Psalm 73

Psalm 73 reads like a commentary on today’s world.

In the United States, we are seeing the demise of the middle class and a significant rise in poverty. We are watching the rich get immensely richer while the poor get significantly poorer.

Across the globe, across the ages this has been a terrible truth for most of the people on the planet.

The problem is not simply that some people are rich and others are poor.

The problem is the arrogance, self-righteousness and indifference prosperity often creates within the wealthy. The problem is the deep inequities that diminish and devalue the poor, people who are made in God’s own image and likeness.

Our psalmist saw this first hand.

I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they have no pain; their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people.

Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them like a garment. Their eyes swell out with fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.

They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues range over the earth.

The oppression of the rich over the poor is as old as humankind itself.
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As You Read The Revelation of John

“Bizarre” is a pretty good word to describe the book of Revelation.

In this vision, we see images of four horsemen of the apocalypse, seven bowls of wrath, tormented sinners crying out from the lake of fire, the satan bound for a thousand years and then the final battle of Armageddon.

“Bizarre” is also a good word to describe many of the interpretations of the book of Revelation that have been offered over the years. There is some deeply flawed theology out there – I’m sure you’ve noticed.

For one entire semester in seminary, I dug into the Revelation with my favorite professor, Dr. Gene Boring. His commentary is one of the gems of recent scholarship and he is well known for his wise, thoughtful approach to this odd but important last book of the Bible.

Ask good questions

Always, whenever we study the Bible, we must be asking two fundamental questions: “What DID it mean?” and “What DOES it mean?”

What did this pastoral letter mean to the seven churches of Asia who first received it at the end of the first century? And what can it mean for us now in the twenty-first century? Finding that bridge of appropriate interpretation across time and culture is no simple task.

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Living in Apocalypse

The Story of the human race has cycled through numerous apocalyptic ages throughout our history.

And when we are there, it feels like the end of the world.

Our current Living in The Story leads us readers into Exile with Israel. Their world has ended in many ways and things will never be the same.

At the same time, as Living in The Story readers, we encounter the experience of the first century Christians. With the destruction of the Second Temple during the Great Jewish Revolt and the great defeat of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., their world also had come to an end.

During both these epochal ages, Judaism and Christianity evolved into something completely different. Something old died and something brand new emerged.

A new creation was birthed into the world.

This image of birthing is helpful as we consider how to respond to these apocalyptic times. When everything we know, everything we are is in transition, it can feel as if the the whole earth is in labor.

As I write this in the fall of 2019, our world is in tumult.

  • Climate crises.
  • Constant war.
  • Rising violence.
  • Ethnic conflicts.
  • Class divides.
  • Waves of authoritarianism in the U.S. and around the world.

I keep reminding myself this is not the worst things have ever been. But things are pretty bad.

Are we also in labor?

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Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

Psalm 137 breaks our hearts. It also is one of the only laments that breaks the pattern: the pain is so deep that it never finds its way back to praise.

In Psalm 137, there is no “nevertheless.”
On the willows we hung our harps …

… for our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

Jerusalem’s destruction is complete. The walls are toppled, the Temple is razed, the last of David’s kingly descendants are executed and God’s people are marched across the Fertile Crescent to Exile in Babylon.

All they have now are their memories.

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!

Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you; if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.

Some of the memories picture the shining Temple on the hill of Zion, sparkling in the light of the morning sun.

More recent memories see blood running in the streets.

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As You Read Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah is a tremendous work. It is long and meaty, full of fascinating prose and brilliant poetry.

Isaiah icon by Lynne Beard

Isaiah shaped the entire theology of Israel during a critical turning point of their history. As they looked back at their experience of Exile, Jewish theologians sought to understand what had gone wrong within their covenant relationship with Israel’s God; they sought to learn from their mistakes and forge a new future with hope and faithfulness.

Isaiah also is quoted or referenced over and over again throughout the New Testament. Within the pages of Isaiah, New Testament theologians discovered profound insights helping them make sense and understand this one, Jesus, whom they proclaimed to be Christ, God’s Messiah.

1st, 2nd and 3rd Isaiah

Scholars note three major and distinctive writings within the one book that carries the name Isaiah.

