Psalm 119:97-104—This section of Psalm 119 is
dedicated to the Hebrew letter “Mem.”
Meditating on God’s revelation yields the highest wisdom. As we meditate on the
Lord’s words and promises we grow into a deeper understanding of the Lord. Are you thinking of making a New Year’s
resolution? Will you keep it? The Lord always keeps His promises. He has bound
Himself to His Word.
In 1969, the iconic children’s educational television
production Sesame Street launched its fast-paced programming. Each weekday
morning the show was “brought to you by the letters…and the number” Its bold
colors and targeted content changed the way that media has addressed young
children over the ensuing 50 years.
Psalm 119:97-104 is “brought
to us by the letter mem, and the number 13.” Mem is the 13th letter of the
Hebrew alphabet in this dynamic acrostic poem from the book of Psalms. Mem maps
to the sound of our letter M and it frames the words used in this particular
stanza of the Psalm.
The passion and enthusiasm of this particular portion of the
longest chapter of the Bible is almost Sesame Street-like, presented at a fast
pace in bold and colorful language. “Oh!
How I love your law!” To the moon and back…Then, for several verses, the
author proceeds to link the law to what it does for the self in rather
grandiose and childlike terms: it makes me wiser than my enemies, smarter than
my teachers, better than my elders. I am super charged to keep myself from
every evil way; and later, the law is represented as ancient candy for the
soul—sweeter than honey. Yum! What kid wouldn’t choose sweetness over
substance?
Removed from the context of the rest of the chapter, a background
knowledge of Torah, and the second line of each couplet in those verses, one
could be tempted to believe that keeping the law is at best a rapid-fire
shortcut to superiority or at worst an invitation to ethical egoism (I should
follow God’s ways because I like it and because it’s good—FOR ME!).
Isn’t that the temptation of the human condition? To skim
across the top? To choose the parts that make us look powerful and to leave out
parts like the hard work of deep meditation on the ways of God? We seek out the
parts that sound scrumptious as the sound of the letter MMMMMM. The temptation
to play superficially with Scripture is essentially the strategy used by Satan
when he attempted to lure Jesus away from his purpose by tempting him to use
Scripture for selfish ends (Matthew 4). And we dare not take the bait!
From the perspective of someone who has spent much energy in
ministry considering the spiritual formation of children, I am grateful that
Scripture speaks on so many different levels throughout our ages and stages.
There is a time in the development of every Christian that we need to see “what’s in it for me.” But if we are to
live a life of rich and deep faith, we cannot stay there in the ego driven
space of childhood. To use the structure of the poetry and the “brought to you
by” language of Sesame Street, we have to move from single letter faith into
the world of words, and from isolated words to reading the bigger story. If the
images of this Psalm are to be believed, engagement in Scripture is continuous
and life consuming, and moves us ever deeper into living out God’s story in our
world.
In vs. 97, the passionate embrace of the love of law is
followed by the formative discipline of meditation—not the 1-minute breathing
reminders that pop up on our Apple watches, but an all-day long awareness that
Scripture must infuse our every thought and act. Our relationship to God as
understood through Scripture literally becomes our life’s breath and changes
the way we breathe though our days—our work, our stress, our joy, our
recreation. We are brought to life through the breath of God in our nostrils
and we bring God’s life to others as we engage in the living and active process
of submission to God’s will as revealed through Scripture. It is not enough to
have a God-moment or a cursory read over the verse of the day. We live
meditatively, allowing ourselves to be shaped and formed by the law of the Lord
in each moment, not a moment.
In vs. 98, being “wiser
than my enemies” is likewise paired with active engagement with the law as
we face those enemies not on our own, but with the resource of God’s
illumination of the Scriptural record that lead us to the heart of God. We know
how to deal with the enemies of our souls because God teaches us how to do so.
There is a qualitative difference in how the Spirit-led, Scripture-guided
believer deals with conflict and life challenges—or there can be—because we are
not left to our own myopic perspectives.
In vs. 99, commentators differ in how the Psalmist might
have “more understanding than teachers”
(an apparent disrespect for the office of teacher so intolerable that Jewish
translations of the passage offer an alternative interpretation of the
Psalmist’s assertion). Some commentators postulate that the teachers referred
to were apostate and not worthy of deference. Others say these were teachers of
ancient wisdom who did not represent Jewish tradition, but contributed to a
royal education for political purposes. I wonder if the Psalmist refers to
teachers of the law who had simply become so numb to the routines of teaching
that they no longer felt the passion and commitment the Psalmist experienced.
Regardless, this verse makes clear that practicing an integrated application of
the word of God leads to deep understanding.
Nothing less. We can’t merely grasp at objective knowledge rained down
on us from an external source. It isn’t enough to know it for the test. We must
be people who practice what we’ve been privileged to learn. Only then can we
have true understanding of what we have been taught.
Verse 100 makes clear that neither time nor natural
developmental progress can substitute for the hard work of practicing what
we’ve learned or are learning. While traditional authority figures may be
worthy of respect, there is no “glass
ceiling” that can oppress the one who seeks God, and there is no age
barrier to receiving God’s blessing.
A deep understanding of the ways of God requires the
positive action of attending to and applying God’s law with intentionality as
seen in the previous verses, but it also requires removing oneself from evil
ways and not turning away from the truth God has revealed (vss. 101-102). This
demonstrates the mutuality of the way of affirmation and the way of negation in
our spiritual formation. We are called to both affirm the significance of the
biblical way and to avoid those things which interfere with appreciation of the
biblical way. Both leaning in and walking away are meaningful ways of allowing
the word of God to dwell richly within us, and both paths together invite God
to speak to every aspect of our being and behaving.
The passage concludes by circling back to the love expressed
in verse 97. It engages language that is strikingly similar to Solomon’s
appreciation of his bride in Song of Songs 4:11. The imagery of sweet honey
reminds us that deep engagement with God’s story is not to be dreaded, even if it
is demanding and requires that we become different in multiple steps along the
way. The journey is filled with pleasure to the senses and to the soul. But it
is a story of both passionate love and diligent marriage. The contrast of love
for God’s truth in the beginning of the passage and hatred for false promises
of wisdom and understanding at the end are a powerful invitation to choose well
between deep love and hope-filled promises.
This passage is quite far from the braggart’s stanza of
Psalm 119, though it might appear to be ego driven at first glance. The passage
actually reveals the passion of a poet who is committed with nearly childlike
enthusiasm to a deep relationship with God through Scripture and who is
unafraid of making bold claims about the benefits of who he is becoming through
that interactive process.[2]
[1] Jesus in the Temple, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, woodcuts copyright © WELS Permission to use these copyrighted items is limited to personal and congregational use.
[2] http://www.aplainaccount.org/psalm-11997-104/
[3] Collect for Psalm 119, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book For and By the Church Vol. I © 1994 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY
No comments:
Post a Comment