On the Circumcision of Jesus

 Sermon. 01/01/2023. The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.

 

Numbers 6:22-27

Luke 2:15-21

 

I sometimes wonder how disappointed a person would be, if they listened to the Church. Let me clarify: I sometimes wonder how disappointed a person would be if they listened to the Church in one regard. I mean if they really followed the Church and its pronouncements on Advent.

 

You know the claim, the contrast, I think.

While the world starts celebrating and feasting and otherwise keeping Christmas from mid-November,

in the Church, Christmas does not begin until the evening of Christmas Eve, and Advent is a season in its own right, one marked by self-reflection, silence, and going without.

So imagine you stuck to that. Not a mince pie, not a slice of stollen, not even a shepherd or an angel, before the evening of 24 December. And then?

 

And then you come to the main service on Christmas Day, and even here (if your church is being obedient) you don’t hear of angels or shepherds, but rather what may seem to be rather abstract stuff about (GOD), and the Word, and flesh, and so on – the Prologue to John.

And then?

And then already on the second day of Christmas you are thrown straight into the story of death. The Feast of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

A few days later, the most horrific story in the New Testament, the story of the slaughter of the innocents. The slaughter. Of innocents.

This is hard.

You may well think that you should have enjoyed all the mince pies and slices of stollen you were offered in November and December.

 

Surely, at the beginning of the second week of Christmastide, then we can return to a story which fits a season of feasting and celebration?

Well, let us see.

 

The first thing to say is that the Church Catholic keeps different feasts on 1 January.

For most Orthodox, it is the Feast of St Basil (who by the way often wears red and goes from house to house distributing presents, but that’s for another time).

For modern Roman Catholics, it is the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of (GOD).

For Anglicans (being Anglicans), we have a choice.

But all Christian calendars carry an awareness that the eighth day of Christ’s life was/is/is/was the day of the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus.

 

So here your preacher can play safe, and speak about the naming and the name of Jesus, Yeshua, meaning (GOD) saves, or (GOD) is salvation, and let the feasting commence!

Or your preacher can play not-safe, and actually mention the less-discussed, the undiscussed, act of the circumcision of Jesus, an act which brings us back (we may as well say it) to the theme of blood.

You will have guessed that your preacher is going to play not-safe.

Let us mark the circumcision of Jesus.

 

There are a number of reasons for doing this. The first is that the circumcision of Jesus is one of those things even sceptics can be reasonably sure really happened. Now, if you get your information from social media ((GOD) help you), you will have a sense that it is controversial to say that Jesus even existed. But within proper historical studies, there is no real argument. Jesus (whoever he was) really existed. Someone called Yeshua was born, had a role as teacher and healer which impacted upon some, and was crucified by the Romans. And his followers were somehow energised after his death. These things are historical facts. And I say that another fact we can set alongside these is that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, in accordance with Jewish custom. (If there were any sense that Jesus might not have been circumcised, we can be sure that his opponents would have brought this up at every occasion.)

 

This brings us to the second reason to mark the circumcision. It is one obvious way of bringing to the centre of the stage something we may forget. Jesus was a Jew. And he wasn’t only a Jew “ethnically” (whatever that means). He was a Jew “religiously”. He was a Jew religiously, and, brothers and sisters, we have to face it: he was not a Jew who became a Christian (think about it)!

 

The story of the circumcision of Jesus occurs only in Luke. Luke has much more to say about the baby-and-child, Jesus, than the other gospels. And, in the stories Luke brings,

his parents are presented as devout Jews,

Jews really at home in the religion of Judaism,

Jews who relished Jewish ways of connecting with (GOD).

And I dare to say this applies to Jesus too.

This is something we Christians might usefully treasure and ponder in our hearts, like the Jewish mother, Mary.

 

I’m really not sparing you, am I? Well, I say again: if the Church brings so many martyrs into the calendar so soon after Christmas Day, then it must be telling us - against all the assumptions - that Christmastide is for adults. But of course I know that as adults (precisely as adults) we may have all kinds of moral or ethical objections to the circumcision of baby boys (who cannot consent). And, for sure, there are discussions to be had. If I say there are modern questions, that is not to dismiss or minimise them. But it is to say that ethical concerns were almost certainly not around for the Jews of Jesus’ day, for Jesus’ own family.

