A More Courageous Song

A More Courageous Song--November 26, 2018

Praise the Lord! 

     Praise the Lord, O my soul!

I will praise the Lord as long as I live; 

     I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

Do not put your trust in princes, 

     in mortals, in whom there is no help.

When their breath departs, they return to the earth; 

     on that very day their plans perish.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, 

     whose hope is in the Lord their God,

who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; 

     who keeps faith forever;

who executes justice for the oppressed;

     who gives food to the hungry. 

The Lord sets the prisoners free;

     the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. 

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; 

     the Lord loves the righteous. 

The Lord watches over the strangers; 

     he upholds the orphan and the widow, 

but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The Lord will reign forever, 

your God, O Zion, for all generations. 

Praise the Lord!  [Psalm 146]

This is what it looks like.

This is what it looks like where the living God is victorious, where "the God of Jacob" reigns.  Prisoners freed. The oppressed vindicated.  The bowed down lifted up.  Foreigners, orphans, and widows provided for and protected.  This is what it looks like.

It is fascinating to me, reading this ancient, ancient poetry thousands of years after it was first set down, that the writer of this poem was willing to go out on a limb in a sense, by declaring this divine agenda.

It would have been easier, to be sure, just to keep the descriptions to the natural phenomena, wouldn't it?  It would have been easier to just stick with "God made the heaven and the earth," or "God made the sea, and all the fish in it," and then just to skip to "God will reign forever."  That's not controversial.  That doesn't rankle anybody's sensibilities.  That keeps God...neutral.  

And at some level, I suppose that's what we probably think we want--a tame, non-committal, aloof and neutral deity, who promises not to get too involved in our affairs.  The sort of deity that just makes a universe and then walks away, or takes a hands-off policy.  The sort of god who doesn't have a soft spot for foreigners and "strangers"... who isn't so insistent on providing for those who have no other provision... who doesn't keep calling our attention to the hungry.  See, we know that if the God we say we believe in takes these sorts of stands, then we will be obligated as well.  And if we are honest, there is a certain terrible kind of apathy in us that just doesn't want to have to make those same commitments.

It would have been easier for the poet here in Psalm 146 to keep the praises nice and generic: God is great and glorious... God is powerful and majestic... God made the world.  That would have been a fine way of hedging bets--that way, no matter which way the political winds were blowing in ancient Israel, this psalm wouldn't have raised any red flags.  And it wouldn't have called our hearts to any change or compassion, either.

Instead, the poet has found the courage to speak the particular praise that the God who reigns over the universe takes sides on things like hunger, oppression, imprisonment, and the treatment of foreigners.  That had to have been difficult.  There were surely voices at the time who would have objected, or even tried to silence the psalmist.  There were surely people who said, "Wait, wait, wait!  Don't we have to check and see whether all these widows and orphans are really deserving of any help before we go around saying that God is protecting them?"  There were surely people who didn't like having this particular hymn in Israel's ancient hymnbook because it sounded like it was saying God wanted foreigners treated with the exact same dignity, care, and respect as Israelites (maybe even greater respect).  For the people whose lives were comfortable and insulated already, the claims in this psalm would have been uncomfortable and provocative.  They would have liked a song to sing that just kept God watching the world, like the old Bette Midler song put it, "from a distance," rather than working for a particular set of values and a particular agenda.

And for that matter, you can also be sure there were voices in Israelite who wanted their songs and their songbook to say things like, "God is behind every win and every victory, so if you are rich, it is because God wants you to be rich and God wants others to be poor," or "Whoever won the battle must have been God's choice, because God only backs winners."  You can imagine people who would rather have sung, "The Lord protects those who protect themselves," or "God helps those who help themselves."  You can be sure there were folks who wanted to sing, "God's invisible hand guides the market, so if your stock portfolio is up today, it must be a sign of God's blessing, and if your investments are down, it must be God's punishment."  But none of these easier, self-congratulating songs made it into the Bible.

Instead, our Scriptures teach us to sing a more courageous song--to dare to see that God's victory has a particular thrust to it, a particular agenda, even.  The psalm in front of us says that, no matter who is in power at the time (because none of them are reliable or even last very long), God is always at work to free the oppressed, to lift up the lowly, to fill the hungry with good things, to provide for those without other support, and to welcome foreigners with divine guidance and protection all along the way.  These are God's priorities.  These are the things that happen where and when God gets what God wants, so to speak.  These are the kinds of things that show what God's victory looks like in the world.

It will always demand bravery from us if we are going to dare to sing these kinds of songs.  It will take courage, for one, because we know the moment these lyrics are on our lips, we are committed to living by the same priorities.  And it will call forth bravery also because there will always be other voices wishing to keep God neutral and uncommitted, and they will be upset if we dare to say what the poet says here.

But we cannot help it, can we?  Like the old classic puts it, "How can we keep from singing?"  How indeed, can we not take up this courageous song that puts ourselves on the line? How can we not sing praise to this particular God of ours, who sides with the empty-handed and the marginalized?  How can we not let such a song change our hearts and our actions today?

There is no generic neutral deity in the Bible, despite our wishes to invent one.  There is only this God of foreigners, widows, orphans, prisoners, and hungry people--the God whose reign welcomes all of them to the table.

Lord God, give us the courage to sing your songs, and to let our hearts be shaped by the priorities of your Reign.