May 9, 2002 -- THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD
Psalm 47
Color: White
Title: “Being “in charge” When we ignore God as our king and replace ourselves on his throne, we might get away with it for a while, but not for long.
Psalm 47
This is a hymn in praise of Yahweh as universal king over all the peoples of the earth. It’s sentiments and its setting fits quite well the time of King David. It was David who brought the ark of the covenant, the primary sign of God’s presence in the midst of the Israelites, into Jerusalem. This was the very ark carried into many battles to protect the Israelites and bring victory over otherwise insurmountable odds. Yahweh was imagined and believed to be present between the two flanking cherubim on the sides of the ark. It was Israel’s holiest symbol and when Solomon, David’s son, subsequently built the Temple, the ark was solemnly placed in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred room of the Temple, entered only once a year by the high priest to offer sacrifice.
Naturally, hymns would be written to celebrate and remember specific victories the Israelites won throughout their long history and Psalm 47 would be one of those hymns. However, the specific victory it celebrates has been lost in history, thanks to its repeated use on other occasions less specific. As it comes down to us, Psalm 47 is a more generalized hymn of a more general condition, namely, the universal rule and sovereignty of God. True, God, called then Yahweh, showed his power by some military success over enemies on some battlefield in the past and true, that victory inspired this hymn to celebrate it. However, the hymn like most hymns and anthems, e.g., the U.S. National Anthem, has been pressed into service for other occasions. Yet, it does not lose its fundamental message, namely, that God is king, the only real king, of the entire world. And, if God is universal king, then all peoples, no matter how diverse, are fundamentally one: one king, one people, one earth, one land.
This hymn shares much in common with other hymns Psalms 93, 96, 97, 98, and 99. Scholars call them “enthronement hymns,” because they believe, without any real proof, though, that the Israelites had a ceremony every New Year’s Day celebrating the enthronement of Yahweh as king, modeling it after a king’s coronation. We need not get into the discussion about whether or not that is true. However, there is an important point about enthronement psalms. They start out as victory psalms, a specific historical victory celebrated in song, and after a significant passage of time, after the original enthusiasm of the victory has waned, the emphasis becomes not winning but peacefully sitting and basking in the aftermath or long term results of the victory. Thus, former enemies once conquered in battle, after the passage of time, become co-worshippers united under the same Lord. Then, there is a desire to go back periodically, yearly, and remember the original experience in order to re-capture the original enthusiasm and joy, now in danger of being lost, as well as to bring to conscious awareness that the new state of affairs is also beneficial to those who seemed at the time to have lost the battle.
The structure of the psalm is both simple and typical of hymns: Verse two, is a call to praise; verses three to six, praise God’s victories; verse seven, repeats the call to praise; and verses eight to ten, praise God’s sovereignty.
Verses one, For the leader. A psalm of the Korahites: Some psalms have these superscriptions connected to them. For the most part scholars cannot agree of what they mean. They seem to be either directions on how to sing the psalm or categories of what type the psalm is. The Korahites mentioned here area good example of the confusion. They are mentioned in Gen36: 5ff as belonging to the Horite-Edomite clan and according to 1Chron2: 43 they are supposed to have joined the Judeans. However, in post-exilic times they show up as a separate group in the records of the, now defunct, temple personnel, where they seem to have been a guild of singers, possibly having composed or edited their own songbook.
In verse two, All you peoples: Despite the battles between and among neighboring groups, nations, there was a fundamental belief that at root all peoples were one under the kingship of Yahweh.
Clap your hands, shout to God: Liturgies then were livelier than most liturgies today and people saw no disrespect in handclapping or exuberantly shouting. Clapping one’s hands was a physical way of expressing “Amen,” agreement, solidarity, and joy. Shouting was louder as the reason for praising was stronger.