 

So what, then, was circumcision, in the day? What was it about? What was it for? Bluntly, we are not told. Nowhere in the Bible are we told. Back in Genesis, (GOD) commands Abraham to circumcise himself and his menfolk, and Abraham obeys. And it becomes a mark of the covenant with (GOD) from then on. It becomes a mark of (GOD)’s call. Is there any reason for this? Well, later Jewish tradition is clear that not all (GOD)’s commands have to be grounded in reason. They don’t all have to show how they do us good. (GOD) is (GOD) and (GOD) can call us to pattern our lives as (GOD) chooses (save for real harm alone). However, speculative rationales for circumcision abound:

it is about involving human beings in the process of creation, by giving them a final little tidying-up task to perform;

it is about moderating male sexual desire;

it is about having an enfleshed reminder of (GOD) every time a married couple has intercourse.

And so on.

 

But I want to make another connection. The fact that circumcision goes all the way back to Abraham means that it is essentially and intimately linked to… to blessing. Remember (GOD)’s promise to Abraham at the very start of his story [Gen 12.2f]:

 

“I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you

[or will bless themselves in you].”

 

The later blessing of Aaron – “the LORD bless you and keep you. The LORD make his face to shine upon you…” – this blessing is something of an echo of this core blessing, this root blessing, the blessing of faith, the blessing in Sarah and Abraham. (Whether that was actually why it was chosen by the compilers of our lectionary for today, I cannot tell you. But I suggest that the resonances are just plain there.)

 

Perhaps you are not used to think of blessing as the central meaning of the Old Testament, from Abraham on. It would be surprising if you were. After all, here is the more normal Christian summary of the biblical story:

Creation – Fall – Redemption – Consummation.

The Old Testament, in this account, is overwhelmingly about the Fall.

So in the Old Testament Christians look for flickers of light in a dark night, and little else.

 

Well, brothers and sisters, I offer you another reading.

You can think of it as a parallel rather than an alternative reading, if you like.

Think of the story of Bible as one of

blessing upon blessing, of grace upon grace.

What happens if we think of the biblical story as

-         the blessing of creation (“very good”)

-         enriched by the blessing in Sarah and Abraham

(by circumcision and all the marks of all the covenants)

-         enriched in turn by the blessing of Jesus

embodiment of the covenants.

Whenever you have an Old Testament reading, ask yourself:

How is the core blessing in Abraham reflected here?

How is the new blessing of Jesus anticipated here?

 

So we have reasons to celebrate today.

We have the naming of Jesus - (GOD) saves!

And we have his circumcision too,

his circumcision into the blessing of Abraham.

So Christmastide, yes. Feast, yes. Celebration, yes.

In which spirit, you will find after the service a mince pie, and a piece of stollen!

 

Amen.

 

INTERCESSIONS

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless your Church.

that it may find again the delight of a child,

in its worship of you, and its service of its neighbours.

 

(GOD) in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless your world,

that people of power and influence

will find again the fierce sense of justice of a child.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless this place,

that it be a source even of rest and gentleness,

such as every child needs.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless all who are unwell,

or in need of any kind 

(among them those we name now in our own hearts)

May we cry out for them with a child’s urgency.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

bless all who will die today,

and those who have shaped us and died,

and those who mourn,

and give us a child-like trust that you will remember them and us into life.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

(GOD), who comes to us as child,

come anew to each one of us in this new year,

to show us the new next step you want us to take.

 

(GOD), in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Amen.

 

On the fierceness of the New Testament and the gentleness of the Old!

 

Sermon. 4/12/2022. Advent 2 (Year of Matthew)

Isaiah 11.1-10

Matthew 3.1-12

 

There is no football in this sermon.[1] I am not proud of this. I am not ashamed of this.

 

Here’s a thing that does involve some shame. Here is an attitude I think it is hard for us fully to shake off. I mean that sense that

·        the god of the Old Testament is a god of judgement, anger, war, and narrowness;

·        the god of the New Testament is a god of forgiveness, love, peace, and inclusivity.

