Tag: Psalms

Through the Bible in a Year – August 1

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The scheme for July and August can be found here

2 Ki 10-12; Acts 15:36-16:40; Psalm 116-117

Gratitude for healing is the mark of Psalm 116, and gratitude marks out much of the language of the Psalms. In this sense they are somewhat alien to us. the Psalmist seeks at all times to see the hand of God in his life – at times that is a struggle – but even the struggle is expressed in prayer. the Psalmist understands that all of life is held in the hand of God and expresses himself accordingly. Thus when he recovers from illness he gives thanks to God for his deliverance.

For most is not all who read this blog, such a sense is something which is difficult for us to maintain, primarily because we have bought into the myth that we are in control of our own lives and destinies. A myth which our wealth, which historically is monumental, enables us comfortably to maintain.

Let us look around the room in which we are sat now. Look at our possessions. How many were gifts? How many have we accumulated ‘by the strength of our arm’, bought for ourselves out of our wealth? This is one simple expression of the way in which we are able to ‘build a life for ourselves’. And if we have built this life for ourselves, then why be thankful?

We may say, ‘I can be thankful that I have been given the strength to accumulate these things’, but is that the purpose of our lives? ‘Ones life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions’

The Psalmist on the whole lives much more on the edge. Even if the Psalmist is King David himself. Unlike Solomon who follows him, David is not renowned for his wealth and the David story which we read in 1 and 2 Samuel tells of a man living very much on the edge for much of his life – indeed his downfall occurs precisely at the point where he is settled and made a palace for himself. When he starts to live life on his own terms, taking that which is not his, seeking to possess.

Imagine what it would be like to live on the edge – not to know where your next meal was coming from. Imagine gratitude when it does come along.

Through the Bible in a Year – July 26th

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The scheme for July and August can be found here

2 Ch 16-18; Acts 10; Psalm 107:23-end

The ‘conversion’ of Cornelius draws our attention for the very good reason that this message of salvation is received by the Gentiles as well as the Jews. This marks a key point inthe life of the infant church. but there is more, much more. this narrative calls into question so much of what we have been taught to think about ‘conversion’

As the conversion of Paul challenges our self centered religion – leaving Paul with the question ‘What wouldst thou have me to do, Lord?’ (as he recounts on the two occasions when he tells the tale to others) – so today’s reading reminds us that this whole business of becoming Christian is not what so many of us have been told.

Cornelius lives a repentant life – he is turned towards God, and others. He prays continually and his life exhibits the generosity of God. There are many who have bought modern conceptions of ‘becoming a Christian’ who do not exhibit these outward signs of repentance towards God, signs which are looked for in The judgement.

The ‘Conversion’ of Cornelius reminds us that to become a Christian is nothing less that the reception of God’s very Life, the baptism of the Holy Spirit which Jesus’ death and resurrection have made possible.

If we read the accounts of john the Baptist and his description of his ministry with regard to Jesus, we see this plainly. John comes preaching a baptism of repentace towards God. Cornelius is already repentant towards God, and thus is judged worthy of the Life of God – the promised baptism with the Holy Spirit.

Through the Bible in a Year – July 24

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The scheme for July – August can be found here

2 Ch 10-12; Acts 8; Psalm 106:24-end

One of the grave errors of the contemporary church has been its abandonment of Psalmody as a regular part of the liturgy.

While we are reading through the scriptures I have included the Psalms on a regular cycle by which we pray through them in their entirety 3 times in the year.

Until recent times, such an approach to the Psalms was common place. In the Patristic era many people would pray through them on a daily basis – giving us pause for thought regarding our busy lives in which we say we have ‘no time to pray’. The monastic communities generally prayed [and pray] through them monthly. Of all our habits with regard to Scripture, it could be argued that this regular recitation of the Psalms is the most important.

For, to paraphrase Thomas Merton, alone in the Psalms ‘we have at once God’s word to human beings and the speech of human beings towards God’. Of no other part of Scripture can this be so truthfully said.

Put another way, praying the psalms places us before God in a way no other part of Scripture can do.

Perhaps this is why, in an age when the narcissistic spirit is rife, and humans place themselves without shame at the centre of the story, even that of faith, we so strenuously avoid the Psalms.

Through the Bible in a Year – May 2nd

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

Jdg 7-8; Mark 8; Psalm 3-4

Our Psalms offer us very contrasting prayers although one speaks to the other.

Psalm 3 we are told is of David, when he is fleeing from his son Absalom. The story of David and his son we will come to in time in our journey through the Old Testament – but for now it is enough to know that Absalom has staged a coup and David with a small band of those who have remained loyal have fled.

