Dark Sky Park ~ Gravenhurst, Muskoka ~ Canada
Monks and nuns pray the psalms upwards of seven times each day. The bell rings and the community gathers, especially in the early morning, before the work day gets under way. The later-in-the-day psalms might be sung in small groups—where the bread is baked, where the cows are milked, where the truck is repaired. But almost universally, this fourth psalm is sung as a community by heart each night in a darkened chapel. It's a perfect prayer for the end of the day.
Verses 1-2: This is a very personal psalm. Notice the psalmist speaks in the first person, "When I call...you released me." Notice too that he (or she) speaks to and about God from lived experience, as if to say, "Show me your kindness again, as you have in the past." Can I name that for myself? What story can I tell of a living God who has brought me to strength, courage, freedom, wholeness?
Verse 3: Now the psalmist seems to take to task the people around him who might be listening in on his prayer. He tells his compatriots they've got closed hearts and that they waste themselves running off in pursuit of foolishness and untruth, "You love what's useless and false." Watch an hour of TV with the attendant commercials and see how timely this message still is.
We don't know how these listening-in folks felt about the psalmist's accusations. But I think of how refreshing it is today to meet someone who has a docile (teachable) spirit. Are we becoming a nation of Wiki, radio/TV news show know-it-alls?
Verse 4: "The Lord grants favors to those whom he loves...the Lord hears me." He's a confident fellow, isn't he? More than a few of us could do with a good dose of that—confidence in God's love—having been brought up perhaps to self-doubt, self-blame, self-condemnation. I remember in 6th grade, after some error in judgment, the nun got me out in the hallway and said, "Sister is very disappointed in you, boy. And I thought you were priesthood material." YIKES! I knew nothing of God's sure love; only God's seriously sad-faced disappointment.
Verse 5: "Fear him;" I don't need to fear anything of God except that I might lose God. That wouldn't be God's doing. And if I were ever to lose God, it wouldn't be for some petty, negligible or involuntary thing.
"do not sin." This doesn't mean, "You better not break any of the long memorized rules, but observe them rigorously." Sin means, missing the mark. Isn't it strange, we were taught that sin is around every corner. I'd say rather that God's wonderful grace is around every corner. I want to aim for God in everything I do. But as with most things human, we usually come in somewhere short of the mark. God doesn't get un-glued by it all. Rather, like the gentlest of parents, God's got arms outstretched, ready to grab the stumbling toddler who's trying to find her (his) legs.
Verse 6: "Make justice your sacrifice." Is the psalmist quietly taking issue with all the temple killing and burning of sacrificial animals? It seems he has a bigger picture of sacrifice when he says, "Make justice your sacrifice (your offering). Justice! Do we even know what it means? Do we think the priest who brings it up in a homily is a liberal, a radical, a socialist, a communist? I mean, really! Maybe some Christians are terrified of "justice" because we know it might require changing our minds. Maybe our real religion is our politics.
Verse 7: "What can bring us happiness?" This is one of the big questions we ask. We're a stressed out people—only number thirteen on the list of Happiest Nations. The psalmist knows the answer—"Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord." Carl Jung said, "The answer to our real problems is a spiritual answer."
Verse 8: The psalmist is revealing secret knowledge here. Were he to share it today, he might say of himself, "I have more happiness than the people who have the right watch, wine and vehicle; the right smile, hair and skin; the perfect body, the best interest rates, the best stock market yields."
This national obsession with the stock market and thinking it's the indicator of our meaning, fulfillment, human success and happiness. The psalmist would fall down, laughing himself silly.
Verse 9: The last thing the psalmist has to propose to us is, "I sleep very well. In a crazed world, I feel secure and safe in God." It's a choice.