It is a contrast deeply if quietly embedded in our society.

Even if Christians are now a minority in the country (as we are told we do), some notions are still around.

I suspect that this is one of them.

Bluntly, the god of the New Testament replaces the god of the Old, and it is good that it is so.

 

I have already said that some shame attaches itself to this habit of contrast. So my criticism is implicit already.

Let me be explicit:

this contrast, this antithesis is not a Christian belief.

It has no place in authentic Christianity.

It is at very best an oversimplification a tired Sunday-school teacher might stumble into, on an off-day.

But put more simply: it is heresy, pure.

The Christian claim is that (GOD) is One, and Revelation is one, from Genesis to Revelation.

From Genesis to Revelation, (GOD), the One (GOD),

is faithful, creative, loving, forgiving, is for us, is with us.

 

That’s not all, of course.

Another side to this is that when we think of human beings’ relationship to (GOD), we have to say: “it is complicated”.

And so, again, from Genesis to Revelation,

there is much that is attributed to (GOD)

and even much that really does seem to come from (GOD)

which is sharp, harsh, challenging and dark.

I say again: from Genesis to Revelation. In both Old and New Testaments.

 

Why do I say this now?

If ever we wanted to invert the usual contrast (the tired and heretical contrast)

between the god of the Old Testament (furious)

and the god of the New Testament (fluffy),

we could do a lot worse than begin with today’s readings.

I am thinking of the Gospel

and the text from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament,

chosen to mirror, or echo, or anticipate, or match it, from Isaiah.

 

Even if you were not paying 100% attention to these readings, 

I think even at a headline level, the contrast was clear:

John the Baptist in the New Testament (the New) brings warning and judgement;

Isaiah in the Old Testament (the Old) brings peace and healing.

That way round.

 

Let us look at some details.

In today’s Gospel, John, the prophet of (GOD) comes and speaks of… sin. 

Worse than that, he addresses people like this:

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?... every tree… that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand… the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Stern stuff. It may be even sterner than we realise. From all that John says, we might want to rescue the promise of baptism in the Holy Spirit, and say that the promise of baptism in the Spirit is something good and hopeful and joyful. But I must ask you to curb your enthusiasm. We have to remember that the word for Spirit has a wide range of meanings. The Greek pneuma, like the Hebrew, ruach, means spirit, and it also means breath, and it also means wind. It is all about motion, about energy. So when John the Baptist promises one who will baptise with… wind and fire, he may actually be promising a fire fanned into flame, an out-of-control fire, a conflagration. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”

Contrast all of this (if we call it a message of crisis and purification, we are being kind) with the utterly stately-majestic poetry of the First Reading. A different prophet (not John but Isaiah) promises one who

with righteousness… shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth… The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them… They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

No judgement, no wrath, no fire, but welcome, peace and inclusion. 

Transformation beyond your wildest dreams.

Who would not long for such a meeting with (GOD) on these terms?

Again, some details. Again, if anything, our translation understates the peacefulness and transformation of Isaiah’s vision.

Our translation says of the one to come: “with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked”. That’s the translators choice. Every bit as close to the Hebrew is to say “with the breath of his lips he shall kill off wickedness”.[2]

The underlying idea is clear:

whatever striking there has to be, it is his mouth which will do it

(speech not sword);

whatever killing-off has to be done, it is his lips which will do it

(words not weapons).

And that in turn is 

because of the spirit of gentleness (variously described in the opening verses) 

which rests upon him.

In Hebrew, the ruach (spirit, breath) rests (nachah) on this one.

Ruach – nachah.

The breathiness is there in the very sounds.

And I think the play on words is intended.

And actually the root words are ruach and nuach.

I have tried – and failed – to come up with a translation that captures this play on words:

The spirit spends free time upon him…

The air is at ease upon him…

The wind whiles away its time upon him…

The breath abides upon him…

None really works. I look forward to your suggestions later.

In any event, that stressed idea 

of rest, of restoration, of peace and ease, 

extends throughout our passage in ways that the English does not make clear.

I give my own translation of the ending. It says:

“This one the peoples will seek out. And glory will be his place of resting.”

