Exodus – movement of the people
Psalm 103:6-13
What are the Psalms, anyway?
If you are ever seriously ill, and find yourself in need of deep spiritual comfort, fast… I recommend that you don’t touch the Psalms with a bargepole. Richard Crocker, chaplain of Dartmouth College in Conecticut, tried it. In his wonderfully understated New England way this is what he found:
What I discovered in reading the psalms straight through over more than 150 days was that the number of psalms that are liturgically useful in their entirety is small. Most of the psalms contain verses that are so difficult that we routinely ignore them. In other words, the psalms are not uniformly comforting; indeed, most of them are problematic - even for a person determined to find comfort.
Richard Crocker – Chaplain of Dartmouth College
Bono gives a partial explanation for this in his introduction to the Psalms:
David... was forced into exile and ended up in some no name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting; this is where David was said to have composed his first psalm - a blues. That's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?'
The fact that the scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers and mercenaries used to shock me; now it's a great source of comfort.
Bono – Introduction to the Psalms, Pocket Canons
Read a Psalm as though it were a theological essay, to be interpreted with the same toolkit you would use to read, say, Paul’s letters, and you will be disappointed. Here’s the view of a professional poet:
Most emphatically, the psalms must be read as poems; as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to poetry. They must be read as poems if they are to be understood... otherwise we shall miss what is in them and think we see what is not there.
C. S. Lewis - Reflections on the Psalms
This is important as we seek to suck the goodness out of the next section.
David’s revolutionary slogan (6)
“The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed”. Because he loves us with a passion he wants us to exhibit righteousness and experience justice. But we live in a world that is so out of whack we do not always achieve the righteousness we long for our receive the justice we ought. Oh, yes, we will do… one day everyone will receive justice, but it does not always (like healing) happen in the present. The poor man who has just been released from prison having served fourteen years for a murder he did not commit will not get justice in this life. The cops who stitched him up will continue to insist he is guilty, the state will fight over every penny of compensation he is entitled to, and no-one will ever go to see him to apologise for what has happened.
David’s revolutionary slogan is not so much a general statement about universal justice, as a particular reference to God working justice for Israel; “He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel” – David is not thinking of the population of South America, he is thinking about the history of his own people. “Forget not all his benefits” includes the benefits of belonging to a people with a unique history and a covenant relationship with God.
Righteousness, rather like a good quality wine, is a full bodied word with beautiful undertones. Originally it meant ‘right behaviour’ – that is, behaviour that was like God. In spiritual terms, this is normality; whatever ravages sin has created that which is righteous is truly normal. So righteousness is right-functioning and just ordering of society (see Psalm 72:1-14).
Naturally, the wealthy tend to win over the poor, so righteousness will have to guard the poor in particular (you see this in Psalm 72). The eighth century prophets (Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Micah) in their passion for the poor used the word to express God’s benevolence and salvation. In fact, whenever you see this word ‘righteousness’ it is often in the context of God rescuing people from unrighteousness and injustice.
Within the Psalms, around the 10th century BC, this word probably has its earlier meaning – ‘the Lord makes things work properly and justly” – that was his intention in rescuing Israel and setting them up as a model nation.
Whatever the exodus meant in spiritual terms it was nevertheless the actual liberation of actual slaves from an actual villain of the greatest magnitude. Christians should have an active interest in spiritual salvation and social justice.
This should apply to pastors, too. You should be able to expect righteousness in the church and its employment practices – a right functioning and just ordering of the church community. Can I flag up two areas of concern here?
Church employment practices are often deeply deficient. Salaries are low, pensions are parsimonious. There is no structure for appraisal and formal evaluation of the ministry and the way the pastor is supported. There is no staff training or development. I was buying a pair of spectacles last week and there was a plaque on the wall proclaiming that SpecSavers were ‘Investors in People’. How many churches could claim that? Now when you are investing in people every day, but nothing is being invested in you, that is injustice and unrighteousness – things are not working properly.
Then there is criticism. How many people here have been confronted with the phrase, “A lot of people have been saying…” What this usually means is that your critic feels insecure giving you his opinion, so he invents a mythical cadre of malcontents to give his views some weight. But what if there is a bit of concern in the fellowship and no-one will share it with you personally, so they take it to the leaders. Even experienced leaderships can over-react to this kind of thing. Sometimes the only ‘appraisal’ a pastor receives is when he gets jumped on by the elders after they have received a complaint; if you have been duffed-up by your elders on Saturday it is unlikely that you will proclaim a joyful and confident gospel on Sunday. Now, when you are trying to lead with integrity, and others do not have the integrity to relate to you with fairness, that is injustice and unrighteousness – things are not working properly.
