Among the Thorns

Last quarter I was in a class on the Gospel of Mark with the always interesting Josiah Rutherford D. Kirk. A passage that really captivated my attention was Mark 6:7-30

7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.  8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts;  9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.  10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.  11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”  12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.  13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.  14 King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’1 name had become known. Some were2 saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.”  15 But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.”  16 But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”  17 For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod1 had married her.  18 For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”  19 And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not,  20 for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed;1 and yet he liked to listen to him.  21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee.  22 When his daughter Herodias1 came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.”  23 And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.”  24 She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.”  25 Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”  26 The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her.  27 Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s1 head. He went and beheaded him in the prison,  28 brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother.  29 When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.  30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. (NRSV)

I read the passage as a contrast of authority: the authority of Jesus which reaches out into a broken world to heal and the authority of Herod which is subverted and ultimately wielded to further injustice. If we take the conclusion that this passage serves to highlight the differences between the authority of Jesus and Herod, then its application in our society could go a myriad of directions. Ours is a culture built around the accumulation of wealth which ultimately serves only as a stand-in for power. Wealth gives us the freedom to do what we want and buy what we want; power over our own lives and over the forces of the market. In the acquisition of wealth, we have a source of power and authority available to us if we are willing to do what needs to be done to acquire it. There are innumerable ways to acquire wealth in perfectly legal and perfectly immoral ways.

In stark contrast, consider the apostles Jesus sends out. Mendicants before their time, they wander the Palestinian country side trusting God to provide for their needs and demonstrating his awesome victory over the power of sin and death. Devils and disease cower before uneducated Jewish peasants, followers of a strange messiah. All their power is derivative; their control over their lives and environment is nonexistent. We Americans, those perpetually among the thorns, must likewise perpetually ask ourselves if we are building kingdoms like that of Herod. Are we amused by the Messiah’s clarion call but ultimately unmoved as our power compounds in banks and stocks annually at a rate of 7 percent? We must declare that money and politics are hopelessly unable to compete with the authority and power of the Son of Man.

The new title is obviously a reference to Mark 4, and the change is merely indicative of the direction of my devotional thoughts these days. I want to navigate the treacherous waters of faith, politics, science, and cruciform love as one of a number of people immersed in a culture that is often antithetical to the gospel. Simply, I want to explore how to live as people among the thorns.

This evening I went to a tea shop to get Ashleigh a kind of tea she likes made with milk and tapioca pearls. When I finished ordering the following dialogue ensued:

Asian Lady at the Register: Are you Irish?

Me: Uh, why?

Lady: You look like a cartoon of an Irish person.

Me: I look like a cartoon? I think I look Irish to you because of the red beard.

Lady: And you are wearing a green shirt and a hat (I’m wearing a gray fedora)

Me: Well I’m not really Irish?

Lady: Oh Really, not at all?

Me: Well, maybe some, we are a mix of English, Scottish, and Irish I think

Lady: Oh you are Irish, I knew it.

So basically, she thought I looked like a leprechaun…a 6’2″ leprechaun

Wow, it has been a busy spring and summer quarters and there is lots to discuss. I have basically not posted here for two reasons: Ashleigh and my other blog Walking Towards Jerusalem found here http://walkingtowardsjerusalem.wordpress.com/ . Check it out! I’m saving this blog for personal and devotional posts and using the other for more biblical studies type stuff. Read and enjoy. Personal update on here sometime this week.

