Year C. Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost September 23, 2001
Title: “God’s character.”
Psalm 113 is one of the “Hallel” psalms. “Hallel” means, “praise;” “Halleluia” means “Praise Yah-weh.” There are three collections of “Hallel” psalms, all hymns of praise, in the Psalter: first, Psalms 113-118; second, Psalms 120-136; and lastly Psalms 146-150. Traditionally, the first group was sung at Passover before the meal and the second group after the meal. Psalms 113-118 were sung at all three pilgrimage festivals- Pentecost, Tabernacles and Passover. They were also assigned to Hanukkah, the Dedication of the Temple, and sung on the first day of each month the new moons. Psalm 113 follows the pattern of hymns of praise: the summons to praise verses one to three, and the reasons why verses four to nine. Its date of composition is uncertain, probably postexilic.
In verse one, servants of the Lord: As this psalm was used in the liturgy this phrase would refer to choirs, most probably of priests and Levites.
The name of the Lord: “Name” is a way of obliquely referring to the whole character and being of God as he has revealed himself to his people.
In verse three, from the rising of the sun to its setting: This image kills two birds with one stone. Since the sun rises in the east and sets in the west it means that God is to be praised, recognized as God, everywhere. Since the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening it means that God is to be praised all day long, at all times.
In verse four, high above: The poet uses the earthbound language of direction east, west, up, down, high, low, to express abstract concepts. In this case it is God’s transcendence.
In verse six, looking down: This directional language serves to express God’s care for his creatures. True, it connotes condescension, but not the haughty type.
In verse seven, raises the needy from the dust: Directional language again is employed to indicate God’s salvation, especially of those least expected, deserving, qualified or competent.
The ash heap: This would be the rubbish heap outside any village, town or city where the destitute would live and scavenge for scraps. This was the worst and lowest form of existence, devoid not only of human requisites but dignity.
In verse eight, seats them with princes: This is horizontal language to indicate equality. God does not distinguish, as earthlings do, between prince and pauper. God is to be praised because he gives dignity to those whom the world despises.
In verse nine, gives the childless wife a home: Barrenness was considered a disgrace, one of the worst. Unable to bear children, a barren woman had to bear a very hard and harsh life. God treats her and others like her, albeit for different reasons, differently.
The joyful mother of children: We would naturally think of Hannah who became the mother of Samuel in the Old Testament and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, in the New Testament, but the last of the prophets. God is to be praised for his power to accomplish what humans would consider to be impossible. Indeed, this psalm has been influenced by the Canticle of Hannah 1 Samuel 2: 1-10 and both have influenced the Canticle of Mary found in Luke 1: 46-55.
Even the grammar of this psalm exudes harmony. The mixture of imperative calls to worship and the reasons for doing so are so intimately woven together that the transition seems seamless, hardly noticeable. The flowing grammar reflects the subject, God. He can blend and, harmonize otherwise discordant realities. He harmonizes his great power with intense care, his lofty position with loving condescension. He puts opposites together and harmoniously: princes and paupers, sterile women and childbearing ones, east and west, morning and evening, up and down. In God, what is discordant to humans is harmonious and what is impossible is possible.
Recognizing all this can only result in singing it out. One cannot keep silent about God. He is just too great, too great for words. Yet words must be put in service to at least attempt to express his greatness, because words is all that we have to express ourselves fully. So the poet here for comparison and to contrast opposites, to get at the scope of God’s power, harmonizing them without contradiction. For God does not behave like the “greats” of this world. There is none of that haughtiness in God. He cares for the marginal, dispossessed, lowly, victimized, discounted and dismissed people of the earth. If an earthly king or prince did that, he would be ridiculed as odd. But God is to be praised for it. He is “odd” in the sense of verse five, “Who is like the Lord?” He is incomparable. He focuses his power upon the individual, no matter their status, as well as upon the world. When he does so he raises a person’s “status” by giving the person a share in his own glory. That happened to Jesus and it happens to those who follow him according to 1 Corinthians 1: 26-29.
When a person is touched by the highly exalted God that person cannot but be affected. Like Jesus, one’s “lowly estate” is raised up. When the Most High God lowers himself to get involved in our menial lives he Himself is not sullied. It is we who are purified by the touch, the meeting, the embrace. He became like us that we might become like Him and we do. That so, we neglect the poor and reject the marginal of society at our own risk and to our own deprivation. If we are unmoved, unaffected by the plight of the poor and the marginal, then we are also deprived of the joy of living that derives from the loving presence of God. That means we are the truly poor, not those economically deprived. That puts us “outside the margin” of God’s company. What “sullies” God is not his association with the poor, the lowly, the marginal, but those who ignore them and claim to be “godly.” That “sullies” his name, takes his name in vain, and his “name” is his character. It is tantamount to character assassination for a self-righteous religious person to pompously declare his or her closeness to God and at the same time keep the poor and marginal at a distance. It is the complete opposite of God’s character.