For the cast majority of those who read posts such as these it is hard to comprehend the depths of David’s loss and terror. His son has risen against him, his kingdom torn from his hand, and now he flees for his life. None of us can really know anything like this – yet in the midst his entire confidence is in God. He is both transcendent and imminent – a shield around him – and also the one who sustains him. God is his life, yes even David’s life.

Having said that we cannot know the depth of David’s predicament – who amongst us has every fled from those that seek to kill them – there is still as much disquiet in our hearts as if this were the case. The human creature often knows fear and distress which seems not to have a comparable external referent. And in the midst of this, Psalm 4 gives us wise wise counsel. For in the midst of the turbulence it is all too easy to be reactive and lash out against the ‘enemy’ – to ‘take the law into our own hands’, which is in effect to ‘take the name of the Lord in vain’.

The Psalmist calls us to a better path – a life giving path – ‘When you are disturbed, do not sin. Ponder it on your bed, and be still’

When our life is lived in the light of the knowledge of God, our perspective radically alters. We need not sin. It is the turbulence of our heart that is the very source of sin. ‘Trust in the lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding’ That is the path of Peace – of Shalom. Of discovering Home (your life is hid with Christ in God)

Through the Bible in a Year – April 5

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Deut 3-4; Phil 1; Psalm 119:1-16

Today we embark upon readings through Psalm 119. Famous for being the longest of the Psalms, it is also an extended meditation upon the Word of God.

Sadly for most of us, part of the beauty of these words is lost. In Hebrew it is an acrostic, that is each section begins with the successive letters of the alphabet, from Aleph to Taw.

This of course is no mere poetic device, rather it is a meas by which those who ‘read’ the Psalms come to memorize and thus interiorise these prayers.

Whilst a good number of us no doubt have memorised one or two Psalms, we live in an age which is already impoverished by the ready availability of print, and soon to be further impoverished no doubt as reading also is surpassed for other even more individualistic and ephemeral ways of ‘learning’.

Until the invention of printing, most had only one way to learn the Psalms and that was by listening and recitation. Thus the Psalms would go deep down into the interior, where they would feed our prayer lives and thus our ‘everyday lives’. They were the Daily bread on which we fed.

Indeed postulants of monastic orders would usually have to have learnt all the Psalms in such a way before admittance.

Although these posts are written to encourage us to get to know the whole of Scripture – in our highly pressurised modern lives it is rather like trying to eat an elephant. If you are finding keeping up difficult, perhaps just a diet of a slower meditative reading of Psalm 119 for the next few days would suffice. After all in this one Psalm we meditate on all of Scripture in a unique way.

Through the Bible in a Year – March 31

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 29-30; Eph 1; Psalm 110-111

Psalm 110 is THE Royal Psalm – the one which Jesus himself quotes in effect to sign his own death warrant as he speaks with the Crowds in Mark 12.

This wonderful Psalm we read today in association with Ephesians 1. Where Paul is enraptured in his exaltation of Christ. All his grammar falls to pieces in vs 3-14 as he is caught up in praise of Christ in perhaps the single longest sentance of all of Scripture. I wonder, how long is it since we were so enraptured in our worship of Christ?

Those of us, including myself, who revel in the mind, who love nothing more than to ponder ‘truths’, need perhaps more than most to ‘Learn Christ’ – to Know deep within ourselves that the person who may have little or no grasp of any doctrine, may worship Christ in truth far more than we ever will.

Oh for that liberated heart

Through the Bible in a Year – March 21

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 10-11; 2 Cor 5-6; Psalm 103

Once more a brief pause to consider a Psalm

This time, 103, one of those often committed to memory and it would be a good practise so to do.

Christian faith, as we have noted, is all too easily turned in on itself – we have ‘a faith’ which secures us. The beginning and end of our faith is our salvation, either in the here, or the hereafter. Whereas the Biblical witness is that the End, the Purpose of faith is the Glory of God.

Thus meditation on Psalm 103, with its total focus on the attributes of God is a useful medicine for the incurvatus soul. It will not let us turn in on ourselves, rather it opens us to God. And so the Psalmist both begins and ends the Psalm with true words of faith – Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me Bless His holy name.

For surely the end of our faith is to Bless God

Through the Bible in a Year – March 2

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The Scheme for March and April can be found here

Lev 1-3; Romans 10; Psalm 78 vs 1-31

‘Of the best that thou hast given, Earth and Heaven render thee’

First today, we note the Psalm. The neglect of the Psalms in the life of the church is a grievous omission. Nothing perhaps better exemplifies the narcissistic temperament of so much of contemporary Christianity than the neglect of the Psalms – for where else in all sacred scriptures are a people so unremittingly self critical. Where else are we so honest with God, most especially about our own faults than in the Psalms. Their place in the liturgy of God’s people down through the ages, the prayer book by which Christ so thoroughly identified himself with us, must be restored if we are to move more fully into the life that God wishes to offer us – a life free of dissimulation and conceits, a life of Honesty and Truthfulness. The Psalms, in rehearsing our sorry history, do not leave us with the hubristic satisfaction of saying, ‘look how far we have come’!

