Theology 7372, Fall 2009

I have owned a lot of music albums – some complete junk, some good driving tunes, some connected to specific seasons. Some, however, were revolutionary to my existence. If you think I’m kidding, you clearly have not listened to enough music. I have several of these albums – the ones that can settle my soul no matter what storms are raging outside.

One such album is Andrew Peterson’s Love and Thunder. With the exception of one track, every song speaks to a deep part of my soul and informs a part of my story. The song “Silence of God”, however, is something on another level. It was the first piece of writing that allowed me to be angry and confused and told me that not everyone’s faith was puppies, sunshine and Jesus. Many of the people that I knew around me constantly told me that it was not allowed to question God or to be angry at what was happening in my world or to grieve the realities of the universe. I was instructed to “let go and let God” more times than I’d like to repeat. For the record – none of that advice was helpful, nor was necessarily theologically accurate. However, against the “voices of the mob”, came the peaceful voice of Andrew Peterson.

Assuring me that I was not alone in my sorrow or my frustration or my confusion; this song provided no answers. It is the “holy, lonesome echo”, after all, that silence of God. It is not something that can be explained away or prevented, it just is a reality of perception. Yes, I recognize that there are ample arguments to be made that God is not silent and is always active in the lives of humanity. However, there are times that seems like a cruel joke.

There is deep precedent in the Psalms of questioning the presence of God. Questions resound as to why God has forsaken the psalmists, wondering if God has left because of the psalmists actions or because God is a fickle being. These, of course, are sentiments expressed through the ages – which is why I include Andrew’s prose here.

If faith is to be valid and living and vibrant, doubt must be as well. Dissent is the highest form of patriotism and I believe that doubt is often the highest form of faith. It is only the ability to completely trust that the faith can hold and handle my questions that one can truly rest in being faithful.

It’s enough to drive a man crazy; it’ll break a man’s faith
It’s enough to make him wonder if he’s ever been sane
When he’s bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod
And the heaven’s only answer is the silence of God

It’ll shake a man’s timbers when he loses his heart
When he has to remember what broke him apart
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they’ve got
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross
Then what about the times when even followers get lost?
‘Cause we all get lost sometimes…

There’s a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold
And He’s kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone
All His friends are sleeping and He’s weeping all alone

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God

the second installment in my modern psalmists series

As faithful readers know, I spent a bit of time living in the wee land of Northern Ireland. I wrote a lot about it while I was there, but in re-reading the thoughts that I was willing to throw down on paper while there – they are not even scratchings of how I was processing life around me. I have emotionally committed to myself this semester that I will be faithful to the story that land has created in me and become more willing to talk about how it has shaped my present and my future. This post is the beginning of some of that. I suppose that there are levels to which I could argue that the below song by Brian Houston (found on his exceptional ‘Jesus and Justice’ record that everyone should own) encapsulates much of why I still cannot ‘move on’ from life there. I have spent the past three and a half years trying to explain to myself and those around me why the Church in Northern Ireland has behaved the way it has and why conflict looks the way it looks and why even the name ‘The Troubles’ is telling of the national processing process. I have not always been successful. But a large piece of my questioning is the idea of violence sanctioned by religious institutions and religious persons and how people can begin to claim that Yahweh is a God of sides and territories, of flags and colors. It is that reality that Brian is speaking to in this song. Some of the images in this song are specific to the culture he is speaking to (Orange Collars are a specifically Northern Irish entity, for instance, as well as the other references to parades) – but the idea is universal. The ideas that divide us are often what are talked about the most. We spend much time debating Yahweh’s preferences without often taking into account the preferences and commands that are explicit. We are commanded to serve and to care and to offer hospitality and grace. We are called to love. I believe that’s what Brian is speaking to here. That the ultimate piece of the gospel that is non-negotiable is love. Discussing theology is grand and deciding doctrine is often necessary, but to do either at the sacrifice of love is ridiculous.

“We Don’t Need Religion” – Brian Houston I see the people in the balconies, in the streets and in their cars Party going animals and in the backer rooms and the bars Saying “We don’t need religion, we don’t need religion” I’ve been a timberjack, been a laborer, been a shipyard man and a shirker I worked with builders building houses and heard a million McDonald’s workers Saying “We don’t need religion, we don’t need religion, We don’t need religion, but we could use the love of God” Well I’ve got false prophets on my TV tell me this Union’s doomed While the Spirit-filled believers shake up the floor space in the room Saying “We don’t need religion, we don’t need religion” Come on you preachers, you pastors, all you priests, nuns and scholars Come on and walk down those roads Without those robes, crucifixes and Orange Collars You know we don’t need religion, you know we can’t feed religion Well we don’t need religion, but we could use the love of God So is it Saturday or is it Sunday, the fact is I’m never sure Well, there’s a Sabbath in there someway Why can’t we try Yom Kippur? You know we don’t need religion, we don’t need religion And while we’re all so busy fighting, using up God’s precious time There’s a thousand starving homeless people saying “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” We can’t eat religion, we can’t eat religion, We don’t need religion, but we could use the love of God

Amen

Psalms.

In my estimation there may not be a more enigmatic section of the Bible. At least for me. Something about the way the individual songs were constructed and the use of goats and horses and what not presents a world that, at best, is quite different and far removed from mine. So sometimes I just don’t get what the psalmists are talking about.

In reading through a portion of the Psalms this week, though, I found kindred spirits who spoke from across the expanse of history. I discovered people I had things in common with, people that understood me.