5:30am – Ben wakes up to the cheerful chirps of his Wall-E alarm clock.
5:45am – After getting dressed, Ben looks into the mirror and says to himself, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
6:30am – Ben arrives at the office to check his email.
7-9:00am – Ben looks at pictures of cats.
9:15am – Ben calls N.T. Wright to discuss his latest appearance in TIME, and to complement him on the appearance of his beard.
10:30am – Ben checks his blogs for comments.
11:15am – Ben has a lunch consisting of carrots, celery, and self-righteousness.
12:00pm – Ben takes a stroll on the campus of Asbury. After seeing an interesting pile of detritus, Ben is moved to tears and writes an epic poem about it.
1-5:00pm – Ben grades papers and teaches a New Testament class. Ben emerges from class very happy having made a Koine joke that one student laughed at.
5:30pm – Ben arrives home and gets to work on a blog that criticizes conservatives for mixing religion and politics. Ben concludes the piece by reminding us that socialism is truest to the Gospel.
6:30pm – Ben watches a romantic family comedy.
8:30pm – Ben tries to think of synonyms for awesome to describe the movie.
9:00pm – Ben sets his Wall-E alarm clock and goes to bed.

Psalms of Disorientation

According to Brueggemann, the problem with Psalms of Orientation is that they don’t acknowledge the realities of human existence. If we focus solely on orientation as most churches do, we do not effectively speak to the disoriented. If our focus on orientation arose out of a surety of the goodness of God meant to comfort, then it might be good, but it is probably more a reflection of the church wanting to turn a blind eye to difficulty. We lose something important as a church if we do this. “The use of these ‘psalms of darkness’ may be judged by the world to be acts of unfaith and failure, but for the trusting community, their use is an act of bold faith, albeit a transformed faith.” (emphasis original) These psalms demand the world be experienced as it really is and a faith that does this is transformational. It is a faith that can speak into real situations, and it is precisely in these moments of despair that God chooses to breathe new life into you, transforming you. These psalms evoke reality and make us face the ugliness of our situation. They tend to follow a similar pattern. They begin with a plea, a complaint that God should correct a skewed situation. The plea often contains an address to God, a complaint, a petition which is often in the form of an imperative, a motivation for God to act, and sometimes an imprecation that reflects a raw demand for justice. They end with a praise which is marked in the ext by a shift in tone. The praise element often contains an assurance of being heard, a declaration of kept vows, doxology, and some mystery cause of change. These are the most varied and widespread of all the psalm categories.

The first subcategory of psalms is personal laments. This type of psalm constitutes a considerable portion of the lament psalms. They are a standard form of expression for the Israelites. The form is quite straightforward and can shed light on other psalms of disorientation. As Brueggemann succinctly puts it, “The issue in all these psalms is that something is amiss in the relationship, and it must be righted.” The psalm given as an example is psalm 13. There is something terribly wrong in the life of the speaker and their life with God. Verses 1 and 2 contain a series of rhetorical questions which essentially accuse God of failing to help and that also serve as an address. Verses 3 and 4 provide the petition and motivation. The petition is made with a triad of imperatives: consider, answer, and lighten. The motivation given by the speaker is their inability to shoulder the burden, therefore, God must act. Finally, change occurs, though it occurs over an undisclosed period of time.

The second subcategory is psalms of Communal Lament. Brueggemann argues that personal laments most easily resonate with us partly because they are most common and partly because they correspond with the way we experience reality. Furthermore, we have lost the idea of a public awareness or shared public imagination and so do not have a parallel for communal laments. The whole idea that public issues may require public prayer is not much practiced in the present-day church. Consequently, he proposes that to understand the communal laments we need to understand these public events privately. Brueggemann uses the example of imagining the destruction of the temple as the destruction of the whole world. By so doing, you could understand the threat by incorporating yourself in it. He is probably on to something when he says that we no longer think in these categories. Americans in particular seem to be in love with their own autonomy. Naturally, this is a barrier to understanding a society not built on democracy and western ideas of equality. However, the usefulness of the exercise proposed by Brueggemann to solve the issue is questionable. The psalm given as an example for this category is Psalm 74. The temple has been lost and with it the greatest symbol of life. With the center gone, all other things degrade. The psalm begins with an urging to Yahweh, who comes first, even before the situation has been described. Then the speaker attempts to convince Yahweh to act. The speaker gives a description of the suffering, and boldly declares God’s glory to be at stake. The Psalm concludes with a series of imperatives given to Yahweh, based on his own past actions. It is hard to imagine such boldness! The Psalm speaks of the disorientation of losing the temple and answers that the loss of the temple is not the loss of Yahweh.

