By Mother Rebecca

On Wednesday evenings this Eastertide, a small group of us have been meeting together on Wednesday evenings to pray, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest selections from the Psalms. Though we pray with the Psalms in the Daily Office and sing them regularly in worship, we don’t often pause to reflect on the richness of this ancient songbook.

The Psalter is the one book of the Bible that is filled, not with God’s word to us, but with our words to God. In our opening session, we learned that in Hebrew, these ancient songs are known as tellehim, “praises.” It’s a fascinating title for this collection of prayers, fully two-thirds of which aren’t praises at all but laments! In fact, as we pray the Psalms, we come into relationship with people who have taken all of their emotions to God: praise and lament and also anger, jealousy, fear, shame, regret, humiliation, disappointment, excitement, wonder, and joy.

Ellen Davis, with whom we’re spending our final two classes in the series, has described the Psalms as “the single best guide to the spiritual life currently in print.”[1] We are taught from a very young age to be polite, not to complain, to just go along to get along. As a result, most of us will tolerate a lot from others before we complain. We learn to put a lid on negative feelings and worry that we cannot go to God until we get all that ugliness out of our souls. The Psalms are a wonderful corrective: they show us that we come to God first, warts and all. The Psalms give us words for our feelings by recalling for us the words of our ancestors in the faith. As we take their words and speak them with our own lips, we come to understand our common humanity, shared across culture and time and place. As we lift up this common humanity – the joys and sorrows – to God our creator, we come to trust deeply in God’s steadfast love to welcome us, lift us, shape us, and grow us into the creatures God wants us to be. “We cannot have an intimate relationship,” Dr. Davis warns, “with someone to whom we cannot speak honestly.”

Throughout this season of pandemic, I have turned frequently to Psalm 130.

1   Out of the depths have I called to you, O LORD;
LORD, hear my voice;
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2    If you, LORD, were to note what is done amiss,
O LORD, who could stand?

3   For there is forgiveness with you;
therefore you shall be feared.

4   I wait for the LORD; my soul waits for him;
in his word is my hope.

5  My soul waits for the LORD, more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

6   O Israel, wait for the LORD,
for with the LORD there is mercy;

7   With him there is plenteous redemption,
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

In these seven verses, the Psalmist addresses God by name eight times (in Hebrew, the divine name (YHWH) is replaced with the word LORD). God is both the focus of hope and the source of help. The Psalmist complains that he or she has been calling to God and has not been heard (“I have called to you”, “hear my voice”, “let your ears consider the voice of my supplication”). The anger, blame, disappointment, grief, woundedness, loneliness, sorrow, and vulnerability of the Psalmist has felt real to me as we’ve struggled with illness, separation, masks, vaccines, and even now as we begin to emerge from our sheltering behaviors. And just as I identify with all these feelings, the Psalmist’s eventual turn toward God has turned me to a place of quiet confidence. As I have taken the concluding words upon my own lips – “Wait for the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy; with the Lord there is plenteous redemption” – I have found my faith renewed and found new strength to wait for God.

In one of our sessions, I asked participants to consider writing a Psalm of their own. Alyson Thompson, one of our newest members, sent me this lovely gem:

Lord, a new beginning is appearing….
tell me, how do I walk with you?

Lead me out of my isolation
to be your hands and feet, in the flesh.

I wonder what Psalms have spoken to you most often during the past year. I wonder if you, too, have experienced the deep connection with God and God’s people throughout history as you’ve taken these sacred words onto your own lips. I wonder if you might consider writing your own Psalm and sharing it with me?

It isn’t too late to join us in this series. Our final session with Dr. Davis will take place this coming Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Dr. Davis will lead us through two of the concluding Psalms from the Psalter, offering her own translations and insights into these marvelous prayers. The sessions are not cumulative, so newcomers to the group will be richly blessed by this time in the presence of one of the preeminent Old Testament teachers of our time. You can also watch recordings of our prior classes on our website.

I’ll see you Sunday!

Rebecca+

[1] Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament