The (beautiful) math of Psalm 23

Psalm 23

            The 23^rd Psalm is so ubiquitous; it’s so well-known; and it’s used in so many places and contexts that it’s hard on a Sunday morning during the summer with free reign to take it anywhere and everywhere to figure out from which angle to consider this Psalm. In the past, I’ve sung this Psalm with guitar around campfires and re-told the story of David, I’ve read this Psalm with a person who was dying, I’ve preached on this Psalm at a bunch of funerals, and it’s been read at many others. Besides that, the 23^rd Psalm has been used in more pop culture references than probably any other verses in the Bible. You all know it—probably in the King James—so this is the opposite of most scripture: You know it and it’s dear to many of you.

            So, I’m going to dig deep today and try to show you something about this Psalm that you might find interesting. It has to do with everybody’s favorite subject—math—so you know it’s going to be good. OK, it’s not math but proportions and ratios. Did you know that authors who wrote in ancient Hebrew were often obsessed with numerology and ratios? And this is for a very straight-forward reason, actually. Every letter in ancient Hebrew was also a number; they didn’t have a separate system of letters and numbers like we do. So, as you might imagine, clever authors would often play with words and numbers to create some beautiful double-meanings (this is also proof that even in ancient Israel there were nerds, which helps some of us relate). If that doesn’t interest you, perfect, because I’m not going to talk about numerology with Psalm 23.What I am going to talk about with this Psalm is its ratios, or how ancient Hebrew writers would elevate certain verses based on their placement in the poetry.

            Shakespeare did this in English, too—really, every good author does this in one way or another—but ancient Hebrew is better suited on the whole for this kind of work than English because the words were meant to be chanted and so they had a bit of musical feel to them already, making emphasizing some parts of a phrase that much easier to do. For this reason, you will often find in the Old Testament that a part of a poem is emphasized based on its placement in the verse, and often the part that is emphasized most is precisely at the middle. Sometimes you can see this in English translations when certain words are stacked like a pyramid toward the central meaning of the verse and then the same words descend on the far side. Sometimes, like in the book of Jonah, you have Jonah uttering 39 words against God, and God responding with 39 words that put Jonah in his place. Today, in Psalm 23, like the Jonah example, you have structure that is not so obvious in English, but if you start counting the words in this Psalm you will find a remarkable thing. There are twenty-six Hebrew words to begin the Psalm and twenty-six Hebrew words to end the Psalm and smack-dab in the middle is one simple phrase that this Psalm is all about: “You are with me.” The 23^rd Psalm is a pyramid leading us to chant aloud: “You are with me.”

Deliverance Psalms and the Bedrock of Faith

Psalm 13

I have a couple of strongly differing opinions on Psalms of deliverance like Psalm 13. One is that I think I really like these Psalms because they feel incredibly honest to me. They start, like Psalm 13 starts, by asking “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” That’s a brutally honest question that one part of me rather likes. But the other side of me trembles at these Psalms because I feel like many people—perhaps most people—hear this not as some honest, beautiful prayer of vulnerability but as some kind of affront to their piety. It feels like doubt and doubt feels to us like the opposite of faith. I think we are at risk in our modern world of losing that sweet spot of vulnerability where we can pray prayers like this. I see plenty of examples of people who pray prayers of thankfulness or prayers of necessity, but prayers of trust in spite of the circumstances seem rarer. Perhaps this is because we are results-oriented people, so the idea of praying “How long, O Lord?” quickly turns to “I don’t believe in God because God has not answered me to my timely satisfaction.”

            For the writers of the Psalms trust in God is the bedrock of their lives. Because God is their certainty they feel free to pray anything and everything—they pray “How long, O God?” and they pray, “Defeat my enemies, O God” and they pray “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” They pray all this and so much more because God is not under debate—they are. They are more certain of God than they are of themselves. The modern problem is that we approach prayer, like we approach so many things in life, as a test of what is true in the world. God is very much under debate and often we are not. This is the opposite approach to those who wrote the Psalms.

            For the Psalmist sometimes prayer is simply yelling stuff at God, because to yell our barest emotions at God is still to acknowledge God first before ourselves; it’s OK to be upset with God, just not to decide, in a moment of crisis, that now is the time for a crisis of faith as well. It is much better to yell at God than to decide in the midst of turmoil that God doesn’t exist… that God doesn’t matter… that a truly just and merciful God would never allow this thing to happen to me. In the face of despair all the cracks in your façade will appear and the question of what you truly trust will rise to the top. The Psalms don’t have time to decide in what they put their trust; by the time it’s here it’s too late.