God does not show his care for the economically poor by making them economically rich. That would not be “opposite” in God’s estimation. No, he enriches their lives by making them aware that he loves them not because they are or are not something in the world’s eyes, but he loves them because of what he is, love itself, unconditional love, love not fooled by external, superficial criteria. If being a prince, a king, a rich person, a politically powerful person is immaterial to God, why would God “raise up” a lowly person to those meaningless “heights?” The sacred poet is using human language-spatial, directional, evaluative- in a metaphorical way, since such language is all he has to express the otherwise inexpressible. But, that is “inexpressible” in words, not in behavior. We can express our experience of the awesome and incomparable Lord in our behavior. We do experience God’s love without the capacity to express it, adequately express it, in words. So, we “stretch” words and their meaning in poetic language, respecting the fact that human language is inadequate to speak of God, yet, the only vehicle we have. Except for behavior. Behavior can “speak of” God, can express his character and love, far better than words. After all, the behavior of God exceeds the limits not only of human language but also of what humans would consider possible. God is so incomparably great that the best thing we can do is to imitate him, admittedly a poor imitation at best.
Praise is recognition of who and what is always there, though hidden before the praise is expressed.
Praise can be in words or in behavior, i.e. imitating the one being praised.
Verbal praise is empty of meaning unless it is consistent with the behavior of the one praising.
What seems opposite or impossible to humans is often harmonious and factual to God.
Rejecting and neglecting society’s “marginal” people puts a person outside the “margins” of God.
Flattery: When we want to get ahead in the world or we want to get our way we will use flattery. Flattery is the “skeleton” of praise. It looks and sounds like praise on the outside, but inside there is nothing, except maybe contempt. If flattery has no “insides,” no real basis within the one flattering, it does have many “a-sides.” The flatterer may be all compliments in front of the one being flattered, but out of the other side of his or her mouth, when the one flattered is not present, comes the real truth. The side comments, the asides, reveal the flatterer’s true feelings and thoughts. This works almost the same way with God. We can seem like we are praising God when all we are doing is flattering him in order to get our way. We overflow with compliments to God and even about God to others. We sing his praises in church and outside of church. And we would never say anything uncomplimentary about God to ourselves, let alone anyone else. Or do we? Actually, we do. Oh, not in words, but in behavior. Every time we ignore, neglect or reject those who are important to God, and that would include the poor and marginal of our society, we do the same thing as when we talk negatively behind the back about a person we have spoke positively about to his or her face. To praise God for his incomparable love and then to turn around and indicate to others that God does not love them as much as he loves us, that they are not worthy of our love, our time or treasure either, to be cold to their needs, is to reveal our praise of God as mere flattery. This truth might account for the relatively few times we actually praise God when we are alone and no one else is listening. Deep down we know that our praise smacks of empty flattery, that we not as impressed with God and the way he works as we say we are when we are in common prayer. Becoming aware of the necessary connection between praising God and behaving in a way that reflects God’s characteristics, the ones we praise him for, can either cause us to stop praising God or to change the way we behave. And is not it true that a person whose own behavior reflects God’s behavior is also a person who shamelessly praises God to others at every opportunity?
Perspective: We think of east being the opposite of west, north the opposite of south, hot the opposite of cold, up the opposite of down, etc. There are so many things in our experience of the world that we can only define as the opposite of something else. Yet, when we try to locate the point between east and west where they start to distinguish themselves, one from the other, we find that it is not easy. Usually we will pick dead center between two opposites as the defining point. Let’s take a hundred degrees Celsius, boiling point. We would get no argument if we said zero degrees was cold and a hundred was hot, opposites. Yet, even one degree would have a percentage of both in it, ninety-nine of cold and one of hot. The point is that what we experience as opposites are really, upon reflection, blends, mixtures, harmonies. Now, if we could just transfer that truth onto people we could look at and upon princes and paupers, celebrities and unknowns, natural parents and adoptive ones, and see everyone through God’s lens and treat all others not as opposites but as individual notes in God’s great universal symphony. Then, our songs of praise in his honor would be seen as he might see them, when they are authentic praise and not just flattery, as beautiful because the singers are beautiful, a beautiful reflection of his love, expressing in words, sounds, music and harmony what is inside them. When we have the perspective of God, the perspective he has chosen to share with us through his divinely revealed word, we want to behave like him because his life is so beautiful. Amen.
