UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

READ PSALM 141-145

SUGGESTED PATTERN READ PSALM 145 AGAIN with spouse or household.

SPEND A FEW MINUTES GOING THROUGH 4 STEPS OF LECTIO DIVINA (1), ON  PSALM 145:3-7

“ Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendour of your majesty—  and I will meditate on your wonderful works. They tell of the power of your awesome works—and I will proclaim your great deeds. They celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness.”

HEARING THE WORD  Try different ways of slow reading..   try reading aloud looking at different versions.. Early monks learned the text or portions of it by heart.. others carefully copied it down

RECEIVING THE WORD, read slowly enough so that you can pick up when and where a sentence or phrase speaks to you …then simply stop… and repeat it to yourself carefully and often enough to let its meaning sink in.

PRAYING WITH THE WORD Open up a conversation with God with the phrase or sentence you are reading  and let his word begin to build a relationship between you  and Him

WONDERING AT THE WORD Once we begin to hear the word of God and incline our hearts to it we are ultimately attending to Him rather than to it…. Be ready to enjoy…  rather than to understand.

Share together with your spouse or household what the Lord has been saying. Finally one person reads out loud the devotional below and then pray for one another.  

“You brought music back into the house .. I had forgotten..” These are the words of Captain Georg von Trapp to Maria, the vivacious nun who had begun to look after Captain Georg’s 7 children as governess after the death of his wife.  In this very touching scene in the  classic film, The Sound of Music, which maybe  the most beloved musical of all-time.(1)  The context is pre-war Austria and the awareness of the approaching of the evil of Naziism that  is about to sweep away everything that is good. The contrast between this foreboding evil,  and the  delightful innocence and  gratitude for God’s creation that  Maria celebrates  in song with 7 young children, is deeply moving.

Celebrating God’s acts in the past and his goodness, praising and worshipping Him in words and in song, for who He is and what he has done is a pervading theme in the book of psalms. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart say that the Psalms were “carefully arranged to mirror the story of Israel from the time of David until after the exile…. written for the individual who is aware of being part of the people of God who together belong to God in covenant relationship and  share the same story.” (2) It has been the practice of the Christian church in Europe for the past 2000 years, particularly in the monastic expressions of the church, throughout the centuries, through thick and thin, to sing and celebrate and remember the abundant goodness of God and joyfully sing of His righteousness and to live in and inhabit the psalms.

Karl Barth says (3) “it is no accident that of all the books of the Old Testament the Psalter has always been found the most relevant. This is not in spite of the fact, but just because of it, that in so many passages it echoes the people of the covenant trembling for its preservation, in final extremity before it’s all-powerful enemies. The Christian community always has good reason to see itself in this people, and to take on its own lips the words of its helpless sighing, the cries which it utters from the depths of its need.”

Walter Brueggeman, reminds us in his book “ Praying the Psalms” that “the songs are a centrepiece of Christian liturgy piety and spirituality. They have been so from the beginning of the Christian movement for good reason. They have been found poignant in expression, able to empower believing imagination in remarkable ways. This is evident in the rich use made of the Psalms through the New Testament most especially in the passion of Jesus. But the use of the Psalms by Christians is not without awkwardness for the psalms are relentlessly Jewish in their mode of expression and in the faith claims. And with our best intent for generosity and good faith the different nuances of Jewish and Christian faith are not to be overlooked or easily accommodated……A long-standing practice (going back to the very early Christian interpretation) is to treat the Psalms as claims about Jesus Christ. In the tradition of Augustine for example there is a tendency to find hints about the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus at many points in the Psalms. It is not easy to know how to assess such a practice. On the one hand it may seem to make this Psalms more readily available for Christian use. On the other hand, I suggest such ‘spiritualising’ tends to tone down the Psalms down and avoid the abrasive and offensive elements. On balance, I believe it more helpful to avoid such a practice. We will be helped to a more genuine piety and an authentic faith, if we engage the Psalms as poetry about our common, particular humanness. Nothing should be done that detracts from that reality. Facing such a Christian alternative we should be more attentive to the rawness of Jewish faith out of which the Psalms speak. But there is another alternative. It is in the prayers of Jesus that we may link Jewish ways of praying and Christological interpretation. For the prayers of Jesus are surely prayers of a Jew. And the entire tradition of Christian prayer and Christian use of the Psalms must be seen in this light. This gives us warrant for christological interpretation, but the centrality of Jesus can never be far separated from the Jewish character of the material.”(3)

Prayer

Lord, I remember your lavish love and your abundant goodness. In the middle of a sobering time on the world stage and in our nation, I celebrate the favourite things you have  blessed me with, and I am forever grateful for the love you have bestowed on me in  adopting me into your family, and calling me your son.    

References

(1) The Sound of Music https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/

(2) Fee, D and Stuart, D. How to read the bible book by book, 132, 133, 131.

(3) Barth, K. Church Dogmatics IV.2, 671.

(4) Brueggemann, W. Praying the Psalms, 43-46

(5) Bible Project The Psalms https://bibleproject.com/podcast/series/psalms-study/