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".