Our translation refers to a “glorious dwelling”.

But the word translated “dwelling” is… menuchah.

Menuchah… from (yes) nuach. Place of resting,

A place of resting for the one on whom the restful spirit rests.[3]

No judgement, no wrath, no fire, but welcome, peace and inclusion.

Who would not long for such a meeting with (GOD) on these terms?

So let me say:

we need the fierceness of the Old Testament

and we need the gentleness of the New Testament.

And...

we need the gentleness of the Old Testament

and we need the fierceness of the New Testament.

The Testaments are not easily contrasted, 

and are not to be contrasted.

(GOD) is both fierce and gentle.

The life of faith exposes us to things gentle and fierce.

And it is good that it is so.

As for what combination of gentleness and fierceness will best suit the England team today, I keep my self-denying ordinance.

Amen.  

---

[1] That evening England were playing Senegal in the first knock-out rounds of the World Cup.

[2] Hebrew: U-ve-ruach sephatav yamit resha’ – resha’ is properly an adjective meaning a wicked person/thing.

Greek (LXX): kai en pneumati dia cheilion anelei asebe – “And with breath through lips he will destroy an ungodly [person].

[3] These language points are indebted to Robert Alter’s translation, ad loc.

Flourish Like A Tree - a Deep-Reaching Tree

 

Readings and Reflection for the Week Beginning 13 June

(the 2^nd Week of Trinity)

 

Penitential Rite (Prayer to Say Sorry)

 

Father, you fill your world with good things to help us grow,

but we forget to give full thanks.

Lord,  have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

 

Jesus, you guide us to the good things we need,

but we in all kinds of pride choose our own path.

Christ, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

 

Spirit, you refresh us so that we can start again,

but we try to use you, sticking to our harmful ways.

Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

Bible Readings

First Reading: Ezekiel 17:22-24

Gospel Reading: Mark 4:26-34

 

Reflection

You heard – I hope you heard – a fair bit about trees in both those readings.

Ezekiel speaks of a little spring, a tiny twig, from the top of a cedar tree.

God Godself plants it, until it becomes a noble cedar.

Cedars are big. How big is this one?

So big that “under it every kind of bird will live”.

Every kind of bird will live under it.

That is big.

From twig to big.

From a little green fleck of a thing,

to flourishing upon flourishing upon flourishing.

 

Jesus in Mark speaks of a mustard seed.

Miniscule; famously miniscule.

Even smaller than the smallest sprig or twig.

And what happens? It becomes the greatest of all shrubs,

“so [big] that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade”.

 

And here we are, in spring-becoming-summer. We can get a feel for this.

How God has so ordered things that God’s creatures, plants and animals, will always grow, and flourish, and multiply, and flourish more, if only they are left to it.

 

There is encouragement for us all here. We are made to flourish. I mean that seriously. We – you – are a health-seeking animal; you are a flourishing-seeking animal. When you flourish like a great tree spreading towards the sky, you are doing what you are called to do. Flourishing here doesn’t mean a life full of comfort, success, acclaim, ease, or riches (they may or may not be around). It means that sense that you can have, that you are making the most of the real-life stuff you find yourself in the middle of.

 

A good prayerful exercise can be asking yourself (and taking time to answer): “Given that things are like this, how, even now, can I flourish?”

 

Now, what is a tree?

 

If I asked you to draw a tree, I am pretty certain you’d all draw, well, a trunk, some branches and some leaves. But, here’s the thing: for people who know about trees and work with trees (and that may be you, and if so I am sorry for being so basic) people who work with trees will say - that is not a tree. That is just the surface bit of a tree. Most of the tree (so I have learned) is underground. Most of a tree is its systems of roots and the fungi and other organisms which work with the roots. The leaves and the twigs are like the hair on your head (if you’re lucky enough to have hair on your head). The trunk is a bit like a head. The torso and all the rest is under the earth - that is the roots.

 

Roots. You don’t have literal roots. But I invite you to imagine that you have spiritual roots. Really imagine that now. Close your eyes, if it helps (it may well). Make sure you are sitting comfortably, with your feet flat on the ground (so no crossed-legs), a comfortable distance apart. Imagine – or realise – that you have spiritual roots going down from the souls of your feet.