I am always struck by others’ abilities to simply forget about bad things that happen in the world and in their lives. It is as if they gloss over the meaningfully painful events of life in order to maintain a peace that, by all accounts, is fragile and precarious. Some of the psalmists, though, embrace the painful. They cling to the hurtful. They latch on to the uncomfortable. And then they pray to God that God will hear and relieve them. And I think that’s how it’s supposed to be done.

It isn’t healthy to simply replace the frown on your face with a smile like you would a Mr. Potato-head doll. But it’s not healthy to moan and complain and stay stuck in the rut either. No, the lesson from the psalmists is that we must embrace these things in order to fully experience life and then to make our petitions known to God so that we might have life even more abundantly as we rely on our God to not only save us, but experience our condition with us and understand where we are coming from when no one else can.

And that’s why the Psalms have been good to me this week.

1. When and how did certain Psalms become attributed to David?

2. How long of a period is estimated for the authorship and gathering of the Psalms?

3. What’s the deal with the 151st Psalm in the Apocrypha and not in the canonical writings?

4. How diverse are the backgrounds of the authors of the Psalms? eg., Priestly, Elohist, Pre-exilic, Post-exilic, etc.

It has taken me a LONG TIME to read the Psalms. This is not due to the length of each psalm, or even the ability to read for 5 or 10 minutes at a time and easily pick up where I left off. The hardest part for me is putting them all together in a “mental hymnal,” in order that I may more clearly understand the laments, joyful times, thanksgiving, and all of the emotions in between. And there is one part that I completely underestimated about the Psalms…there is so much personal history embedded in them. Not just the daydreams I would have as a child of David playing on his harp and singing his lungs out for the Lord, but the quiet, still times. Those times when it was read from a Bible storybook right before a child’s bedtime, the long years that is has lived in the heart of my grandmother who can recite many psalms from childhood memory, the tearful reading of a famous psalm at a funeral, and even the reciting of a joyful psalm at a wedding or celebration. The psalms remind me of home and comfort, for some of these (besides John 3:16 and Amazing Grace) are oftentimes a person’s only link to a personal God. I hope this isn’t the case, but I am so grateful for this hymnal that brings people together, in sad and glad times, and can be heard and read and understood and spoken off the lips because it was hidden in one’s heart as a conversation with God, the most personal and most profound relationship we can ever have, the one with our Maker.

One last thought…I recently visited with an ill woman who only wanted to hear Psalm 91. Her eyes were weak and, in one of my wiser moments (a rarity) having brought a Bible when I visited her, we bonded over Psalm 91 together. I read, she recited. That was a very powerful moment, reading about the Lord’s faithfulness in mighty battles and storms. This particular psalm is from a third party, talking about the Lord’s great might–a testimony in the greatest of storytelling form. She and I relished in the mighty words of this psalm together, we fully let ourselves free of distraction and interconnected into the psalmist and the Lord we were praising. It was such a powerful moment that I’ll never forget. Not only was I reminded of the deep meaningfulness psalms have in people’s lives as they converse with their Lord, I learned of the great power that comes from these words in the psalms. This was a great lesson.

Would God continue to allow “our enemies” to continue to harass  us whiles He sits unconcern? In Psalms, there are so many  implicatory Psalms. In Psalm 3, 5, 7 among many others. For example, in Psalm 7:15,he said that “he who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made “e e

Many times when we read the Psalms, we run across sections that are quite violent and claiming victory before it has happened.  Of course, the Psalmist believes God is on their side. This makes complete sense.  Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a world-renowned plastic surgeon and author of Psycho-Cybernetics coined the term “psychocybernetics” to describe such visualizations.  Okay, not all the violence, but in battle… violence makes sense. Cybernetics is the goal-striving behavior of machines and mechanical systems, and the “psycho” on the front of it causes it to be applied to the human thought processes.

Basically, Maltz says that our goal-striving mechanisms seek to accomplish the pictures created in our imagination.  This goal-striving mechanism cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy.  It needs images to be vivid to work effectively.

In That Winning Feeling! by Jane Savoie (reserve rider for 1992 US Olympic Dressage Team, coach for US team at 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics) goes into how we can apply the psychocybernetics principles to our daily lives in order to achieve our goals. Although this seems like something that is relatively new, it is not.  We see it being played out in the Psalms, as well as in every  motivational speech that we hear before any sports activity.  We are to visualize our victory.  We are to go out there and play like we are already the winners.  This doesn’t mean to slack off, but to do everything possible to bring our visualizations into reality. In other words, it makes sense for the Psalms to carry these violent tones and to claim victories.  Who goes into battle desiring to lose?  Who sets up tactical defenses with the hope that they fail?  The Psalmist is claiming victory, visualizing how God is on their side and helping them.  It does not matter if the Psalmist is reminding the people of past events, the pictures are so vivid that the mind remembers the joy of victory and strives to achieve it again.

The palmists are not afraid to let their emotions flow through and have a one-on-one talk with God. I think a valuable lesson is demonstrated by the psalmists. We can strive to have a real and personal relationship with God through Christ by not placing artifical boundaries between ourselves and God. Everday is not filled with the pleasantries we desire and there is no need to bottle the disappointments of life inside. It’s OK to have a heart to heart conversation with God, letting him know our hopes, hurts, struggles and pains. After all if we can’t be real with our risen Lord and Savior, who can we trust?