Psalm 1
Happy are those who do not follow
the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of God,
and on God's law they meditate
day and night.
They are like trees planted in streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff
that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for God watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
If we are reading the Old Testament this summer in some attempt to hear the scriptures as Jesus knew them (as we are), we can hardly go any farther without looking, however briefly, into Psalms.
Martin Luther called the Psalms a “little Bible,” claiming that every theme in the larger Bible is contained, in miniature, in this one book.
Athanasius of Alexandria is very likely someone you've never heard of, but is considered one of the greatest of the early church Fathers said: “It is my view that in the words of this book the whole human life, its basic spiritual conduct and as well its occasional movements and thoughts, in comprehended and contained. Nothing to be found in human life is omitted.”
The two books most quoted by Jesus himself (as far as we know from the gospels) and then by the early church in their letters and teachings passed down to us, are Isaiah and Psalms. We cannot talk about the scriptures as Jesus knew them without including Psalms.
The book of Psalms is a collection of poetry and songs in prayer-form – a mini-library of its own. It is the voice both of individuals and of the congregation as a whole. Within it we find praise and supplication and lamentation. We find love and trust and faith, we find joy and gratitude, we find penitence and individual shame, and sometimes we find despair and hope barely, barely held onto. It’s not hard to see why so many, for centuries, have read this mini-library as the story of the human condition.
Though they have traditionally been attributed to David, the shepherd-boy-become-king; the reality is that we don’t know which individuals wrote them or even exactly when they were written. Because it is a collection, the individual psalms were written at different times for different reasons and different occasions -- maybe over dozens or even hundreds of years. In my studies for this message I came across these words by James Luther Mays, a much respected Old Testament scholar and professor at Union Presbyterian Seminary:
We can certainly read the psalms today for our own prayer and devotional purposes. We can put words to our own joys and griefs by reading them, or even try to make sense of our own times and cultural settings by reading the psalms. That is entirely legitimate.
But if our purpose is to try to understand how Jesus was taught and shaped by these psalms then we have to strip all the “me” out of our reading, and remove all the cultural connections we make with current events in our world. Otherwise it is all too easy to fall into the error of thinking “Jesus thought just like me,” instead of working for the other direction of us learning to think like Jesus.
The psalms were written in a particular time and place by the Hebrew people of that time. They were a people who saw themselves as the people of God – those in a special relationship with the Creator. This book chronicles what this people believed about God and that relationship, and God’s role in their lives – what God wanted from them and how they responded – and the consequences of their particular responses.
Jesus was also a Hebrew man, one who perhaps felt out of place in his own time, maybe one who felt more connected to the people from past times. At any rate, these people were his people, even at the remove of several hundred years. It can be difficult for us, as Americans, raised in our own tradition of rugged individualism, to understand just what being part of a people meant to the Hebrews. It may even be something we can’t ever quite grasp.
Our reading today was from the very first of the Psalms:
This has always been at the heart of the Israelites relationship with God – that if the People were true to God, then God would be true to them and all would be well with them.
But if the People were not true, then the results would certainly be different:
This is what Jesus heard all his life, and this is the promise that undergirded everything he did and believed – everything he taught and passed along to those of us who follow his way to this day:
This, in a nutshell, is the ancient Hebrews’ story. It always has been. It always will be. It is also Jesus’ story. Much of what Jesus would teach and model for us was first taught him through these ancient prayer/poems.
Today it is also our story. And so may it always be.
Martin Luther called the Psalms a “little Bible,” claiming that every theme in the larger Bible is contained, in miniature, in this one book.
Athanasius of Alexandria is very likely someone you've never heard of, but is considered one of the greatest of the early church Fathers said: “It is my view that in the words of this book the whole human life, its basic spiritual conduct and as well its occasional movements and thoughts, in comprehended and contained. Nothing to be found in human life is omitted.”
The two books most quoted by Jesus himself (as far as we know from the gospels) and then by the early church in their letters and teachings passed down to us, are Isaiah and Psalms. We cannot talk about the scriptures as Jesus knew them without including Psalms.
The book of Psalms is a collection of poetry and songs in prayer-form – a mini-library of its own. It is the voice both of individuals and of the congregation as a whole. Within it we find praise and supplication and lamentation. We find love and trust and faith, we find joy and gratitude, we find penitence and individual shame, and sometimes we find despair and hope barely, barely held onto. It’s not hard to see why so many, for centuries, have read this mini-library as the story of the human condition.
Though they have traditionally been attributed to David, the shepherd-boy-become-king; the reality is that we don’t know which individuals wrote them or even exactly when they were written. Because it is a collection, the individual psalms were written at different times for different reasons and different occasions -- maybe over dozens or even hundreds of years. In my studies for this message I came across these words by James Luther Mays, a much respected Old Testament scholar and professor at Union Presbyterian Seminary:
- [We know that] ... the psalms were in fact written by someone in Hebrew in circumstances and for purposes that belonged to the history of Israel. They are, in the first instance, the religious poetry of a particular community. They come to us a tradition. They are given to us as a means of standing in identity and continuity with the faith of that community. If we read and use them so as to dissolve them completely into our sensibilities and consciousness, they become merely empty vessels of language that we fill with our own meanings. Their value as tradition is lost. They do not lead us and convert us to think and pray and praise as they do.
We can certainly read the psalms today for our own prayer and devotional purposes. We can put words to our own joys and griefs by reading them, or even try to make sense of our own times and cultural settings by reading the psalms. That is entirely legitimate.
But if our purpose is to try to understand how Jesus was taught and shaped by these psalms then we have to strip all the “me” out of our reading, and remove all the cultural connections we make with current events in our world. Otherwise it is all too easy to fall into the error of thinking “Jesus thought just like me,” instead of working for the other direction of us learning to think like Jesus.
The psalms were written in a particular time and place by the Hebrew people of that time. They were a people who saw themselves as the people of God – those in a special relationship with the Creator. This book chronicles what this people believed about God and that relationship, and God’s role in their lives – what God wanted from them and how they responded – and the consequences of their particular responses.
Jesus was also a Hebrew man, one who perhaps felt out of place in his own time, maybe one who felt more connected to the people from past times. At any rate, these people were his people, even at the remove of several hundred years. It can be difficult for us, as Americans, raised in our own tradition of rugged individualism, to understand just what being part of a people meant to the Hebrews. It may even be something we can’t ever quite grasp.
Our reading today was from the very first of the Psalms:
- Happy are those who do not follow
the advice of the wicked, - or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of God,
and on God's law they meditate
day and night. - They are like trees planted in streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season, - and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
This has always been at the heart of the Israelites relationship with God – that if the People were true to God, then God would be true to them and all would be well with them.
But if the People were not true, then the results would certainly be different:
- The wicked are not so, but are like chaff
that the wind drives away. - Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; - for God watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
This is what Jesus heard all his life, and this is the promise that undergirded everything he did and believed – everything he taught and passed along to those of us who follow his way to this day:
- God watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish...
This, in a nutshell, is the ancient Hebrews’ story. It always has been. It always will be. It is also Jesus’ story. Much of what Jesus would teach and model for us was first taught him through these ancient prayer/poems.
Today it is also our story. And so may it always be.
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