In verse three, For the Lord, the Most High: “For” Hebrew ki is an important word in hymns of praise. It introduces the reasons for praising or acknowledging. “Most High” was a title referring to the chief god of the gods, the king even of the gods. This god was rather aloof and removed from humans, leaving communication with earthlings to lesser gods. However, the Hebrews, while respecting Yahweh’s transcendence, also felt comfortable communicating directly with the Most High God, something other religions did not dare do.
In verse four, who made the peoples subject to us: While it was true that during David’s time there were great victories over Israel’s neighbors and thus historical reasons for gloating, later history, when Israel was the subjugated nation, would require this verse to be interpreted more as a hope than a fact.
In verse five, who chose a land for our heritage: Two theological facts, always held in dynamic tension throughout Israel’s history, come together in the psalm and both are reasons for praise. On the one hand, there is the universal sovereignty of God over all peoples of the earth. On the other hand, there is God’s peculiar selection of Israel as the special focus of his love. These two truths have clashed in lesser minds and caused a lot of problems. Logically, they do not seem to compute. Theologically, they reveal the sovereignty and freedom of God.
In verse six, God mounts his throne: God does not have a real throne, nor does he need one. This is human pictorial language to express that God rules now by “sitting,” the position of power exercised peacefully, rather than by “advancing,” the stance of a warrior. God sits above creation, transcends creation, and rules not by the powers of his forces, but by the force of his power. While it first seems like the moment of victorious accession is the main pint, it becomes clear that it is the endless period of peaceful session that moment of accession brings in its wake that is the real cause for celebration year after year.
Verse seven, Sing praise: Four times, in mantra style, the congregation keeps returning to the fundamental attitude one should have regarding Yahweh, namely, acknowledgment of his presence and behavior causes worship and surrender.
In verses eight to ten, these verses review, repeat really, the reasons for praising God found in verses three to six,. The emphasis on the “princes of the peoples” Gentiles worshipping with the “people of the God of Abraham” highlights the universality of God’s reign and the common basis all people have for living in harmony and peace with each other under their very same king.
Sermon
We do not have the institution of kingship in our culture, but we know what it stands for. In the Old Testament it became the image around which human beings learned what it means to be an image of God, especially as it concerns their having dominion over God’s creation. The ancient Israelites would look to their king as a model for how they would exercise their own “kingship,” over their own personal realms and over that little domain, especially, but not exclusively, the land entrusted to them. The king at the time and the kings of the past became people to look up to and learn how to be or become in charge of one’s own little world or “kingdom.” Thus, it mattered greatly how the king saw himself. If he recognized that he was only the real king’s servant God’s then he would try to be “in charge,” only. However, if he ignored his subservient role, he would try to be “in control.”
There is a great difference between being “in charge,” and being “in control.” The one in charge of anything has to answer to a higher authority. The one in control is his or her own higher power. The history of kingship as it was played out in Israel is really a chronicle of this struggle between merely being in charge and attempting to be in control. It is also the history of every person, ancient Israelite or present-day world citizen. We struggle with the same challenge in our personal lives, as did the Israelites and their kings of old. This psalm not only reminds them but also reminds us of just how and under whom we are to exercise our dominion over creation. The word “dominion,” goes with “in charge,” and the word “domination,” goes with “in control.”
Ideally, the king was to rule as God’s regent, representative, prime minister, and servant. The king easily lost sight of that and frequently behaved as though he really was “in control.” He called the shots according to his own whim and will. He did what he pleased and to hell with what God’s wanted. He was the “King.” Every now and then he’s get a reminder that he was not really #1 - a military defeat here, an embarrassment there, an illness or disease just like other people get, etc. In such times of crisis, he’d usually get temporary humility and pray to the real king for help. He would typically lose that humility once a crisis had passed.
