UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

DIFFERENT PATTERN FOR TODAY.

READ  PSALM 119:verses 1-3,verse 103 A COUPLE OF TIMES

“ Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord .Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart— they do nothing wrong but walk in his ways…. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Have you read Eugene Peterson’s “Eat this book”? (2) He gives a wonderful illustration at the beginning of chapter 1, of his dog growling over a bone. He says, “Years ago I owned a dog who had a fondness for large bones. Fortunately for him we lived in the forested foothills of Montana. In his forest rambles he often came across a carcass of a white-tailed deer that had been brought down by the coyotes. Later… he would prance and gambol playfully before us with his prize, wagging his tail proud of his find, courting our approval… But after a while, sated with our applause, he would drag the bone off 20 yards or so to a more private place, usually the shade of a large moss-covered boulder, and go to work on the bone. The social aspects of the bone were behind him; now the pleasure became solitary. He gnawed the bone, turned it over and around, licked it, worried it. Sometimes we could hear a low rumble or growl, what in a cat would be a purr.”

Eugene Peterson says (3) .. “imagine my delight when I came upon a phrase one day while reading Isaiah “like a lion growling or muttering over its prey…” (Isaiah 31:4) “Growls” is the word that caught my attention and brought me that little “pop” of delight. What my dog did over his precious bone making those low throaty rumbles of pleasure as he gnawed, enjoyed and savoured his prize, Isaiah’s lion did to his prey. The nugget of my delight was noticing the Hebrew word here translated as “growl” (hagah) but usually translated as “meditate,” as in the Psalm 1 phrase describing the blessed man or woman whose “delight is in the law of the Lord”, on which he meditates day and night.” verse 2.

Meditating on the Word is described in similar ways in Psalm 119:103 which  says  How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Hans Boersma in his book “Pierced by love” says (4) “reading the Bible as the word of God isn’t just like eating, it is eating. Our everyday eating and drinking are symbols or types that hint at the real or prototypical eating and drinking that unite us to Christ. The language of eating God’s word is prevalent in the Lectio Divina tradition. (5) Few biblical passages are as suggestive for exploring the metaphor of eating as God’s instruction to the prophet Ezekiel: “Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.’So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.” Ezekiel 3:3.

(6) If we are meant to eat the Scriptures can we link the various steps of Lectio Divina to step stages of the eating process? This is exactly what Guigo II does in “The ladder of the monks. “Reading as it were puts food into the mouth, meditation chews it and breaks it up, prayer    extracts its flavour,  contemplation is the sweetness(dulcedo) itself which gladdens and refreshes.”

How important is contemplation to you when reading the scripture? In his book “5 things theologians wish biblical scholars knew” Boersma says (7) “action and contemplation together make up the Christian life.. and feed into one another ..The end of Bible reading lies penultimately in action and ultimately in contemplation. Scripture presents models for both Martha and Mary, Leah and Rachel, Peter and John… Saint Augustine favoured contemplation over action. When Saint Gregory the Great turned from monk to Pope he often wrote of his desire to devote more time to contemplation. He wrote to his sister “I have lost the profound joys of my peace and quiet, and I seem to have risen externally, while falling internally. Wherefore I deplore my expulsion far from the face of my creator.” Contemplation is the one thing necessary, that Mary chose.

Nine times in psalm 119, the psalmist speaks of delighting in God’s laws, commands or decrees. In Psalm 119 the Hebrew word for “delight” (shaw-ah) (8) often has the connotation of ‘smearing over the eyes”.. here effectively meaning in Psalm 119, “smearing God’s laws over our eyes”. Is that your and my attitude to God’s boundaries? Do we want to see everything through the lense of God’s word? In a day when our society seems to highly value independence, the idea of delighting in boundaries seems counter-intuitive. We might even  call it  an oxymoron, that is a phrase or figure of speech that appears to be a self contradiction.

Nicky Gumbel, tells the story (9) of a football game that he was press-ganged to referee, that his son was participating in, when the person who was supposed to referee the game did not arrive. He said that he did not have a whistle, or know the markings of the pitch and was not very sure of the rules and he says that the game quickly descended into chaos until the real referee turned up, very late, and suddenly order was restored and the boys enjoyed a great game of football. Nicky Gumbel says:-  “Were the boys freer without the rules, or were they in fact less free? Without any effective authority, they could do exactly what they wanted. But people were confused and hurt. They much preferred it when the game was played according to the rules. Then they were free to enjoy the game. The rules of football are not designed to take away the fun of the game. They are designed to enable the game to be enjoyed to the full. God’s ‘rules’ are his boundaries for life, given out of his love for us. His boundaries are not designed to restrict our freedom but rather to give us freedom. Like the rules of football, they do not stop the enjoyment of the game. Rather, they enable the game of life to be enjoyed to the full.

Prayer

Lord, as I smear your Word over my eyes, as I choose to obey your commands, and submit to your boundaries over my life, may I delight in your word like a lion over its prey

SPEND A FEW MINUTES GOING THROUGH 4 STEPS OF LECTIO DIVINA (1), ON  PSALM 119:1-3, 103.

READING  “Put the food whole into your mouth”

MEDITATION,  “Chew it up”

PRAYER “Extract its flavour”

CONTEMPLATION “The sweetness which gladdens and refreshes”

(4 stages of Lectio Divina according to Guigo II, in Ladder of the Monks) (1)

READ PSALM 115-120 ONCE WITH SPOUSE OR HOUSEHOLD  (If not possible to read all of Psalm 119, read rest of Psalm 119 at end of 30 DAYS) 

Share together with your spouse or household what the Lord has been saying.

References

(1) Boersma, H Pierced by Love, 95. Quoting Guigo II Ladder of monks.

(2) Peterson, E. Eat this book, 1.

(3) Peterson, E Eat this book, 2.

(4) Boersma, H. Pierced by love, 92.

(5) Boersma, H. Pierced by love, 93.

(6) Boersma, H. Pierced by love, 95.

(7) Boersma, H. Five things theologians wish biblical scholars knew, 112, 113.

(8) https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h8173/kjv/wlc/0-1/

(9) Gumble, N. The bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Love boundaries Day 72.