Transcript
From Psalm 91: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, abides under the shadow of the Almighty. He shall say to the Lord, "You are my refuge and my stronghold, my God in whom I put my trust." O Lord, may thy word be my word, and if my word is not thy word, let thy people be cunning enough to see the same. Amen.
Four decades ago, a scholar at Yale University, Gerald Wilson, wrote a doctoral dissertation under the direction of a man named Brevard Childs, one of my mentors there. And they changed everyone's view of the Psalms. Up until then, when you looked at a Psalm, you'd just look at whatever psalm you were reading, say, Psalm 103, the psalm we looked at on Ash Wednesday, a psalm with the title A Psalm of David.
You know, the psalms look like they come from different authors (because they do), so why would you use one to help interpret another? Why use the Book of Psalms to help interpret a Psalm?
But in fact, the Psalms have two historical backgrounds. One is the original author, the historical background of David, say, when he wrote Psalm 103. And then there's the historical background of the time when the Book of Psalms was put together very thoughtfully.
And it's that background that was for so long ignored. And those titles—A Prayer of Moses, A Psalm of David, for example—are part of it. The Psalter as one book was put together during the period of the Babylonian captivity. And that actually matters; if we pay attention to that, it helps really enrich what we get out of the book. Christians have held that there are 66 canonical books of the Scripture, Old and New Testament, not 65 plus 150 Psalms.
And now what's interesting, in the last 40 years, I say, now even critical scholars are coming to the support of what Bard Childs, and Gerald Wilson set out, helping us to see that these titles really are ancient, they belong to the Psalms, and actually should control a canonical interpretation of them. We shouldn't have tunnel vision.
We have to look at the bigger context, not just that verse or the one or two verses before and after. Look at the whole book and interpret each text in the light of the whole Psalter, and then you'll really get it.
If you've read the Book of Psalms (the Tephilim, the Book of Praises, as our Jewish sisters and brothers call it) the Book of Psalms is, in fact, divided into five books. [Book 1: Psalms 1 – 41; Book 2: Psalms 42 – 72; Book 3: Psalms 73 – 89; Book 4: Psalms 90 – 106; Book 5: Psalms 107 – 150] You may have noticed that. And Psalm 91, the psalm appointed for the first Sunday in Lent, happens to be in Book Four, and that matters. It's in a collection from Psalm 90 to Psalm 106, and Book Four matters. It helps to understand the Psalm and get the point if you pay attention to that.
The whole Book of Psalms is very carefully ordered. It has an introduction. Psalm 1 is clearly intended as an introduction for the whole book. And it reminds us that, well, the righteous soul meditates on God's law day and night. And that attention in the introductory psalm to the law of God explains, among other things, why this book is divided into five books, just as the Torah is divided into five books—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—which are so frequently alluded to in this and other psalms. (Psalm 90 and 91 make heavy use of the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. There are at least ten parallels between Psalm 91 and Deuteronomy 32.) Not only does the book of Psalms begin with an introductory psalm, Psalm 1, it ends with a cluster of psalms all to praise God in that wonderful climax, Psalm 146 to 150.
So there's a structure to the whole. Each Book of the Five Books ends with a little blessing. You'll see it when you look for it. Each of the last psalms of each book sets things up for the next book.
And that's what I want to drive home today. Psalm 89 is the last psalm of Book Three. And Psalm 89 sets the problem that Book Four is an answer to. Each of the first three books ends with a reminder of the covenant with David, which was so important for the Babylonian captivity period.
Remember, God had promised David that he and ultimately his son, his descendants, would be the answer and fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. God would bless the nations through a royal seed of David, a son of David, whom God would adopt as his own son, would be the one through whom all the nations of the world were blessed.
And in Psalm 89, the last of the Psalms before Book Four, it says of God, ”You said, ’I made a covenant with my chosen one. I've sworn to David, my servant. I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.’” [Psalm 89. 3 – 4]
But the psalms as one book were composed at a time where the throne had been lost, when Jerusalem had been wiped out, when the temple had been destroyed and God's people were now out in Babylon under the thumb of foreign oppressors. The psalmist goes on in Psalm 89 to say, “You have renounced the covenant with your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust. . . . What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?” [See Psalm 89. 39, 48]
This is the problem of death that brings an end to your promise. That’s the complaint, the problem. You promised the son of David who would live forever, whose kingdom would last forever. But every one of the descendants of David, they’re dead. And the latest ones have been put to death by Babylonian armies, by Nebuchadnezzar.
“Lord, where is your covenant love of old which by your faithfulness you swore to David? Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations with which your enemies mock, O Lord, with which they mock the footsteps of your Messiah.” [Psalm 89. 39 – 41] That's the last word out of Psalm 89. And then we begin the answer, the promise of a righteous son of David, a promise, God's answer to that problem.
Does this ring any bells in your mind? Where are you, God? You’ve walked out on me? Where is your covenant love? (We spoke of covenant love in Ash Wednesday’s sermon.) Book Four, to which our psalm belongs, Psalms 90 to 106, answers that problem by reminding us that even when it seems that God has walked out on us, even if there is a throne in Jerusalem that is vacant and destroyed with crowns ground into the dust, there is a throne in heaven and the king of kings is still sitting on it.
Psalm 90 and Psalm 91 are a paired psalm. Psalm 90 begins, “A Prayer of Moses. Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” Psalm 90 was written by Moses. Psalm 91, which may have been written by Moses, begins, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘my refuge and my fortress.’” Moses knows whereof he speaks. He lived anything but a sheltered life. There’s nothing Pollyanna about Moses. He’s the one, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom the LORD took most deeply into his confidence. The LORD spoke to him as a man speaks with a friend.
Our experience in prayer shapes what we say about God. When you turn to God in Jesus Christ, our only mediator and advocate, you know you'll be heard, you know you'll be at home. There's a welcome. I go back to this again and again in the context of the contemporary Church. Why are we so anxious? Why do we give off vibes of near panic all the time?
The 'feel' of the New Testament is rather different, and it was written when Nero and Vespasian and Titus were using Christians as lights and patio heaters in the Roman Empire, and crucified them by the thousands. This has to do with another dimension of prayer which is just simply adoration and silence. We open up to God in silent adoration because God is God and nothing will stop God being God. And to sense that nothing stops God being God generates in us a kind of stillness. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
