Sunday, December 31, 2017

First Sunday after Christmas

Psalm 148
Praise God from the heavens; give praise in the heights!
Give praise, all you angels; praise God, all you hosts!
Praise God, sun and moon; give praise, stars and lights!
Praise God, farthest heavens,
and all waters beyond heaven! R
Let all things praise the Holy One at whose command
they were created,
who established them for all time,
setting bounds, which cannot be passed.
Praise God from the earth,
great sea creatures and ocean depths,
lightning and hail, snow and frost,
gales that obey God's decree,
all mountains and hills, all fruit trees and cedars,
wild animals and cattle, creatures winged and earth-bound,
sovereigns who rule earth and its people,
all who govern and judge this world,
young men and women alike,
old people and children together! R
Let all things praise the name of God,
the name above every other,
whose splendour covers heaven and earth.
You give strength to your people,
songs of praise to your faithful,
to Israel, the people dear to your heart. R


Days later, it feels like a distant dream.

That thing you imagined, planned, prepared—it seems over before it even began. Even now, while I’m driving to and fro, a thought flashes through my mind: “Do I have everything I need? Do I need anything from there?” Anything that takes a long time to prepare will have a sort of half-life, living in our consciousness in the days and weeks that follow.

And then there is the actual event itself. Anyone who has prepared the big meal will tell you that there is a moment—just a moment—when you think “are you just gonna eat it? Can’t we just linger over the presentation, the way these things look in their bowls, the herculean task of having everything ready at the same moment?” Again, it’s a fleeting thought, but it’s there.

Or the utter randomness of gift-giving. The item that you thought would be a hit remains unopened, while that last-minute item becomes a source of fascination and joy. Or children that insist on tarrying over the first item, when you know there are bigger things in store. Or the end of the afternoon, when the kids are more interested in the empty boxes and the mound of discarded wrapping paper than the things formerly contained inside.

What I’m pointing at—beyond perhaps a mild case of post-holiday let-down—is that pesky thing God gave us, namely free will. We make a plan and events unfold—and seldom do these agree. In many ways, that is part of the magic, not knowing what will steal the show. But it also underlines the limits of planning—since people will decide for themselves.

And the passage that provoked this somewhat philosophical post-holiday reflection—Psalm 148—has all the elements of this movement from planning to implementation. It also goes from big to small, the larger picture of God’s creation to the hearts of the creatures given to praise.

And when I say big, I’m mean cosmologically big! If it’s a movement from macro to micro, then what’s bigger than farthest heavens?

Praise God from the heavens; give praise in the heights!
Give praise, all you angels; praise God, all you hosts!
Praise God, sun and moon; give praise, stars and lights!
Praise God, farthest heavens,
and all waters beyond heaven!

Now, the scholars say this is precise description of the way ancient minds saw the universe: there was a dome above our heads, resting on the earth below, all of it surrounded by a primordial sea. God set these boundaries—the limits of sky and sea, the depths of the oceans, the vastness of the heavens—to provide order, that we might find our place. And in finding our place, we also see we are part of a larger whole:

Praise God from the earth, great sea creatures and ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and frost, gales that obey God's decree, all mountains and hills, all fruit trees and cedars, wild animals and cattle, creatures winged and earth-bound, sovereigns who rule earth and its people, all who govern and judge this world, young men and women alike, old people and children together!

Again, we find our place. And in finding place, we strive to reflect the glory seen in the whole. The psalmist ends this part of the litany with the word “together,” to underline that all the created order belongs to God and each element belongs to the others. We cannot be separated from the rest of God’s creation—each part praises and is worthy of praise!

And so if “together” is underlined to add meaning to the whole, the final section completes the thought, adding yet another dimension to our meditation on the order of creation. In this case, it requires a bit of cross-interpretation, to find the full meaning of the words. I’m going to share what you might read in your pew Bibles, a slightly less poetic rendering of the last two verses:

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
for his name alone is exalted;
his splendour is above the earth and the heavens.
And he has raised up for his people a horn,
the praise of all his faithful servants,
of Israel, the people close to his heart.

It’s that last part that’s a bit of a head-scratcher, going from the NIV “he has raised up for his people a horn,” to the hymnbooks more poetic “you give strength to your people.” Now, my resident Hebrew scholar (selfishly) left town to see her family, so I had to turn other scholars to understand how ‘giving a horn’ becomes ‘giving strength’ to the people. They suggested looking at Psalm 18:

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield[b] and the horn[c] of my salvation,
my stronghold. (v. 2)

So all of this, rock, refuge, shield, “horn of salvation,” and stronghold suggests we need saving. I know this seems obvious, but the implications are worth noting. Everything that the Psalmist points to up until the part about the horn seems to suggest that God is fully in control. And there is some comfort in the assumption. We want (and we need) God to be in control of creation, the limits of sky and sea, the order of creatures and peoples, the sovereigns who rule the earth.

But then the caveat. In raising up the horn of salvation, it reminds us that everything human is subject to free will. As soon as we were created, we had a mind of our own. It was an important design parameter, made with hearts and minds free to love and serve the one who made us. With freedom, we became the true companions to the God who made us, free to give to God the glory God so richly deserves.

But there is, of course, the shadow side of freedom, where choices for God and God’s way can be turned aside. There are moments when we reflect the glory of the Creator and times we do not. We each have a selfish gene, made to ensure our survival and regulated by “the law” that God imprinted on our hearts. And there seem to be times when the gene and the law are in balance, and times when the opposite happens.

2017, it would seem, has been a masterclass in free will. Choosing “alternative facts” over objective truth, giving voice to ideas long-banished from the public square, pursuing brazen self-interest and naming it a virtue—these and many more examples underline the extent to which history revolves rather than automatically advancing to some better future. Suddenly free will seems like a really bad idea.

But free will, like gravity, is only a bad idea if you are falling down. Mostly free will just “is,” allowing us to be our best selves when we choose to make the world a better place, and other times becoming a cautionary tale when we fall down.

And that’s where the horn of salvation comes in. God wouldn’t choose to come to earth without free will. God wouldn’t show us a better way to live if we didn’t need the example or the encouragement. God wouldn’t send us a Saviour if we didn’t need saving.

I’m going to give the last word to old Simeon, that ever patient prophet who waited in the Temple for some sure sign of God’s strength, only to be rewarded when the baby Jesus is presented. He says:

For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

May the light ever shine, and may the glory of the people every reign in our hearts. Amen.

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