Brueggemann also addresses a couple of Psalms that do not fit into the pattern. These do not appear to offer any sort of hope or reconciliation. They will not be discussed in detail except to point out that Brueggemann deals with the imprecatory nature of Psalm 109 by positing that it is a relinquishment to Yahweh of the speaker’s anger. This might seem like it is too neat of an answer, but it is probably the best answer that is consistent with the Christian worldview.

The final subcategory of disorientation psalms are psalms that look at these situations from a different perspective: Yahweh’s. In these psalms Yahweh views disorientation as a trouble in the relationship brought on by disobedience or lack of trust. These psalms place the blame squarely on Israel. The example given is Psalm 50 which opens with a theophany of God coming in his majesty. God then testifies against Israel, emphasizing his own independence and separation from them. The psalm concludes with a harsh polemic against the wicked and a warning, and this is followed by an alternative in the last verse: follow Yahweh.

Psalms of Orientation

These psalms express a confident, serene settlement of faith issues. Life is settled and pleasant, and there is an overwhelming sense of security and freedom from anxiety. God is reliable and trustworthy. “They are statements that describe a happy, blessed state in which the speakers are grateful for and confident in the abiding, reliable gifts of life [.] Life…is not troubled or threatened, but is seen as the well-ordered world intended by God.” These Psalms are dominated by a notion of creation faith that views the world as God has made it and with a confidence that it will continue to be good. Brueggeman argues that these psalms serve two functions. Theologically, they serve to praise God and give him glory for the world he has made and the power he possesses. Socially, they serve to provide a “sacred canopy” by asserting righteousness to being alive for the sake of being Yahweh’s creation rather than viewing life simply as a task. Brueggemann asserts that these psalms were probably set down by the well-to do, the economically sound, and the politically significant. He also argues that they serve as a form of social control that indoctrinate the youth into a system of obedience and reward. These few fleeting paragraphs are the only place in the whole book that after reading one might feel motivated to pelt Brueggemann with tomatoes. It is apparently impossible for him to envision a poor person in ancient Israel penning a Psalm about how neat and ordered the world is because of the goodness of Yahweh. This is probably a result of Brueggemann’s obsession with social justice and finding ways he can insert it into the Old Testament. He is probably right many times when he does identify this thread, but it seems almost as if his identification with the downtrodden leads him to be suspicious of psalms with a positive message. He should be careful attributing motivations like social control to the text. One could just as easily paint the cross with that broad brush.
Under each of the main categories of psalms are a number of subcategories the first for Psalms of Orientation being Songs of Creation. The most common experience of orientation is the experience of life’s regularities which are good and are derived from God’s goodness. Since the world is a blessing bestowed onto us by God, then we should respond with gratitude. Brueggemann uses Psalm 33 as an example of a song of creation. This psalm is about the new world which Yahweh is presently creating, a world in which God’s justice is the point by which all things are fixed. It is a world of rightness. The first five verses announce the theme and provide a typical example of Israel’s hymnic expression which is followed by a reflection on first the power of the word of Yahweh and second on the character of Yahweh as the absolute power in the universe. The last verses restate the theme from the beginning. Brueggemann views these psalms as a summons to the upright and cautious because they are the ones who read songs of creation.
The second subcategory is called Songs of Torah. These flow out of songs of creation because creation emphasizes the goodness of life through the sovereign ordering of the world and Torah reflects the will/purpose of this sovereign God. According to Brueggemann, Torah songs acknowledge the role and value of Israel’s efforts in upholding their part of the covenant. This conclusion can be troubling if it becomes a challenge to the sovereignty of God, because it could make the certainty of an ordered creation dependent on the will of human beings. At that point, Torah does not flow from Creation but seems to contradict it. Nonetheless, it is certainly true that the Psalms are often exhortative in nature and to capture this was probably Brueggemann’s intention. He uses Psalm 1 as an example, and argues that its placement serves as a prologue for the entire hymnic collection. The primary agenda for worship life is obedience. This hymn creates a distinction between righteous and wicked, innocent and guilty. The action of living and the quality of that action determines where you fit into that spectrum of holy and profane. There is no neutral ground. Brueggemann considers this to also be a part of the social control aspect of these psalms.
Brueggeman also sets aside two subcategories that he does not elaborate on very much. Wisdom psalms reflect the well-ordered nature of the world and should probably not be their own category, but rather be lumped with creation psalms. Songs of Retribution speak of a world ruled by God in moral symmetry. Brueggemann acknowledges that they might best be placed with Torah psalms, but decides to separate them out anyway. There does not appear to be enough difference to warrant separating these out.
The last subcategory that will be discussed here are the Occasions of Well-Being Psalms. These reflect the reliability of God through everyday life experiences where God’s presence is implied more than stated. These are significant life events like birth, marriage, family, and death. In the interest of brevity we will skip examples for this category, but it is important to note that Brueggemann is probably right to separate out these psalms from the songs of creation. The themes are very similar, but God’s placement in them is different in a nuanced way.