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Psalm 77

I cry aloud that God may hear me.

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying.

My soul refuses to be comforted.

Psalm 77 reads like the diary of anyone who has ever suffered unspeakable pain.

I think of God, and I moan.

I meditate, and my spirit faints.

I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

This dark night of the soul is speechless. There are no words that can communicate the trauma and grief. Like Job, sitting in silence in the ashes for seven days, sometimes there is nothing to say.

And then, after the silence (as is true of all the laments of the psalms), comes the challenge.

For Israel, God is the Covenant God, the One who has promised to keep promises. So – where is God now? – the poet cries.

Has God’s steadfast love ceased forever? Are God’s promises at an end for all time?

Has God forgotten to be gracious and in anger shut up his compassion?”

But then – after the silence, and after the challenge – this psalmist finally turns to memory.

Even in the midst of the current despair, his spirit searchings produce memories of another time when God’s faithfulness was actual and visible.

Remembering is a strategy.
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Psalm 139

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Psalm 139 is one of my favorites.

I have a strong memory of a time when I was overwhelmed with self doubt and a negative self-image. When I got to verse 14 and read these beautiful words, I cried: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; I know that very well.”

During those dark days, I certainly did not think of myself as a “wonderful work,” but the psalmist helped turn my insecurity into humble confidence.

With all my flaws and failures, I know I am a wonderful work of the Creator. 

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea – even there your hand shall lead me; your right hand shall hold me fast.

There is no place where God is not.
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Where Was God?

A friend of mine wrote to me after the horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. “Where was God?!” he asked.

I suspect lots of people have been asking that hard question as violence around the globe has sky rocketed in recent years.

I made a stab at an answer but I don’t think he was satisfied with it. How could he be? I wasn’t satisfied myself.

Another friend and I sat at lunch just after her husband was sent off to jail for 10 years. She asked pretty much the same question. I made a stab once again: “God is with you. God weeps with you. God will never leave you.” It sounded nice and pious but it didn’t help much on that afternoon of deep grief and anger.

“But why didn’t God DO something!?” she cried.

Ah! There’s the rub!

Anyone who asks that question is in good company. It’s an age old struggle, articulated powerfully throughout the Psalms.

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Psalm 89

I will sing of your steadfast love forever; with my mouth I will proclaim your faithfulness to all generations.

I declare that your steadfast love is established forever; your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

Psalm 89 begins with praise and confidence but ends with lament and confusion.

Our poet lays a solid, irrefutable groundwork: This is what you said. This is what you did. The psalmist is counting on the character of Israel’s God to come through for them once again as they languish in exile in Babylon.

I will proclaim your faithfulness…

He uses this one word ‘faithfulness’ eight times throughout the psalm. Our poet stakes his own reputation on the trustworthiness of the Covenant God.

God’s mighty acts within creation help him make his case.

Who is as mighty as you, O Lord? Your faithfulness surrounds you.

You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them.

You crushed [the chaos monster] Rahab like a carcass;

you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.

The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it—you have founded them.

This is glorious cosmic poetry. And once again, the poet’s theme repeats:

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne;

steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.

This is who You are, the poet-theologian reminds the Creator. This is what You do!

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The Final Days of the Two Kingdoms

I have a rabbi friend who says it’s impossible to know what Judaism was like before the Exile.

During their several decades of captivity in Babylon, God’s people were changed forever. Rabbi Jeffrey points out that all the gathered writings we have today were written and edited from the perspective of that dark experience and those deep transformations.

The Northern Kingdom of Israel was besieged, then conquered and scattered to the four winds by the Assyrians in 722 BC.

Now we refer to them as the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

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The Southern Kingdom of Judah was besieged and conquered and carried into captivity by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

Our Living in The Story readings this week offer a hindsight perspective. As they relate the pivotal historical events that forever changed Israel as a people, they tell their story through the lens of Exile and Return.

The people of Judah (now taking back the name Israel) had returned to their homeland and learned some invaluable lessons.

“We did this to ourselves,” is the bottom line of their self-analysis. This is the story line we read through the Kings and the Chronicles and the prophet Isaiah.

History with a theological perspective.
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