From Obedience to Praise (3): Discovery of What Matters Most Leads to Unabandoned Praise

This is the third and final post on the topic of the journey that the Psalter takes us on from naive obedience to unabandoned praise. (See part 1 and part 2)

Psalm 73 is where the paradigm shifts in the Psalter's journey towards God's presence being the reward rather than material blessing. Psalm 103 is the next psalm that Walter Brueggemann looks at in this pilgrimage. In it we see trust in God's 'hesed'* but the speaker hasn't yet arrived at pure doxology. Psalm 103 has moved past the harsh complaining of Psalm 25 but two problems are still lingering and presented in Psalm 103: guilt and mortality.

Psalm 103 is a psalm of confidence that God's mercy and compassion are greater than human sin and mortality. "In the end it is not human righteousness but the abiding trustworthiness of Yahweh that matters decisively."

God's faithfulness is everything and supersedes all else; it transforms human guilt, enabling humans to praise him in spite of circumstances that don't fit the premise given in Psalm 1. Glimpses, hints and hunches of God's good presence are what keeps Israel moving and hoping, moving from trustful naivete (Psalm 1) to trustful abandonment (Psalm 150). (By the way, Brueggemann makes the observation that this is not a one-time journey but is made over and over again in Israel's story, as in ours...)

In this journey Israel is impinged upon, impacted by life's realities; but not only is Israel impinged upon but "the God praised in the psalms is also impinged upon by Israel's assaults, summoned to change and impelled to risk..."

There are no words adequate for such a God and such good news!! His faithfulness is what matters most in the end, and it is discovering and embracing this that inspires faithfulness in his people. Any loss you might experience (and there will always be loss of some sort) by going outside prescribed religious boundaries to find God and his goodness is well worth it. All praise to him! I will close with the doxology of Psalm 150 (The Passion Translation):

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
   Praise God in his holy sanctuary!
   Praise him in his stronghold in the sky!

Praise him for his miracles of might!
   Praise him for his magnificent greatness!

Praise him with the trumpets blasting!
   Praise him with piano and guitar!

Praise him with drums and dancing!
   Praise him with the loud, 
      resounding clash of cybals!
   Praise him with every instrument you can find!

Let everyone everywhere
   join in the crescendo
   of ecstatic praise to 
      Yahweh!
   Hallelujah!
   Praise the Lord! 

 


*'covenantal fidelity guaranteeing moral coherence'

From Obedience to Praise (2): Redefining What is "Good" through Protest, Candor and Communion

This is the second part in my 3-part overview of Walter Brueggemann's paper on the book of Psalms, "Bounded by Obedience and Praise". (See part 1 here)

By the time we get to Psalm 73, midway through the Psalter, we see more push-back to God's 'hesed'*. Brueggemann says: "honest faith cannot linger too long at the boundary of Psalm 1."
Honest faith requires us to push the boundaries of simplistic dogmatic ways of thinking; organized religion works to keep people inside its prescribed boundaries.

Psalm 72 directs the king (Solomon) to be just and righteous; we know from Israel's history that Solomon failed to be that. Psalm 73 is the response, a crisis of faith; it is a psalm of dispute and dismay after the abrupt ending of a season of "royal buoyancy".

Psalm 73 is crucial in moving from obedience (Torah piety) to doxology (praise). It begins with a restatement of Psalm 1's premise but immediately protests against it. But as the psalm develops, the protest is overcome with trust. Psalm 73:17 is the pivot point: "But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I perceived their end." In worship, the speaker re-perceives reality and affirms Psalm 1.

Brueggemann explains what has shifted: "Face to face engagement with God is finally what matters... 'Presence' is what matters more than the ostensive advantage of the wicked, even though the apparent advantage of the wicked described in vv. 2-14 was the very advantage promised to the righteous in Psalm 1....Now the goodness treasured is not material blessing but God's own self...the speaker has traversed, as Israel regularly traverses, the path from obedience to praise, by way of protest, candor and communion." 

Psalm 73 is a paradigm shift..."good" becomes God and his presence instead of "good" being a coherent blessed life (as expressed in Psalm 1).

I'll complete this short series in the following post.




*hesed: "covenantal fidelity guaranteeing moral coherence"

From Obedience to Praise (1): Ingredients for Honest Faith According to the Psalms

I've observed over the years that a major obstacle to truly maturing in God is religion. In Christianity I find that a narrow and rigid view of God (which often comes from our way of interpreting the Bible) inhibits many from truly experiencing largeness of heart and mind because we fear that to be completely open and honest with him about perplexing issues of real life would displease him. Consequently, we bend over backwards to make sure we are "religiously correct" in our language so that God and religious people aren't offended by how we speak about life and God.

However, as I've soaked in the Psalms and tried to listen to them honestly, I've learned to value and desire "truth in the inward being" (Psalm 51), as God does; this has led me away from the confines of religious platitudes to increasingly more honest dialog and questioning with him.

Recently a friend shared a paper written by Walter Brueggemann in 1991 entitled "Bounded by Obedience and Praise, The Psalms as Canon".  Brueggemann, an Old Testament scholar and theologian who is widely considered one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of the last several decades, is probably best known for his book, Prophetic Imagination. I want to share some from this paper because it gives language and support to the point I'm making which is that to have a mature faith in God, we must be honest and authentic in our relating with God.

In this and two subsequent posts, I will summarize what I've learned along these lines through Walter Brueggemann...

Brueggemann presents four genres in the Psalter:
1 - Torah piety 
2 - Lament questioning of God's 'hesed'* 
3 - Hymn acknowledging God's 'hesed'  
4 - Hymn  

He looks at five particular psalms to present his case: 1, 25, 73, 103, 150. The Psalter leads us on a journey from the naivete of Psalm 1 to the maturity of Psalm 150.

Psalm 1 is an expression of "Torah piety" (i.e., the belief in God's 'hesed' which is "covenantal fidelity guaranteeing moral coherence"). In other words, life is a simple equation: God will prosper the person who is faithful/obedient to the law of God; the wicked/disobedient will suffer.

Psalm 25 wants to believe Psalm 1, but experience bears out that the formula of Psalm 1 doesn't actually work in most of life. God's 'hesed' has broken down for the psalmist, and this psalm shows the beginnings of questioning the positive assumptions of Psalm 1.

As you read through Psalm 25 you can sense the beginnings of struggle within the psalmist as he wants to remain faithful to the proposition of Psalm 1 and yet isn't seeing it play out in real life. He's introducing his troubles, afflictions and the treatment he's receiving from the wicked.

In the following post we'll look at Psalm 73 in the progression from "obedience to praise".