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"