They go through your shoes,

through the carpet of this chapel,

and through the foundations.

They go into God’s good earth.

They go deeper into God’s good earth.

They go yet deeper into God’s good earth.

 

When God made the heavens and the earth, he saw that it was all Very Good.

The earth is good. It is soil that makes life.

So feel your roots going down into the soil, the life-giving soil.

We are not done yet.

Your roots branch off.

Your roots have their own roots. You are root upon root.

You are well rooted in God’s good earth.

You are better rooted than you ever realised.

Feel the roots, the good roots, extending into the good earth.

The roots go down. They go down deeper. Deeper.

Through your roots, you are being fed.

You don’t need to go looking for spiritual food.

Your roots – you – are being fed, by God’s good pleasure.

 

**

 

We are not like a tree, in that we can move around, and, normally, we are called to move around. But we are like a tree, in that we have roots, roots which go down. I am going to say that they go down into God.

 

We are not only connected to God when we try to connect with God, to say sorry or ask for help. We are connected to God by the sheer fact of being who we are. And knowing that is a large part of allowing ourselves to flourish, flourish like a mighty Cedar of Lebanon.

 

My brothers, in these early days of our gathering together for worship, after such a long enforced fast, let us start by being grateful, giving full thanks, for all the ways we have been - and are - and will be - connected.

 

We are connected by being brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are connected by having our roots in God.

Not because we are special (or not especially special).

But because God has willed it so.

 

My brothers, may you flourish like a noble tree,

here, now, and in the days to come.

Amen.

Intercessions (Prayers for the World and All Our Needs)

 

God, our roots are in you, and you give us health.

Bless and be with those who bear the burden of leadership in our Churches,

among them Bishops Graham and Alan,

that they speak and act in truth and gentleness

and lead your whole people to flourishing.

 

God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

God, our roots are in you, and you give us health.

Bless and be with those who bear leadership in the world.

Guide our government, those meeting as and with the so-called G7,

that the human family may know peace and justice,

and the whole of creation be preserved, sustained, cared for and enjoyed.

Bathe all peacemakers in your love,

and challenge all warmakers by the radical nature of that love.

 

God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

God, our roots are in you, and you give us health.

Bless and be with all those who live, work and visit this place.

May this establishment be a place of real stability, growth, and change.

Be close to all here who are in fear or perplexity,

or caught up in gangs or drugs or debt,

to give them liberty even while here.

 

God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

God, our roots are in you, and you give us health.

Bless all those who are sick, in body, mind, or spirit,

or know pain or dislocation of any kind.

Be with them as the healer you are.

We ask your blessing on those on our own hearts and minds at this time,

those we name now silently in our hearts…

 

God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

God, our roots are in you, and you give us health.

Bless and be with all who have shaped us and who have died,

all who have died recently, or who will die today,

especially those who will die

alone, unprepared, in agony, in war or at their own hand.

Draw them further into your heavenly light,

among them those we name now in the silence of our hearts.

 

God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

God, our roots are in you, and you give us health.

Bless and be with us, as we seek anew to be your disciples.

Show us what we need to know about our rootedness in you.

 

God in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 

The Psalms and Their Laments as a Resource for Social Healing in, through, and after Pandemic

It is a truism that as we seek social healing from here on in, we will not go back to the way we were, nor can we expect to enter the messianic age. So I suggest that one vital resource is the traditions of lament we know as Jews or Christians. Some – many – of these are shared. If we are ‘two people divided by a common Scripture’, then that common Scripture is evidently unafraid of lament. Of course, there is the nominatively obvious: the Book of Lamentations (Ekhah).[1] But there’s also the Bible’s other great (actually even greater, in terms of size) collection of laments: those within the Book of Psalms (Tehillim).

 

In attending to the Psalms, I am delighted I am in good company, here, within this virtual conference. We will have an “Invitation to Praise” with Psalm 100 in a workshop, later today, and we have the Concluding Plenary tomorrow: “Psalms in the Time of COVID: Prayer that Makes Us Human”. I suggest it is impossible to exhaust the wisdom of the Psalms, and so will continue.