Viewed in such a light, thus our Salvation is very Great – as the writer to the Hebrews puts it ‘How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?’ A New and Living way opened for us. And at its heart is sacrifice. The Sacrificial system is marked out by the words, the best, the choice, the unblemished. As the various offerings are outlined in the opening chapters of Leviticus, this is a recurrent theme, and indeed later its failure to be heeded is the source of the sharpest denunciation of the prophets. These sacrifices are not propitiatory, they are Sacrifices of Praise – they are not to elicit Salvation, they are in response to it. Those who know they have been forgiven much, love much.

The Psalms keep us reminded of the scope of God’s salvation – all we can do is our reasonable act of worship – to offer our souls and bodies, as living sacrifices, in the pattern of the One who offered up himself.

Through the Bible in a Year – February 23

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The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Exodus 27-28; Romans 1; Psalm 70-71

As we read yesterday of the devotion of Paul’s life – so today our Psalm speaks of this lifelong devotion. The Psalms, much neglected in the contemporary church which has in many places lost any sense of continuity with the Communion of the Saints – the faithful upon another shore, amongst whom we worship if only we could see.

The mark of Secularism is the powerful tendency to live for the present moment. Whilst we are called to live in the present moment, this is not the same thing. To live for the present is to announce our own illusory triumph over time. To live In the present is to live with an apprehension of all that is past and all that is to come, Present to us now in the one who is the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and the End, in whom all things hold together.

So the Psalmist looks back and sees God – ‘O God, from my youth you have taught me’ into the present ‘and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds’ – and on into the future ‘so even to my old age and gray hairs do not forsake me’. God is his life.

It is this Eternal perspective in which past and future are apprehended, that Moses walks and talks with God upon Sinai, in the eternal symbols of Worship and Priesthood. Christ we are reminded is a High Priest forever – who Ever lives to make intercession for us. Our dimmed eyes only see wood and cloth – yet in this lying out of the design of the Tabernacle, we are called to look to the One who is the Tabernacle of God and who is also the Sacrifice . . . ‘It shall be a perpetual ordinance . . .’

It is this gospel which Paul announces – it is nothing new – it has been promised beforehand – prefigured in Everything that has gone before and in its scope embracing all of history – the gospel of Christ, descended [through many generations] from David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead – God’s judgement on History – and his renewal of all things.

[There is no art work with this post. Who can represent such things???]

Through the Bible in a Year – January 10

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The Scheme for January and February can be found here

Genesis 22-23; John 8:1-30; Psalm 15-16

Paradoxically it is here in the darkest of all texts, that Light is most clear. It is worth perhaps meditating on Isaiah 50:10-11 as a commentary on this story in Genesis.

As many many people have noted down the ages, this story of Abraham and the call to sacrifice ‘your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love’ is The Story of Faith. Abraham is confronted with the starkest of choices. Both ways seem to him to be ways of darkness. On the one hand he may say ‘Yes’ to God’s summons – and yet once more and now in the very starkest of terms he is confronted by the impossibility of Faith. For saying ‘Yes’ to the summons, Obeying, seems to do nothing more than contradict God’s Promise. The God who has said to him ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned’ – now calls him to sacrifice this son.

[In a sense here we face the essence of the struggle of our own walk – for we walk in obedience but rarely can we see what it will bring forth]

Yet the other choice is no less stark – Say ‘No’ to the God who has from the beginning summoned him forth? One way or the other he must say No to life. Of course God’s promise is Not that Isaac will live, it is that through Isaac will the descendents of Abraham be brought forth. The Promise goes way beyond what Abraham can see as he looks at his son. And thus is faith. We can choose to live by sight and trust our own judgement, obedient to ourselves, or live by faith, which is nothing more nor less than obedience to the one who has Promised to bring forth life through our obedience.

It is in darkness that faith comes Alive. When all we have to hold onto is the promise of God, Faith is most True, for it is All we have. It is in that discovery that we are set free – Abraham chooses to die, and trust the God will bring forth Life. He hears the word of one who was lifted up, who in his obedient dying bears much fruit and follows Him. Life revealed in and through Death. And thus, through faith Abraham does rejoice to see the day of the Living One. In the choice of faith in darkness, The Lamb of God is revealed, the Light of the World shines forth.

Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
 I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”