July 7, 2002 -- SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST -- Proper 9
Psalm 145:8-15 (Psalm 145:8-14 NRSV)
Color: Green
Title: “Praise”
This is an alphabetic, each succeeding verse begins with the subsequent letter of the alphabet, song of praise. Verse thirteen, has the “m” and “n” lines “ in one verse, “N” is missing from the Hebrew text but supplied from a Qumran scroll and the Greek and Syriac translations; thus giving the psalm 21 verses instead of 22, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Because it is alphabetic and contains words used only in late Hebrew, Aramaic words, we know that it is of relatively late composition, postexilic, even among the last psalms to be composed.
The singer is an individual. If sung in the liturgy, like the great autumnal Feast of Tabernacles, the individual would be representative of the community. If sung or prayed privately, which it undoubtedly was, it would unite the individual to all creation in his or her praise of God and his good deeds. This psalm is recited three times daily in the synagogues, morning, noon and night. Verse two, was incorporated into the Christian hymn, Te Deum, and verses ten, fifteen and sixteen, were used in monastic and religious communities for grace before meals. Given its acrostic format there is, understandably, no development of plot or building of intensity. Each verse is a complete statement in itself, to be easily memorized and recalled throughout a typical day. There are lots of formula prayers and credal statements in this psalm, which can be found in or have been taken from other psalms. If it were not for the control of the alphabet, each statement could be rearranged without damage to the thought or sense. Yet, this psalm is carefully crafted, the result of a learned and gifted artist’s work, even though it is not great or high poetry. Any Hebrew could memorize and pray this prayer, with or without benefit of formal education.
Each line either calls to praise or gives the reason for praise and like its structure praises God for everything from Aleph to Tav, or, as we would say, A to Z. Typical of prayers of praise and thanks the psalmist first exhorts himself to praise, then expands his circle until he is exhorting everything and everybody to join in as he gives reason after reason for doing so. His individual praise is inadequate to the task. In the Psalter this psalm is set as a fitting conclusion to the final, small collection of Davidic Psalms 138-145 and as a preface to the final collection of psalms of praise 146-150.
In verses one to three, my God and king: The psalmist exhorts himself to become conscious of God’s presence under the image of “king.” He is impressed, awe-struck, by God’s grandeur. The full extent of his greatness is beyond human comprehension.
In verses four to seven, one generation…to the next: He is impressed by God’s longevity. Although he is most probably referring to Israelite generations and has in mind the great deeds God did for them, he leaves it vague enough and open enough to include all human generations from all time. He is impressed with the continuity of praise, recognition of God’s kingship, throughout time.
In verse eight, gracious and merciful: This is a credal statement, oft repeated in the Old Testament (See Ex 34:6) which became a favorite text of postexilic Jews.
In verse nine, good to all: Israel is not the only recipient of God’s caring love. He shows a common grace to all creatures.
In verse ten, your faithful ones bless you: “Faithful” translated “hasidim,” those who practice hesed. Hesed is first of all God’s characteristic behavior, his loyal, never-failing love on behalf of his covenant partners, the Jews. It is also their response to and imitation of that love. In “blessing” God they imitate his behavior first and then put it into words of praise and thanks. Thus, the first part of this verse, “All your works give you thanks,” means that God’s faithful ones provide the voice for mute creatures-plants, animals, events- who do what they do in praise of God. Humans unite with other creatures and so provide the voice they do not have to thank God for creating them.
In verses eleven and twelve, they speak: “They,” refers primarily to the faithful ones of verse ten, but it is left vague enough to include all the “works” or “creatures” of the Lord, including his mighty deeds, especially on behalf of Israel. Everything, then, speaks, or can speak if one has the “eyes” to see, the faith, of the glory of the Creator King. With words or without words any creature faithful to God’s intention for creating it gives glory to him just by being.
In verses thirteen to twenty, The preceding staccato-like statements of God’s hesed are followed by a cascade of more specific acclamations. These sing of God’s love directed towards the weak and the needy. Reflections on God’s royal person are now replaced by emphasis on his self-giving. Being awe-struck by his majesty leads to surprise at his concern and attentiveness to the “less majestic” among his creatures. In enumerating different instances of human need the psalmist finds the same love of God applied to all. He praises God directly for it.
In verse twenty, all the wicked you destroy: Lest he give the wrong impression amidst all this positive praising, the singer recognizes that God’s relating to his creation has two sides. Here he adds a note of realism, a harsh and sobering qualification to the grand claims he is making. Creation must work within the boundaries of obedient responsibility or suffer the consequences.
In verse twenty-one, In verse one, the psalmist began with “I” will “bless your name forever.” He ends with “all flesh,” meaning all creation and every creature in it, “will bless your holy name forever.”
Sermon
Walter Brueggeman in, “The Message of the Psalms,” 1984, sees each psalm coming out of one of three life-situations: orientation, disorientation and reorientation. When life is going well there are psalms of “orientation” or “praise” to express and celebrate that fact. When life is not going well, “disorientation” or “lament” psalms, and when life moves from the negative back to the positive there are psalms of “reorientation” or “thanks.” Psalm 145 is a song of “orientation.” Life is going well and Yahweh is to be praised for it. The world is perceived as ordered and orderly. There is a place for everything and everything is in its place. Things are just about as they should be and, even though they could always be better, they are good enough. At such times, Psalm 145 is an excellent prayer.
