Part #1: Psalms of Lament

The Psalms reflect the human experience of banishment and homecoming. They are very much like our own lives now with times of scattering and gathering. We are a people in exile from God who knows us even before time began.

“I will gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, say The Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.” Jer 29:14

In the Psalms, we reach out to the Lord with poems of sorrow, grief, pain, expectation, hope. We chant songs of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord to be free from these haunting realities of life. Our lives reflect the human condition of the exiled and the gathered, the lost and the redeemed.

Israel’s psalms of sorrow and hope give authentic expression of life as it happens, life beset by hurt, loneliness, disease, anger, hate, strife and betrayal. They remind us life is not all pretending, not all glamour, or fanciful dreams and exaggerated romance.

The Prayers of Israel speak about and invoke the sacred reality: the journey from woundedness to healing, from death to life. Jesus makes that journey for us starting from the cross to rising in glory. Jesus from the cross in pain and anguish cries out words from Psalm 22:

“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?  “And are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?  
You are the Holy One, enthroned upon the praises of Israel. Be not far from me for trouble is near and there is none to help.”

For the marginalized and forsaken, these songs and poems awaken the desire for peace, justice, righteousness and a good life in the midst of a dangerous and soulless world. From Psalm 65: 5; 25: 5:

“Awesome things will you show us in your righteousness. O God of our salvation, O Hope of all the ends of the earth and of the seas that are far away.”
“Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.”

Suffering is not the last word. Jesus comes to us “to seek and to save the lost.” We were lost in exile, now are saved, and redeemed by Jesus. That’s the good news, the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who embraces the meek and the broken, the humble ones swamped with heavy burdens.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28:

We are a people weary and burdened by the guilt of sins we commit. We are weary of the sins done against us, of the effects of sin in the world around us: sickness, suffering, and death. Jesus knows the depth of human longing for good news and our need for rest. 
God favors the weak, not the spiritually proud or arrogant. Jesus embraces the meek and the broken, the humble who feel swamped with heavy burdens.

Martin Luther captured this in these words: “God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but those who are sick, gives sight to none but the blind and life to none but the dead.… He has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace.”

And this same message is all over the Bible:
“A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Ps. 51:17b.
 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:3). “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6b).
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There is a devotional feature of reading and praying the Psalms. They can nurture our prayer life. We can draw guidance and strength from the Psalms. The Psalms present humanity when most vulnerable and in pain, most ecstatic in joy and most sensitized to life.
 
*Based on “The Psalms, The Life of Faith” by Walter Brueggeman, 1995 

A recent daily meditation from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist suggests that “even now we are dancing the ‘Dance of the Trinity;' becoming the Light of Christ like the blazing sun; offering our Godliness for the world!”

This year, on February 18th, our Lenten journey began. Even now, from the wilderness to the desolation of the Cross, we see Jesus embracing our humanity, living life to the full and to the depths.
Even now, we are with Jesus tempted and tested in the desert. We are with Jesus as he turns his face to Jerusalem. We search for him as he prays alone at Gethsemane. We, with his friends, betray him at Gethsemane and abandon him at Golgotha.

Even now, during this time of penance and atonement, when “Alleluias” cease to be sung until Easter time: Yes, dance to the wonderful mystery of the Triune God! Yes, become the Light of Christ offering peace and forgiveness to the world!

God is the eternal “Dance of the Trinity,” the dance of love between and among Father, Son and Spirit, bound together in eternal, self-giving relationship, yet three persons intact and unchanged. This relationship is called love. It’s what the Trinity is all about.

The essential, existential nature of God is the profound, complete and pure, free, full and overflowing - Love. This unity and relationship between, among and within the Trinity, form the model of our human dance steps, our relationships and steps in life.

Even now, especially now and always, God invites us into that dance of life, into the relationship with Him and with one another.