 

The Jewish tradition of course makes great use of Psalms, including as set within the liturgies, and in wider customs. In Christian circles, it’s more complicated.

 

On the one hand, some (e.g. in monastic houses, but not only there) read/pray the psalms through, according to a perpetual cycle. The Rule of St Benedict (early 6^th century) envisages a weekly recital (though not in order). It notes that this is a concession, saying: the ancient Fathers recited the Book every day (Regula 18.22). The Anglican Book of Common Prayer (if you will allow me to focus on my own tradition for brevity’s sake) sets out a monthly (30-day) cycle, in strict order. The modern Church of England lectionary has a 7-week cycle. It is expected that ordained ministers will, other things being equal, stick to one of these cycles. Even this last still commits to reciting and hearing Psalms with remarkable dedication. The only parallel would be the Gospels.  

 

However, that sets up an ideal often observed in the breach. Most Anglicans come to Church on Sundays only. There, there is typically a Psalm, which picks up a theme of the First Reading from the Hebrew Bible. But anecdotal evidence suggests it is often treated as a musical interlude (sung by choir or cantor). I obviously claim that this de facto Christian neglect of the Psalms is regrettable. They are - as others at this conference along with me are also insisting - more honest about the human condition, and about the condition of the person of faith, than many a contemporary hymn/song book.

 

A note on a complication involved in the Christian use of the Psalms. For many Christians, it is emblematic that the psalmist is not only David (and others), but also Jesus. Jesus (on this reading) “recapitulates” the life of humankind, and the life of faith. So we pray the Psalms through Christ, or pray to or alongside Christ through the Psalms. Whether this is the best or even a legitimate way to read the Psalms, even on purely Christian terms, I leave for another place. It emphatically is not the only Christian way. No less a Christian than Calvin said that the Psalms described “the anatomy of the soul” – any soul.[2]

 

It is notoriously difficult to know quite how to categorise the Psalms (whether as lament, praise, royal, penitence, etc). There are no fixed, agreed criteria. Psalms often make radical swerves in theme and mood (and more).[3] But it’s not outrageous to suggest that more than a third of the corpus of the Psalms may be lament. Scholars Waktke, Houston and Moore make this claim,[4] and they go on to cite my old Hebrew teacher, Walter Moberly:

 

the predominance of laments at the very heart of Israel’s prayers means that the problems that give rise to lament are not something marginal or unusual but rather are central to the life of faith… Moreover they show that the experience of anguish and puzzlement... is not a sign of deficient faith, something to be outgrown or put behind one, but rather is intrinsic to the very nature of faith.

 

The scholar I want to move to is Walter Brueggermann, who in his 1984 book, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary,[5] speaks powerfully to our theme. He holds the Psalms in the highest regard:

 

The book of Psalms provides the most reliable theological, pastoral, and liturgical resource given us in the biblical tradition… a genuinely dialogical literature that expresses both sides of the conversation of faith. (15)

 

Crucially, he proposes a movement between three states:

 

1.     Orientation.
Human life consists in satisfied seasons of well-being that evoke gratitude for the constancy of blessing. (19)

2.     Disorientation.
Human life consists in anguished seasons of hurt, alienation, suffering, and death. These evoke rage, resentment, self-pity and hatred… This speech, the lament, has a recognizable shape that permits the extravagance, hyperbole, and abrasiveness needed for the experience. (19)

3.       New orientation.

Human life consists in turns of surprise when we are overwhelmed with the new gifts of God, when joy breaks through the despair. (19)

Each mode can be anything from deeply personal-and-intimate to societal and national.

 

These are not three stages, at least not in any simple way. There is not a linear movement, nor a simple cycle. Rather, they form a complex, organic network. The point is really the constant movement. There is no stasis; one is always moving either from orientation to disorientation, or from disorientation to new orientation.

 

Brueggermann on this basis commends the Psalms to all:

 

In a society that… grows numb by avoidance and denial, it is important to recover and use these Psalms that speak the truth about us – in terms of the governance of God…

 

The dominant ideology of our culture is committed to continuity and success and to the avoidance of pain, hurt, and loss. The dominant culture is also resistant to genuine newness and real surprise. It is curious but true, that surprise is as unwelcome as is loss. And our culture is organised to prevent the experience of both. (22, emphasis original)

 

We may think that this societal strategy has been threatened if not broken by the pandemic. But, even if so, that does not mean it will not rise again.