However, psalms of “orientation” are not just for praising the status quo. They can be sung in a mood of “reorientation” as well. But, more profoundly, they can be sung in times of “disorientation” as a means to bring the sufferer’s perspective back into balance. Such psalms remind us in times of grief or stress of the “way we were,” and stimulate us to return, if only in our minds, to the comforting embrace of God’s love.
Awareness of God’s love in even the minutest details of life causes one to become expansive. It is not enough to keep this awareness to oneself. One feels a call to the “ministry of praise,” to communicate to others by word and deed the great experience of living in God’s presence and reciting his caring love. So, all praise of God expands the circle from beyond oneself to include, ultimately, all of creation. In that sense the praise of God by humans mirrors the love of humans, and all creation, by God. It matches, not perfectly of course, but in its scope at least. If awareness is expanded, so also is love. We are able to perceive God’s love within our own orbit of life and to affirm that love beyond it to the orbit of the universe. Thus, even the praise of God becomes the vehicle for experiencing the love of God and the prompt to serve him by loving others as he does.
The psalmist did not know the structure of the universe as we now know -or think we know- it. So, he used the structure and order of the alphabet to express totality. From the first letter to the last he finds the presence and love of God and praises him with all the variety possible within the confines of human experience. Psalm 145 celebrates the order of God’s creation and the proper orientation of humans within it. Amidst all that order and predictability there is still surprise and spontaneity because there is always and everywhere God.
God is in everything and everything, no matter how small, reveals and reflects some aspect of God.
Praise or recognition of God might begin private but it expands and expands until it includes the universe and beyond.
The greatness and grandeur of God is equaled by his compassion and mercy.
God’s universal compassion is never more evident than when applied to human beings.
The Alphabet: The alphabet was a Semitic achievement. Prior to about 1500BC people used picture writing. There was, theoretically, a picture or combination of pictures to match every object and thought. One could say people drew rather than wrote. Over time these pictures became stylized and set, making the picture look less and less like the object and more like an agreed upon symbol for the object. The Phoenicians, Western Semites, needed a less complex set of symbols to do business. They were merchants and traders. So, there developed a system whereby the symbolic picture stood for the first sound of the object’s word, in a specific language, rather than for the object itself. Semitic languages were particularly good for that step, since their root words were composed of three consonants with intervening vowels. Thus, instead of the Hebrew Aleph standing for a goat’s head, it stood for the first letter of the word. The Hebrew Beth, house, now stood for the sound ’B’ a voiced, bilabial plosive, to be technical, rather than the object ’house.’ Thus the alphabet was bom. Only the Semites called it the Alephbet, for the first two ’letters’ or consonants of their table of sounds. In Greek it comes out as “alphabet.” The letters are in the order they are because they also stood for numbers; Aleph = 1; Beth = 2; Gimmel = 3; Daleth = 4; etc. Arabic numerals, which we still use, come from this system. Thus, these twenty-two letters as opposed to thousands of pictures represented the totality of sounds, words, sentences, thoughts, books that could be expressed by humans. It was quite an achievement It eventually changed civilization as we have come to know it. It is not unlike the table of elements we would learn when we met up with Chemistry in high school. That table claimed to list all the known elements, atoms, in the universe. Indeed, the variety in the universe could be broken down into its building blocks, a little over a hundred identifiable elements. Now, of course, we have advanced beyond that, but the point is the same. The sacred author used the alphabet to express totality, just as the Atomic Table was used to express the totality of material elements from which the universe is built. Within that structure the inspired author expressed in as many ways as he could his experience of the totality of God, expressed by using a finite number of sounds and letters in an infinite variety of combinations to bring out the infinity hidden within finite objects, people and events. If we are studying science and are moved to awe and then to poetry expressing our awe through words so that others may also enter into the experience, we are doing the same thing as this inspired author. The ’Table’ and the spectrum of colors, sounds, elements, may be different but the enterprise is the same.
Praise and Love. A praising person, praising God or others, is a loving person and a loving person is a praising person. Real lovers are full of compliments, so full that there is little room for complaints. One who praises God from the heart and not just by mouthing religiously correct words, finds God everywhere and loves God everywhere. One who does this all the time loves God and God’s creatures, all the time. Praise, then, is love in a different key. Praise, the recognition of God hidden in all things and people, provides the building blocks of love, just as sounds are the building blocks of speech, letters the building blocks of writing, and elements the building blocks of the universe and all the variety in it. Praying this psalm and others like it cannot help but lift our spirits and at the same time sharpen our focus. We become like the bird high in the sky that can see the little worm hidden beneath the surface of the ground or the fish under the water. We become like the scientist who uses his or her microscope or even finer instruments, to see the tiniest of entities otherwise invisible to ordinary sight. God does not need our praise. We do. It adds nothing to his greatness, but makes us realize what a finely tuned creation we are and what a magnificent environment we live in, once we get past the junkyards and static. Amen.