The old image of “king,” be we male or female, use “queen” if you like, turns out to be quite an apt metaphor for how we all live, or try to live, our lives. We try to control everything and everyone. Now being “in charge,” is not the same as trying to be “in control.” We should be “in charge” of our affairs, responsibilities, and the world in general. But, being “in control,” is different. That’s when we act as if we are “God,” rather than his faithful regent. We simply do not have the power needed to control even our own lives, let alone that of others. When we ignore God as our king and replace ourselves on his throne, we might get away with it for a while, but not for long. Certainly not, as the psalm says, “forever.” To really run the universe, or even one’s own life, takes a “forever,” power we just do not have. It is foolish to control or attempt to. The only one who can control anything is God and he refuses to do so. So, he must know something we do not. Those who complain that God does not step in at crisis time and make it all better are revealing more about themselves than they realize. Control freaks love to step into someone else’s space and take command of the situation. They feel everything is their business and their responsibility. So, they wrongly project that onto God, upon whom they call only as a very last resort, and think he is not doing his job, a complaint they also have against the rest of humanity.
This psalm, recognizing and praising the Creator, has the salutary effect of simultaneously revealing to us that we are not God, not king, not the masters of our destiny or anybody else’s, not the captains of our souls, etc. Keeping God in his place puts us and keeps us in ours. The world would work a whole lot better if more of us recognized this.
God is king of all and over all.
Despite the diversity of lands and nations, humanity is fundamentally one.
If all people would acknowledge, that is, praise, the one God, war would end because it would be seen as unnecessary.
God’ favoring one nation or one person does not mean he disfavors others.
God’s Control: The only one who can really control everything and everyone is God and he is the only one who does not do so or try to do so. He must know something about control that keeps him from controlling. Why God ever gave humans free will and thereby gave up his absolute control of the universe remains a mystery, locked inside God. Yet, that is just what he did. We can be confident that the answer to that question lies in love. Love and control are irreconcilable. Apparently, God prefers love to an absolutely orderly universe. Scientifically, we see that before God created life everything actually was in order. Without life forms the universe is and would be quite predictable and controllable. With life, and especially human life, God took a great risk, the risk of having his dominion challenged, ignored and even violated. Since we know that God is more concerned with the final outcome of things than with their intermediate variances, we can safely conclude that it is worth it to God in the long run to give up some of his power over creation and creatures in order to allow humans the opportunity to freely choose to love him and obey him. Apparently, to God, the end result will be better than if he had acted like a control freak and immediately stepped in and stomped on every minor violation of his plan and will. God’s way of ruling can be imitated by those who are images of God. We can back off from trying to control our lives, the lives of others, and the world in which we live. We can be “kings,” like God is king and let be rather than make be. We can be in charge of our lives only if we are charged by the power and grace of God. That is enough. Who would really want to be in control of anything or anyone anyway? It seems like awfully serious business and no fun at all.
Enthronement: The physical imagery of this psalm and the other “enthronement,” psalms has to do with the king being “above,” physically above, others. However, good as that might be, it really represents being “beyond,” beyond the ordinary, beyond the profane, outside of the “run of the mill.” The celebration of enthronement is meant to respect and rejoice in God’s transcendence, meaning how different or other God is when compared to humans. Though humans would never be equal to God, that, after all, was the original sin, humans are challenged to go beyond their own ordinariness by pondering the extraordinary nature and behavior of God. This psalm gives us the key to doing that. It wants us to find in our own personal histories instances of victories, triumphs over adversities and to reflect upon them. When we have overcome, surely by the grace of God, seemingly insurmountable odds, when we have succeeded when others or even our inner voice predicted failure, when we have stood when we should have fallen down, we have specific examples, like the ancient Israelites had specific military victories, that we can call to mind when faced with other challenged, later in time, different in detail, but having something in common with those earlier challenges, challenges that became victories. These specific examples create a more generalized sense of confidence within us, confidence that motivates us to accept challenges rather than shun them. And there’s another point: peace. After a military victory there is peace. After any victory over adversity, there is peace. Life is not just about fighting battles. It is also about enjoying the ensuing peace. The image of Christ sitting at the Father’s right hand is an image of peace, much more than domination. God’s sovereignty is a peaceful one. Amen.