There is only one condition to dance with the Trinity, the need to overcome worry about doing all the dance steps right! The only way to enjoy the dance is to let the Triune God captivate our hearts and freely draw us into the dance. God invites us to the dance! An eternal, everlasting invitation! No reservations or passes required! All we have to do is accept the invitation!

Even now, step onto the dance floor of life! Swing into the Dance of the Trinity, the dance of love, giving ourselves, serving, loving and honoring others above ourselves.

Even now, during Lent, we dance together in God to bring compassion to this wounded world. In this dance, we learn to love God, to love and forgive one another. We learn to forgive ourselves.

We are called into the Divine dance, into relationship with God, with each other, and with the community of all God’s creatures. Setting the stage to become people who can live into and live out relationships marked by love and grace.
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“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to mourn and a time to dance.” Ecclesiastics 3:4

Every January 25th, we commemorate and re-member St. Paul’s life-changing experience on the way to Damascus. Paul is struck by a great blinding light and Jesus speaks to him. It turns his life inside out. Paul is: Called to be an apostle of Christ (Messiah) Jesus by the will of God” 1Cor 1:1

On this January 25, I posed a question. Why did God choose Paul as the Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles? Choose Paul! A Pharisee and a determined and zealous persecutor of followers of the Way!

What can anyone know of the mind of God? Whatever I conclude about “why Paul?” is really the result my reflections, inadequate as they are.

Just who is Paul? What manner of man is he? We read, study and contemplate what he said and wrote. We hear preached his Theology, his Christology. We were with him on the road to Damascus when he heard Jesus’ voice. We went with him on his missionary journeys. But what do we know about the man? Actually, not so much for someone so critical to the spread of believers in Jesus of Nazareth as the long-awaited Messiah, Son of God, God’s Word made flesh. We can only look at what he revealed about himself and what others said about him.

Paul is a Jew of the First Century CE, faithful to Israel’s God and Israel’s Law, living and acting within a diverse Jewish world. Acts 21:39 has Tarsus as Paul’s home city. In Paul’s early years, he studies under Gamaliel, a Pharisee and Doctor of Jewish Law. Paul states his studies in Judaism were beyond any of his peers, and he was far more zealous for the traditions of his ancestors. According to tradition, his use of athletic analogies, he may have been a competitive athlete in his youth. Later on, this allows him to withstand the rigors of travel, the beatings and imprisonment he endures for his faith.

Paul becomes a true believer that Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and resurrected in Glory is the Messiah of God. Yet he tells us: “I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. I hold the same hope in God as the Pharisees in the resurrection of the righteous. I worship the God of my ancestors. I believe in all points of the Law and the prophets.”

He is convicted that: “God set me apart before I was born, called me through Grace, revealed The Son to me, to proclaim Jesus among the Gentiles.”

He explains how he begins to fulfill what God has appointed him to do. “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.”

He begins to proclaim his message to the followers of Jesus Messiah, to ecclesia (gatherings) of the Way in Judea: “I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, "The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy. And they glorified God because of me.”

Paul continually advocates for his fellow Jews to come to Jesus Messiah: “In as much then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify in my ministry in order to make my own people jealous and thus save them. Paul proclaims this of his fellow Jews, “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.”

Paul studied, taught, practiced and was zealously faithful to God’s revelations in the Law and the Prophets. He never really changed from this. He believed the man Jesus of Nazareth is the long-awaited Messiah, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.

I reflect that God saw in Paul a man who remained true to God’s revelations and covenants to his ancestors. A man who came to believe in Jesus as the long-expected Messiah of God as a new covenant foretold in the Law and the Prophets. A man who with zeal and convicted faith proclaimed the Good News Of Jesus Messiah.
I found in Psalm 143 verses 5 and 8 that I’m sure Paul knew and could have taken to heart as an ancient hymn foretelling his apostleship.

“I recall the days of old, reflecting on your deeds, I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you, my heart like a land thirsty for you. Let dawn bring news of your faithful love, for I place my trust in you; show me the road I must travel for you to relieve my heart.”