Don’t watch it if you are overly sensitive about slightly risque humor.

Brueggemann seeks in this writing to use a post-critical approach to the Psalms that incorporates both the popular devotional use of the psalms and the intellectual critical understanding of the Psalms. He gives three reasons for this approach. 1. There is already a well established interpretation of the Psalms in service of the Gospel that focuses on the nice psalms and often looks at them through a romanticized tint. 2. The Psalms are taken as a resource of faith, especially during the Reformation. This tradition is continued in the present-day Protestant church. It is characterized by the notion that “The Psalms articulate the whole Gospel of God in a nutshell.” 3. We are also critical people. The scholarly emphasis cannot and should not be ignored. For example, Gunkel’s Form-Critical approach has led to a greater understanding of the limited recurring patterns of the psalms, and Westermann’s interesting conclusion that lament is the most basic form of the psalm from which all others derive. Using these ideas, Brueggemann constructs a structure of the psalms in three parts: Psalms of Orientation, Psalms of Disorientation, and Psalms of New Orientation. He argues that these categories correspond with both the critical understanding of the Psalms and the human experience of joy, suffering, and renewal. Brueggemann may claim that he is incorporating the devotional aspect with this method, but in truth he simply segregates all the devotionally used psalms to one category in a way that is slightly condescending to their popular usage. Nonetheless, he views the psalms as focusing on two kinds of movement from one state to the other. The first move is from orientation to disorientation. That is a move from security to harm, from safety to trouble. The second move is from disorientation to new orientation. That is from the place of despair to the new hope. The whole of the Psalms is in Brueggemann’s view a description of the points along these movements and the movement itself.

Obviously this is a much simplified rendering of the argument, but I think for the most part that Brueggemann is on to something good here with the idea of these movements. It is always difficult to construct a framework that can contain the Psalms, but I think that Brueggemann’s approach might actually come close. If this goes as planned, we’ll look at the three categories of psalms in part 2, 3, and 4, and then my final thoughts in part 5.

All in all pretty mediocre, but there are a few good images in there.

We dwelt in your mercy, Lord
We dwelt in ignorance of it
Our feet never trod shadows, Lord
And our stomachs were mute
The rain could not find us, Lord
And the wind blew in vain
Yet our praise was anemic, Lord
And we loved most to be happy

You taught us how blessed we were by removing your blessing.
You showed us our ignorance by hiding our happiness.
You taught us how to pray by ending our every boast.
You showed us your love by revealing our lack.

So we cried
Where is his love
So we cried
Where is his mercy
Is this the God the prophets spoke of?
Is this the God who saved Israel?
Why does he not answer the challenge to his name?
Why does he make us wait for his answer?

Then the Lord moved upon us
Sending us his Comforter
Then the Lord moved upon us
Sending us the memory

He has suffered
Praise be to the God who has suffered