Lutherans and Praise

Psalm 100

It was VBS time at Red River this past week and so it feels like a good time to talk about praise. Children do praise well. Of course, some kids are shy and some of them are afraid to stand in front of people, but the one thing kids do that adults often do not is they give it a shot. They try things. Often those things don’t work because kids aren’t always all that bright, but they try nonetheless. The adults in their lives—their parents, teachers, whomever—are constantly having to set boundaries because kids will try anything and everything. It’s why we put covers over light sockets and locks on the cleaning cabinet. Given the opportunity, kids will try it.

            I’ve spent a good deal of time recently pondering that bit in the Gospels about becoming like children. The last three Sunday scripture readings have, in different ways, left me considering the positive attributes of children’s faith. Today, talking about praise I feel the need to revisit this subject one more time because, let’s face it, adult Lutherans aren’t the best praise-ers. I was just at Synod Assembly the last two days and I can tell you that this is not specific only to Kittson County. The only swaying I saw in Moorhead was related to the 90 degree weather in the non-air-conditioned room. Heat stroke and praise are not the same thing. But it did get me thinking: What does it look like for Lutherans to do praise? Because I don’t think the only way to do praise is lifting up ours hands and saying, “Praise Jesus” half-aloud. I also don’t want to mock that, because if it’s earnest it’s good. I just wonder if we need praise, and if so, is that the only way? Because I have my doubts that many of us will ever do anything praise-ful if that’s what it is.

            That wondering about praise brought me back to children, because I watch Natalie when she’s into something religious—and she’s old enough now that she does sometimes get into prayers and church songs and whatnot. At VBS—at seven at night—maybe not so much but at other times she does. And when Natalie is doing song and dance she is doing praise, even if she doesn’t really understand the thing she is praising, and it’s exactly that realization that caused me to pause. She doesn’t really understand, I thought, but who among us does? Who among us really understands who and what it is that we are praising? More to the point, is praise about understanding at all? Isn’t praise a response to a feeling? Today is Trinity Sunday—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—who can wrap their head around that? Who really understands how all that works?

            The funny thing is if I ask Natalie, “Do you know what we’re doing when we’re praying?” She’ll say, “Yep!” And then she’ll stand there and wait for me to explain. It might be a bad sign that she already think she’s knows whatever I’m asking, but I’ll take it as a good sign that she at least waits for me to explain it after she’s said she knows. Anyway, again I found myself thinking, “Wait, isn’t that how the rest of us are too?” If I ask you, “Do you know what we’re doing when we’re praying?” You probably also think, “Yep!” And then you wait and ponder what that might mean, and maybe you even wait for me to say something to try to make it clearer. We aren’t so different from children. God is a mystery, and better yet, God only becomes more mysterious the more you study him and the more you wrestle with your preconceived notions of who God is. Praise comes in understanding that I don’t get it, but still I want to say “Thank you.” Praise is however we live out our feelings of gratitude.

Hourglasses and time's fullness

Galatians 4:1-7

            Last week we heard from Paul who wrote in Galatians that there is no longer Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free but all are one in Christ Jesus, so you are excused if you find it a bit strange that in the very next chapter in Galatians Paul begins by comparing children who are heirs to slaves. But that should also be a clue that Paul is making a point about who we are as human beings—that we were enslaved to sin even outside of our control, and so God sent Jesus to adopt us while we were still children. Still, this is a jarring metaphor. So, is the metaphor of being children. Mostly, we don’t like being called children. Sure, we can understand Jesus telling us we must become like children to enter the kingdom of God, but being like a child is different from being called a child. We don’t want to be slaves or children—can’t we just be adults?

            One way to understand Paul’s metaphors is to understand God’s time against our time. All of this has to do with time actually, specifically how our lives move forward from childhood to adulthood toward becoming an elder in your family or your community. We see time as a progression—a gradual expense that builds us into wiser, better people. We spend time, but Paul uses a slightly different metaphor for time. He says that time gets full. I find myself drawn to this metaphor in Galatians 4:4, which reads: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son…” I find myself in wonder over the concept of time’s fullness. This is a metaphor that is hard for us in the 21^st century when time is measured by our phones and watches—when time is told by arms moving around a clock-face or, more often, by numbers scrolling across a digital display. Time, for us, marks the next in a series of to-do list items, and so we imagine it’s always in short supply. We don’t talk about time’s fullness for one because we don’t use hourglasses anymore—even our board games that once had those little minute-glasses have been replaced with digital countdown devices that go tick-tock, tick-tock—but we also don’t talk about time’s fullness because we are so busy cramming things into our time that we don’t step back to consider the way that time can fill up rather than drain away. Our image of time is so often of running out, but God’s image of time is fullness. Sand accumulating, not sand spent.