The afflicted one cries out - Psalm 102

Psalm 102 is one of the rare psalms in Book IV to receive a title, and an intriguing one at that. So far we've had:

1. 90: A prayer of Moses the man of God
2. 92: A psalm, a song, for the Sabbath
3. 98: A psalm
4. 100: A psalm, for thanksgiving
5. 101: Davidic, a psalm
6. 102: A prayer of an afflicted one who has grown weak and pours out a lament before Yhwh
7. 103:Davidic

As you can see, this is long and unique among the psalter, but especially among 90-106. Commentators often work hard to find a time in the life of David or another king (often Hezekiah) to correlate to the experience described here, but I don't know this is particularly fruitful. 

What the title does give us however is some vocabulary which will be important throughout the psalm. For instance:

1. תפלה, a prayer, also 1x in v2(1) and 2x in v18(17)
2. ענה, to afflict, or, here, an afflicted one, also in v24(23) as a verb (Yhwh is the one who afflicted the psalmist), and also a homograph meaning "to answer" in v3(2) - perhaps a pun? "answer your afflicted one
3. √פנה, usually as לפני, meaning before, but also face, occurs 4x throughout the psalm, in v3(2), 11(10), 26(25) (meaning perhaps "before"), and 29(28). There's also the related verb meaning "to turn" in 18(17)

These three lexemes and related roots are important throughout the psalm; it as a whole stands as a prayer of the afflicted one, to the one who has afflicted them, that they might turn their face and respond.

Another word which is important from a Sitz in der Literatur perspective is the word for complaint (or praise? in Ps 104), שׂיח, which occurs at or near the beginning of four other psalms (55, 64, 142) and at the end of another (104). We also meet it the same number of times in Job (7:13; 9:27; 10:1; 21:4; 23:2). 

But these three repeated words go some way to explaining the recursive nature of the psalm, which seems to follow a back-and-forth pattern as follows:

1. Heading: for the one who suffers   1(0) 

2. Plea for Yhwh to hear   2-3(1-2) 

3. Explanation/description of human finitude  4-12(3-11) 

4. A plea to Yhwh the eternal one   13-16(12-15) 

5. Description of Yhwh’s eternal glory and concern for those who call out in their suffering   17-23(16-22) 

6. Plea based on the contrast of man’s brevity but Yhwh’s eternity   24-29(23-28) 

The net effect of this alternation is to call on Yhwh to show mercy from his eternity to this poor afflicted one whose days are brief, are only halfway done (25(24)).


As an exodus psalm (see my series) this looks back to the plight of Israel post-the golden calf incident, as Moses appeals for Yhwh not to destroy his people despite their great apostacy. In this connection it is noteworthy that the name of God that he revealed to Moses at the beginning of the exodus appears some nine times in this psalm. 

On the other side of the exodus, parts of this psalm are applied in praise to the other name, Jesus, as the one who sits on an eternal throne (Hebrews 1:10-12). This posits the people who know God through Jesus as the afflicted ones who cried out to God for rescue, and were answered in that prayer by the coming of Jesus to bring his salvation.

Things that flow

Generally speaking*, there are two flows described in the Bible:

1. things that flow (ῥέω) in a good way are: milk and honey in the promised land, water from the rock, and living water from the heart of the believer (Jn 7.38). 
2. but things which may flow away (παραρρέω) or drift if we're not careful are: sound wisdom and discretion for the fool (Prov 3.21) and us from our salvation (Heb 2.1).

The answer to holding onto the good flows and not letting them drift is found in Hebrews also: 6.19 - holding onto our hope which is the anchor** for our soul.

I'm enjoying getting into Hebrews - looking forward to preaching through it for the next two months.