Remembering the Exodus
Last year I was walking ‘round a field near my house turning over this Psalm in my mind. I was reflecting on the phrase, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious…” when it struck me; this is a quotation from Exodus, almost word for word (Exodus 34:6). This is God describing himself to Moses in circumstances that are, when you think about them, pretty amazing.
Think on this sequence. Israel is rescued form slavery, and then they are brought across the Red Sea and miraculously led through the desert. They are fed, they are watered, and then they are given the law. They are so thankful to the Lord for all his goodness to them that they make a golden calf and worship it – in the teeth of God’s commandment forbidding idolatry. God is angry, but Moses goes off it, smashing the stones that the law of God was written upon.
The Lord could have ended the relationship there and then, but he didn’t. He started over again with Israel, he gives them new stones with the law written on and as he does so he says “The Lord, the Lord…” (Exodus 34:6ff). This is a wonderful moment, and Psalm 103 is, if you like, David’s commentary on Exodus 34. He is taking us back to the Exodus event and introducing us to the fact that God is way more gracious than we dare believe.
The Pharisee within
Inside every Christian there is a Pharisee trying to get out. The legalist within longs to torture us, or other people, with our failures and shortcomings. Imagine this conversation:
“Read Exodus 34, there is no hope for you. Obey the law or you are doomed”
“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love”
“But this is God’s law, it’s clear ans simple, he blesses the obedient and curses the failures.”
“He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or reward us according to our iniquities”
You should be afraid, you have gone too far, you have failed too frequently and too often.”
“As high as the heavens are above the earth, so gret is his love for those who fear him.”
But sin is sin is sin!
“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgrassions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him”
You are free from the law and living in God’s fatherly grace. Let me put it this way, you don’t have to succeed in ministry to earn his love; he loves you anyway. You may choose never to go to church again, never to read your bible again, never to pray again, never to preach again. His love for you will not diminish by one fraction of a nanometer.
That is grace!
And don’t forget that his grace flows from his compassion. Compassion – raham “to love deeply and show mercy” – there is a powerful emotional content to this word compassion. It is not putting a cheque in the post out of pity or duty. It is the urgent ‘phone call to your son who is in trouble, the late-night drive to fetch him home from college, the long wait through the small hours while the doctors do their work.
Responding to sin
This is your God. And righteousness is to live by his norms. How do you apply this to the way we deal with those who sin against us?
David himself has experienced the amazing grace of God. In the Bathsheba Affair he is conscience-stricken when he is himself convicted of sin. His contrition, and his prayer for restoration are famous, Psalm 51. He knows he had offended God (at least) and that he is doomed if God chooses not to be merciful.
And he was merciful, he and Bathsheba loose the child but other than that things go on pretty much as normal.
But what happens when David is sinned against? In Psalm 109:1-15 you get an insight into David’s real feelings towards those who made his life difficult:
Appoint an evil man to oppose him;
let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.
May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven [d] from their ruined homes.
May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children [1] .
This passage is not ‘uniformly comforting’ or ‘liturgically useful’ is it? Read 103:8-10 against this background:
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
There you have it: the ugliness in the heart of the best of men and the beauty in the heart of God.
This is your God.
This is also our calling – to be as gracious and compassionate as he is.
You have a right to expect justice and a proper ordering of the Christian community for whom you are working. But we don’t always get justice in this life – he may not work righteousness and justice for you, not just yet. So what do you do in the mean time?
You make the painful journey from Psalm 109 to Psalm 103 – when you are compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. That is righteousness.
Maybe that’s what it means to ‘Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness’?
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,
Bow down before him his glory proclaim,
With gold of obedience and incense of lowliness
Kneel and adore him, the Lord is his name
Low at his feet lay thy burden of carefulness
High on his heart he will bear it for thee
Comfort thy sorrows and answer thy prayerfulness
Guiding thy steps as may best for him be.
[1] Some commentators regard these words as David’s description of what his accusers are saying of him. Derek Kidner [TOTC p 398] sees this as a desperate attempt to sanitise the psalm – I suspect he is right.