 

Arguably frustratingly, the Psalms give no content on how the new, wiser orientation concretely differs from the old, naive orientation. Brueggermann is clear that one psalm can be either or both, depending on what the reader brings (22). Again, they present no technique for living life in the healing of the new orientation. They tend to offer either lament, pure, or lament embedded in praise, including, as mentioned above, with the most sudden swerves from one to the other. These “swerving” psalms may be read as:

(a) containing an untold but implied story of problems solved, restoration granted, or

(b) of the psalmist’s decision to return to praise - anyway, nevertheless – “for the sheer heaven of it”, as it were.

We are not told which, and so we are not told which is the better approach.

  

I suggest we are simply (though not easily) invited to immerse ourselves in the streams (torrents?) of the movements mentioned above, moving from inauthentic orientation to authentic disorientation to authentic new orientation, all the time in intimate, familiar, familial, tensive dialogue with Gd, if only because (the praxis presupposes) we know that, when it comes to the big questions of justice and flourishing in this world, Gd is the ultimate interlocutor, with whom we just plain have to do.

 

Appendix

 

I had also been invited to speak more personally on the theme, but time prevented any serious autobiography. In the talk as given, I spoke of Psalm 137, saying that in my own way, I have made Psalm 137 (“By the rivers of Babylon”) my own Psalm of lament, in my prayers. This long predates the pandemic. I pray: “Gd, hear my lament, and cause me to make a good lament”, and then I recite. Ps 137 has its own challenges, supremely, its violent and vindictive ending. Tackling that would take a Workshop in its own right, and more. So I focused instead on the Psalm’s wistful-mournfulness: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither”. It happens that I have been at my happiest in Jerusalem (and I mean the physical place). So here is yet another way in which a psalm may resonate.

 

In the course of preparing the paper, I found myself drawn to Psalm 12, somewhat to my surprise. In this Psalm, it is manifestly clear that there is no resolution. The objective plight of the psalmist is exactly as bad in the last verse as in the first. Evil rules the roost. Words are twisted (surely a problem, for us as for them, before, during and after Covid). But Gd speaks into this. Not in abstract ways, but quite concretely. ‘I will rise up now’ says Gd, because Gd has heard the concrete cries of these concrete persons. Without any resolution, we are perhaps being invited to consider whether it makes any difference.

 

After the Hebrew, I offer a translation used liturgically in the Church of England (Common Worship)[6]. The reader/pray-er is encouraged to pause at the diamond.

 

Psalm 21, Massoretic Text, vv 2-9

 

 ² הוֹשִׁ֣יעָה יְ֭הוָה כִּי־גָמַ֣ר חָסִ֑יד כִּי־פַ֥סּוּ אֱ֜מוּנִ֗ים מִבְּנֵ֥י אָדָֽם׃

 ³ שָׁ֤וְא׀ יְֽדַבְּרוּ֮ אִ֤ישׁ אֶת־רֵ֫עֵ֥הוּ שְׂפַ֥ת חֲלָק֑וֹת בְּלֵ֖ב וָלֵ֣ב יְדַבֵּֽרוּ׃

 ⁴ יַכְרֵ֣ת יְ֭הוָה כָּל־שִׂפְתֵ֣י חֲלָק֑וֹת לָ֜שׁ֗וֹן מְדַבֶּ֥רֶת גְּדֹלֽוֹת׃

 ⁵ אֲשֶׁ֤ר אָֽמְר֙וּ׀ לִלְשֹׁנֵ֣נוּ נַ֭גְבִּיר שְׂפָתֵ֣ינוּ אִתָּ֑נוּ מִ֖י אָד֣וֹן לָֽנוּ׃

 ⁶ מִשֹּׁ֥ד עֲנִיִּים֮ מֵאַנְקַ֪ת אֶבְי֫וֹנִ֥ים עַתָּ֣ה אָ֭קוּם יֹאמַ֣ר יְהוָ֑ה אָשִׁ֥ית בְּ֜יֵ֗שַׁע יָפִ֥יחַֽ לֽוֹ׃