* there are some exceptions. in Leviticus uncleanness is also said to 'flow'.
** hey - anchor's a Greek word: ἄγκυρα - who knew?!

same kind of bad as me

Tom Waits' new album out soon.

here's the lyrics to a song from it, Bad as Me

You’re the head on the spear
You’re the nail on the cross
You’re the fly in my beer
You’re the key that got lost
You’re the letter from Jesus on the bathroom wall
You’re mother superior in only a bra
You’re the same kind of bad as me

I’m the hat on the bed
I’m the coffee instead
The fish or cut bait
I’m the detective up late
I’m the blood on the floor
The thunder and the roar
The boat that won’t sink
I just won’t sleep a wink
You’re the same kind of bad as me

No good you say
Well that’s good enough for me

You’re the wreath that caught fire
You’re the preach to the choir
You bite down on the sheet
But your teeth have been wired
You skid in the rain
You’re trying to shift
You’re grinding the gears
You’re trying to shift
And you’re the same kind of bad as me

They told me you were no good
I know you’ll take care of all my needs
You’re the same kind of bad as me

I’m the mattress in the back
I’m the old gunnysack
I’m the one with the gun
Most likely to run
I’m the car in the weeds
If you cut me I’ll bleed
You’re the same kind of bad as me
You’re the same kind of bad as me

you can listen to it here

i'm trying to work out what it's about.
on the surface of it, it's saying don't feel you're too bad to be with me, coz i'm bad too.
I know some people who've got in a terrible mess, worrying they're not good enough for the other person in their life. and they're not good enough. but neither is the other person!

although Jesus is an indirect object (especially in the first verse), there is something right in saying that Jesus is the same kind of bad as me. God lowered himself to become a man, to get down and dirty in the grime and muck of human existence. he identifies fully with us.
the author to the Hebrews writes

Son though he was, he learned obedience through what he suffered
Heb 5.8

and just before that we find

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weakness, but one who has in every respect been tempted as we are.
Heb 4.15

Waits does use lots of Christian imagery in his music (Chocolate Jesus, God's away on business etc.), so i wonder if this is part of his Christian osmosis. that is, when weighed down by sin, we can know that God knows our struggles and temptations. and knowing us, knowing the wickedness of our hearts, he values us so much that he lived, suffered and died as one of us, in order to redeem us.
Hebrews 5 continues

being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who are obedient to him.
Heb 5.9

so Jesus is the same kind of bad as you, and he became that and died as that, sinless, eternal Son though he was, so that you might have life in him.

this is the word of the lord

the response is supposed to go, 'thanks be to God'.

i remember the Don getting a bit sermonic when, getting up to preach after the bible was read, chastigated the reader for not offering a 'this is the word of the lord', whereupon he said it, and all the good Anglicans in the room responded 'thanks be to God.'

this is definitely not having a go at the Don, and his point was well taken, and he was making a point rather than having a go at the bible reader.

but i am reading John Goldingay's, 'Models for Scripture' (Eerdmans, 1994), and he suggested this might not always be the correct response (p10).

so after Mark 14.1-12 was read, he wanted the reader to say 'this is part of God's story'. or after Job or Ecclesiastes, 'isn't is amazing the things you can say to God'.

after either you could still respond 'thanks be to God.'

perhaps after prophetic oracles such as Isaiah 5.1-7 they could say 'this is the word of the lord', but a more appropriate response would be 'God help us.'

now i love formal liturgy as much as the next guy, but i like the point Goldingay is making here - 'word of God' is a model for parts of scripture, not scripture as a whole. it is used by scripture to describe particular words (cf eg Heb 4.12; Isa 55.11).

an automatic response to the reading of scripture can imply an lack of genuine listening; it would be good if there were a flexibility in responses that recognised the diversity of scripture.

Hebrews 4.14-5.10 Wordle

i haven't done a wordle for a while. so here is one from my recent Hebrews talk (click to enlarge):

Hebrews 4.14-5.10 Chiasm

what do you think:

A 4.14 – Because he’s ascended to heaven let us hold fast
    B 4.15 – Jesus an empathetic human priest.
        C 5.5 – Jesus a Son-priest
            D 5.6 – Jesus a Melchizedek-priest
    B’ 5.7 – Jesus lived an earthly life
        C’ 5.7 – Jesus learnt obedience despite being the Son
A’ 5.9-10 – Source of eternal salvation for those who believe.
            D’ 5.10 – Jesus the Melchizedek-priest

i was hoping it could be a little prettier.
maybe can't even call it properly chiastic. more recursive.
but i'm preaching on it tomorrow morning, important as the chiasm is it might have to wait...

the wisdom of wedlock

i tried to follow the same basic outline for all three weeks, so the outline was again

i] what is wedlock?
ii] we need wisdom to guide us through wedlock
iii] Proverbs is not the end of the story - Jesus redeems wedlock

again, it was an opportunity to put together some of the strands from ethics this year.

