those with disabilities? Christians and Jews in some lands? Anyone in someone else's gun sights? The crushed poor? I don't pick and tease-out those that fit the bill or suit my agenda. "I'm not into that justice stuff," the silly person said. Spiritual laziness.
Verses 15-18: Now the psalmist draws a great contrast. All our little gods are powerless. They can do nothing. They are not creators, but created. They have no spirit-wind (vitality) in them. And those who trust these powerless gods, essentially amount to nothing. "You are what you eat" we say. But we might also say, "You are what you look at," "You are who you listen to," "You are who you hang with," "You are what you read." "You are what (or who) you secretly swear allegiance to."
"Other gods." Where has all our science and technology left us? We are everyday on the brink of blowing up our planet home, the plants and animals becoming extinct at alarming rates, the forests are disappearing, the garbage mountans grow higher, the air in so many places poisoned and deadly, in much of the world the water is not potable.
Verse 21: "May God be blessed." That doesn't mean we toss incense and compliments at God, but to see ourselves as servants of the God who is Master of vast worlds - inner and outer. Jesus says, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