 ⁷ אִֽמֲר֣וֹת יְהוָה֮ אֲמָר֪וֹת טְהֹ֫ר֥וֹת כֶּ֣סֶף צָ֭רוּף בַּעֲלִ֣יל לָאָ֑רֶץ מְ֜זֻקָּ֗ק שִׁבְעָתָֽיִם׃

 ⁸ אַתָּֽה־יְהוָ֥ה תִּשְׁמְרֵ֑ם תִּצְּרֶ֓נּוּ׀ מִן־הַדּ֖וֹר ז֣וּ לְעוֹלָֽם׃

9סָבִ֗יב רְשָׁעִ֥ים יִתְהַלָּכ֑וּן כְּרֻ֥ם זֻ֜לּ֗וּת לִבְנֵ֥י אָדָֽם׃

 

 

Psalm 12

1.       Help me, Lord, for no one godly is left;  ♦

the faithful have vanished from the whole human race.

2.      They all speak falsely with their neighbour;  ♦

they flatter with their lips, but speak from a double heart.

3.      O that the Lord would cut off all flattering lips  ♦

and the tongue that speaks proud boasts!

4.      Those who say, ‘With our tongue will we prevail;  ♦

our lips we will use; who is lord over us?’

5.      Because of the oppression of the needy,

and the groaning of the poor,  ♦

I will rise up now,’ says the Lord,

‘and set them in the safety that they long for.’

6.      The words of the Lord are pure words,  ♦

like silver refined in the furnace

and purified seven times in the fire.

7.      You, O Lord, will watch over us  ♦

and guard us from this generation for ever.

8.      The wicked strut on every side,  ♦

when what is vile is exalted by the whole human race.

 

The Rev’d Patrick Morrow

A version (with supplementary material) of a paper delivered within the Theology Committee Workshop of the Virtual Conference of The International Council of Christians and Jews, 22 June, 2021. 

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[1] Liturgically minded Jews of course honour this, and chant it in majestic and mournful fulness, on Tisha B’Av, which marks the destruction of both Temples, and other catastrophes. In the Western Christian liturgical tradition (by which I mean principally Roman Catholic but also daring to add my own tradition, the Anglican) they are most used in Holy Week. In this, they can feed into the unhappy history of Holy Week vis-à-vis Jewish-Christian relations (by magnifying the strain of guilt in the Book as Jewish guilt). But, in any event, it does not have great prominence. I think most Church of England people will be most familiar with Lamentations through 3.22f: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness”, which, while good news, is scarcely a summary of the book as a whole. These words are popular at - and indeed set for - Church of England funerals.

 

[2] Cited by Brueggermann, Walter, 1984, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary, Augsburg, Minneapolis, 17, as from Calvin’s Preface to his Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Brueggermann himself proposes maximal overlap for the Christian reader/prayer: all of “(a) focal movements of Christian faith (crucifixion and resurrection), (b) decisive inclinations of Jewish piety (suffering and hope), (c) psalmic expressions that are most recurrent (lament and praise), and (d) seasons in our own life of dying and being raised. “ 22.

[3] One parallel swerve which can make translation awkward is in grammatical person, moving from second to third person and back, or with the first person moving between Gd and the one praying.

It is my habit to write God “Gd”, since I have been convinced by R. Kendall Soulen that the Christian practice of writing nomina sacra in abbreviated form (DS for Deus, etc.) is not a practical matter but a form of reverence for the Divine which parallels Jewish practice. See Soulen, R. Kendall, 2011, The Divine Name(s) and Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices, Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 31ff.

[4] Waltke, B. K., Houston J. M. & Moore, E.. 2014, The Psalms as Christian Lament: A Historical Commentary Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1.

[5] Op cit. Brueggermann owns his debt to Gunkel, Mowinkel, and Westermann, especially Westermann.

[6] © Archbishops’ Council, 2000. Note that as a liturgical text, this translation does not include the Psalms’ ‘superscriptions’. Hence the difference in verse numbers.