i] we first thought through the importance of wedlock in the media - both the gossip columns as well as the political sphere. we also recognised that we all have some interest in the topic - most of us are the product of wedlock, and most of us either are, will be, or desire to be married one day.

again, we looked at Gen 1-2 and 3, to see that there is a tarnished goodness in marriage - it is spoilt by sin, but there is still goodness in marriage.

ii] Proverbs is a bit politically incorrect - the context is the father to the son. and you can't just make it all gender non-specific, it doesn't always work. so that, as well as the context where most people are married (most at church aren't) means we need wisdom to apply the wisdom of Proverbs to us in our situations and contexts.

the two extremes are the adulteress and the quarrelsome woman.

• as far as the adulteress is concerned, this is not marriage advice but fooling around/sowing-wild-oats kind of advice. she is alluring
  

  Come, let us take our fill of love till morning;
  let us delight ourselves with love.
  For my husband is not at home;
  he has gone on a long journey;
  he took a bag of money with him;
  he won’t be back for a month.”
  Prov. 7.18-20

  but despite the intoxication of the thought of 'lovemaking till morning', this woman leads us to death.
  
• the other extreme is marrying poorly
  

  a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.
  Prov. 9.13b
  
  Better to live on a corner of the roof
  than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
  Prov. 25.24
  
  Better to live in a desert
  than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
  Prov. 21.19

  
  
• the middle point, the third way, is to choose your wife well and enjoy your life with her.
  

  May your fountain be blessed,
  and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
  A loving doe, a graceful deer—
  may her breasts satisfy you always,
  may you ever be captivated by her love.
  Prov. 5.18-19

  
  
• an even better good tho, than finding a good wife, is finding miss wisdom herself, and marrying her.
  

  Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
  and call understanding your relative.
  She will keep you from the forbidden woman,
  from the adulteress with her smooth words.
  Prov. 7.4-5

  that is, finding true wisdom will keep you from following the path of folly to death.
  this places the good of marriage into it's appropriate place, that is, it is a good thing to marry (Prov. 18.22), but this good is secondary to the goodness of seeking wisdom; the folly of marrying the quarrelsome woman is therefore not a good to be pursued.

iii] this then is how Jesus redeems wedlock. such that Paul can write to the Corinthians both of the goodness of marriage, but also great good of not being married. so then marriage is seen differently, as it points people to the love of Christ for the church. but singleness is seen differently also:

1. because we’re part of a community of believers, unmarried people can honour marriage, by being glad for those who are married without bitterness and envy, and caring for those who are married in their own areas of need.
   
2. part of this can be making sure marrieds don’t turn their marriages and families if they have them into an idol. you can do this by reminding them of those beyond their immediate horizon, that God’s Kingdom is to be our horizon, and service of others is to be the way of life for all Christians, whatever our marital status.
   
3. single people can model in a different way what it looks like to be a Christian who is content with the riches we share in Christ. this means being sexually pure, making the most of the gift of singleness. this also means that while you may ask God for the gift of marriage, there is no place for thinking of yourself as a second-class Christian, or for making crass jokes about getting people married. there may be many reasons that people are single, some not by choice, but others are single for well-thought through reasons.

finally, i reflected a bit more on the sadness that singleness can be, because it is good part of God's good creation.
and then there was a call in line with Heb. 13.4, that all are to honour marriage.
and lastly, a reminder to all, to keep focussing on the thing greater than the greatest marriage, the future of all believers, in the closest of relationships with our saviour.

A Nietzschean T-Shirt

what about this for a t-shirt design?

Front:
  "God is Dead" - Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900


Back:
  "Friedrich Nietzsche is dead" - God
'For man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment' - Hebrews 9:27


t-shirt design at foghorn (i tried to embed from there but it doesn't seem to work really at all)

idea from Sproul, R.C. The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2000; required reading to get into Philosophy 2

honour your parents?

at first glance, i would think my parents would be happy with this post.
on second, they might be a little upset by the photos proving a) i wear my beanie better than my dad, and b) my mother has a perpetual fear that the carnations may try to eat her.
on third glance, they would stop reading this, because Oliver O'Donovan* has made me rethink the 5th commandment.

Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land the LORD your God gives you.
Exodus 20:12

up until now, i'd always understood this being as being directed to children (my parents loved to quote this one at my sister), it being about respecting your parents, giving them their due honour.
but as O'Donovan argues, this is actually a commandment directed at parents.
They have a duty, he says, to sustain this act of cultural transmission, as learned by their parents, and their parents before them. The role of children in this society is not then to be obedient, but rather it is the parents' to teach their children what it is to be obedient.

Funny things you learn from your mama,
like the way to throw your head back when your swallowing pills
Funny things you learn from your papa,
like when you're talking you just can't keep your hands still
Ben Harper, Burn to Shine

indeed there are always things we learn from our parents, both good and bad. but, generally speaking, they did their best, to install in us what they felt was important. and this not necessarily for their sake, so they could boast in us, but for our sake, and for continuity's sake.

i am always impressed by the way my parents have worked at obeying this commandment, as they taught, instructed, and modelled to me. i am also impressed at the way they redeemed, where they needed, what was flawed that they learned from their parents.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
Hebrews 12:9-10

as Christians, there is much we learn from our earthly parents, but what we most learn as of most importance, and pass on as of utmost importance, is what we learn from our heavenly father. to pass this on to the next generation, that they may fear the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt, out of slavery to the Lord of this world, and promises them an inheritance that will not rot or waste away, is what every generation needs to know from their parents. and in that, your parents, and God, are honoured.

* in his book, Common Objects of Love

Theory of Discourses - Alain Badiou

i'll need to think this through a little more, but this was certainly a thought provoking quote in Alain Badiou's Saint Paul : the History of Universalism (2003) p48, contrasting Paul with Pascal, Badiou writes,

With Paul, we notice a complete absence of the theme of mediation. Christ is not a mediation; he is not that through which we know God. Jesus Christ is the pure event, and as such is not a function, even were it to be a function of knowledge, or revelation.

contrasting with Pascal, i think he's got the appropriate emphasis, although perhaps not the whole story. there is definitely "mediatory language" in Paul's Christology (c/f Col1:15), we know things about God because of Jesus. although i must admit there is a transcendence that is found "in" Christ (c/f esp. Eph1) that is almost beyond that of simply a mediator (in the terms of say Heb1 or 1Pet1).
i shall reflect some more on this.
and shall post some more Badiou!

the problem of evil

are things as good as they can be?
no.
why aren't they?
God uses bad stuff for 3 reasons:

1. as judgement because of sin (c/f isa45:7 dan9, 1cor11:30)
   
2. to discipline us as his children (c/f heb12:10)
   
3. to test/make sure of our faith (c/f 1pet1)

therefore we should be satisfied that God is in control over all, knowing he works all things for good (Rom8:28)

right?
wrong.

reading this article by Matheson Russell, it was good to see his righteous indignation at this "ideology", this apathetic, laissez-faire view of the evil.

Theodicy [This idea of God using evil for good] misrepresents evil by saying that evil is necessary for the good; God is weaving a tapestry and he needs the light and the dark thread to make the picture beautiful. But the analogy won’t wash: while the weaver may need the light and dark threads, the creator of heaven and earth made a world that was good, very good without a drop of blood being spilt. And theodicy puts us in the wrong relationship to evil since it asks us to put our pain, outrage and opposition to one side and to see the bigger picture, the harmonious and rational whole of the universe in which evil has its place. But this does not do justice to victims of pain, loss and injustice. And even more importantly, it doesn’t do justice to the good news of the gospel [...]

and what is the good news of the gospel?
that God is seeking to right the wrongs.
that he will not be content with a world that is self-destructive, consuming itself in hatred.
that no price is too great a price to pay, that this world might be redeemed for that which he purposed it.

the allure of monasticism

i've been thinking again about the allure of monasticism.
when i start losing my hair, in the familiar pattern of the bald patch sort of postero-superiorly (you know where i mean...), it could be quite nice to just hang out and, well, just hang.
we never seem to get the time to just focus on the important things - as opposed to King Edmund, who took a year off to learn the Psalms off by heart (he later became St Edmund, after being martyred).

i talk i once heard stuck with me, where the point was that knowing we're in the last days should be a spur - not to go out and tell everyone, but rather,
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. - Hebrews 10:25

so, has anyone else shared this longing?
can i up and go join the taize community? who's with me?