Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford, 16.02.20.
Second Sunday before Lent (Year A)
·
Psalm136
[135]
Let me begin with an expression of gratitude. One thing about
how we worship that I am grateful for. This is not to pre-empt what emerges
from our review of our worship, to take place in due course. It is just a
personal expression of gratitude. I am grateful that, with very few exceptions,
we have within our services all the Bible readings we might have. I mean
we have all thr…. four!
Yes, not for the first time, I am going to insist that we
have four Bible readings. A Hebrew Bible or Old Testament reading, a
Psalm, a New Testament reading, and a Gospel reading.
In terms of themes, it is the Gospel that leads. The
Old Testament reading picks up or anticipates or reflects or echoes or
enriches or even explains at least one aspect of the Gospel reading. And
the psalm then picks up or echoes one aspect of the Old Testament reading. The
choice of readings is not random (even if it can feel that way); it is
carefully crafted.
So, today, I will do something unusual. I will offer some teaching
on today’s psalm. For surely the psalm of the day, Psalm 136, is – if I can use
the technical expression – a real humdinger!
In both the Hebrew and the Greek, it consists of 26 verses,
each of which begins with some exuberance about Gd, and that exuberance
receives the response “for his mercy endures for ever”. In Hebrew that
is ki le-olam chasdo. Ki le-olam chasdo. It’s not hard:
try it with me:
ki le-olam chasdo.
The Greek is a little trickier: hoti eis ton aiona
to eleos autou. We’ll build up to that.
Let us look at verse one.
Give thanks. The
Hebrew is indeed from the normal word for saying thank you (also in
modern Hebrew). It is plural. We are called here to give thanks together.
It may be important to make
clear that in Hebrew to give thanks means something different from to bless.
To bless Gd is not to give thanks. To bless is to give honour to Gd, in
whatever circumstance you find yourself. (It may well come from the word for knee
– to bless is then to bend the knee in honour.)
You see, if you study Jewish
prayers, you will come across a prayer that a Jewish man prays every morning,
blessing Gd “who has not made me a woman”. It’s very easy to hear that
as saying: “Thank you Gd for the privilege of being a man.” But it is more: “I honour you Gd, who
has given me the vocation of being a male Jew, and I accept the
responsibilities that go with that distinctive vocation.”
Does that sound like special pleading? Well, let me tell you
that there is a special blessing “on seeing a person of unusual appearance”. (I’ll
let you decide if that’s one we need to learn.) There is also a blessing on
hearing bad news, especially news of a death. No religious community would
command an expression of thanks on hearing of a death. The blessing – not the
thanks – is “Blessed are you, LORD, our Gd and Sovereign of the Universe,
the true judge.” In today’s psalm, though, we are not blessing (honouring)
Gd, but giving deep, rich thanks.
To the Lord. The word for “the Lord” here would take a lot of
unpacking. Not in our sheets, but in many Bibles, the word would be in
capitals, all in capitals (L.O.R.D). And that is a sign that the Hebrew text
does not have the normal word for “Lord” – or even an unusual word for “Lord”.
Rather what you have are the four Hebrew letters that amount to Y.H.W.H
in our alphabet. And Y.H.W.H. is the divine name for Gd. It is the name
Gd reveals to Moses when Gd speaks out of the burning bush. Gd says it
stands for something like “I will be who I will be”.
The complication is that in the Jewish tradition, such was
the concern not to take this name in vain, that the speaking of the name was
restricted to the High Priest, on one day of the year (Yom Kippur), in the Holy
of Holies. So – you can see the problem – no one actually knows for sure how
to pronounce it. So, when people come across the divine name Y.H.W.H. in
the sacred texts, they have to replace it with another word, if they are
to have anything to say. And usually that is indeed the word for Lord (or
actually “My Lord” [with the plural of majesty]): A-do-nai.
That may seem strange, but it is a practice the Christian
communities took over without reservation. All the ancient Christian texts
also use some kind of “circumlocution” when they come across those letters, out
of humility before the majesty of the name.
This whole business sometimes leads people to say that in the
biblical or Jewish tradition, Gd has no name. But that is wrong.
Gd does have a name, and Gd does share Gd’s name with us.
Gd is not distant, or in-all-senses unknowable. The human
task is actually to get to know Gd, who shares his name with us. But! But we
are spared the danger of speaking that name in vain to our own harm; we are
spared treating Gd as someone we might think of as being at our beck and
call (“Oy, god, over here!”). So that we cannot do that, we are given the
gift of ignorance of how to pronounce the name, in this life.
The Hebrew word for “good” is pretty
much like our word, “good”. I mean: it says that Gd is attractive and
beautiful and reliable and favourably disposed and moral; no one aspect is
particularly to the fore.
And so to ki le-olam chasdo; for his
mercy endures for ever. The word for “for ever” (le-olam) is not so much
about eternity, as an abstract concept. It is not really about being outside of
time. It means more: “into the future as far as you can possibly see or
imagine”. If I wanted to debase the psalm, I might suggest the translation
“going forward”. But I don’t. So I won’t. So please scrub that
from your mind!
The climax of the verse, and of each verse in the Hebrew, is
the word for “mercy”, chasdo, in Hebrew. Well, chasdo is his mercy;
mercy on its own is chesed. Except that the Hebrew
is much richer than the word mercy, or at least mercy as it is understood these
days. The KJV often translates it as “lovingkindness” (though not, as it
happens, here). And lovingkindness does capture another aspect of the word. In what
is surely a favourite verse in the Bible – “the steadfast love of the LORD
never ceases; his mercies never come to an end” [Lamentations 3:22], it is
the words “steadfast love” which are chesed in the Hebrew.
Steadfast love. Lovingkindness. We do need to be clear, though, that
the word does not refer to any emotion on Gd’s part. It’s not
romantic love. (Here I’ll make no reference back to Friday [Valentine’s
Day]. Let us not add to the pain.) It’s not even a parent’s love for their
child, in the sense that it is not that Gd looks at us and wants to go
“cuchicoo”. But nor it is a duty on Gd’s part. Gd does not show us
lovingkindness because some force is making Gd do so.
No. The best (least wrong) way of thinking of it is: it is
Gd’s disposition. Gd’s disposition is to come close to us always with
lovingkindness. It is what Gd does because of who Gd is. It is who Gd is.
And so, yes, I will say again. Hidden within this very
word, chesed, is the lesson that
· there is nothing we can do to make Gd
love us more;
· there is nothing we can do to make Gd
love us less.
And so to the second verse of the 26…
I am teasing (as I hope you knew). I have reached the point
of saying what I felt needed saying.
Ki le-olam chasdo!
For his lovingkindness endures for ever!
We could all do with repeating this at least 26 times every
day. For psalm 136 I am grateful, and I invite you to join me in this.
Ki le-olam chasdo!
Amen.
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